'Nowhere for them to hide' Ex-assistant to Weinstein on her battle against NDAs

Zelda Perkins was 24 when exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers she finally agreed to sign the nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein's sexually predatory and abusive behaviour.

- Alexandra Topping

Zelda Perkins was 24 when exhausted, broken and surrounded by lawyers she finally agreed to sign the nondisclosure agreement (NDA) that would legally gag her from talking about Harvey Weinstein's sexually predatory and abusive behaviour. The suffocating power of that document haunted her for decades, casting a shadow over her life and making her ill. "I did not ever, ever imagine that it would ever be possible to reach any form of justice," she says.

Now, eight years since she broke her NDA and inadvertently became the world's leading campaigner against them, Perkins feels like justice may finally be within her grasp. On Monday, in a move that surprised even the most committed campaigners, the UK government announced sweeping measures that will prohibit bosses from using non-disclosure agreements to silence abused employees.

Perkins is still digesting the news, but her delight is palpable. "This is huge. It's the beginning of abusers having to change their behaviour. There's nowhere for them to hide any more."

The government's stance has, she happily admits, gone beyond her expectations. New measures will, if unchanged, protect gig-economy workers as well as staff, requests for NDAs will be able to come only from complainants, not employers, and workers will be given access to legal advice. Crucially, "non-disparagement clauses" (widely used since non-disclosure became a "dirty word", says Perkins) will also be off the table in cases of abuse.