Given the choice again, I don’t think I’d report being raped.

I think I actually regret going to the police.

I was raped in March 2021.

At the time I was adamant I wouldn’t go to the police. There was no point, and I’m not one for wanting revenge. I wanted to just move on and forget about it.

So many people quietly (or not so quietly) disagreed with me. They felt I had a “duty” to other women to report this.

I realised much later that what these women meant was: I didn’t go to the police when I was raped/assaulted so I need you to do this for me.

What made me go to the police in the end was the realisation that this man had done this so easily, brushed it off and moved on so swiftly, it was likely I hadn’t been the first – or even perhaps the last.

I felt it might be helpful if someone other than me – someone in a uniform – told him that what he’d done was against the law, and very serious.

So in early 2022, I went to the police.

That first meeting was a short interview with two detectives. It was validating and reassuring to tell them exactly what had happened and have both of them tell me, Yes, that was rape. Yes, we will take this seriously and investigate it. One of them showed me that meme thing with the person being offered a cup of tea.

I do believe the police took me seriously; I do believe they investigated. I also believe they failed me. And damaged me in the process.

First, there’s the video evidence. They like to get you in as soon as possible. I was taken to a weird house that’s used by the police for interviews like this. Each room is set up like a living room, with sofas facing each other and a coffee table in the middle. There are cameras on the ceiling, and microphones on the table. Oh, and another officer in a small room next door, operating the recording equipment and checking the sound is being picked up.

I went through what had happened in excruciating detail. And I mean excruciating.

When the detective had finished, she popped nextdoor to check with her colleague that everything had been recorded properly, and to see if he could think of any questions she’d missed.

When I went to the toilet before I left, I walked through a room filled with children’s toys. And cameras and microphones. My stomach turned at the words that must have been said in that room.

Because I had gone to the police and it was being investigated, I couldn’t talk to anyone about what had happened. Not even the counsellor I was seeing, or my ISVA. I’ll do another post about the ISVA and everything that happened with that service… it was a disappointing experience.

The Messages

Because I had WhatsApped the rapist to tell him he’d raped me, and he had responded with an apology, the police wanted to access my WhatsApp messages.

The problem was, I didn’t have access to them. Because I’d changed my phone number to prevent him contacting me, I couldn’t access my old backups of messages. When you try to download WhatsApp messages, they send a SMS message to the number they’re associated with, for security.

I had changed my number; I didn’t have access to the old number to get past security.

I explained this to the police a few times; they asked me to come into the station with my laptop and phone.

So I sat at a table in the foyer of the police station (the building also houses the local council, so there were lots of random people coming in and out) with the detective and a man from a different station who was apparently an expert.

It took them ages to get their heads around what I was saying. They kept trying different ways to access the backup file, but of course they couldn’t – because they didn’t have access to that phone number.

In the end the expert’s verdict was that they would need a warrant for the phone company, to allow them access to that phone number. They would need to use anti-terrorism legislation to allow interception of communications – to allow them to open the text and get through security. I don’t think they ever did that.

The police investigation rolled on for months.

Three times, I had a call from my ISVA to say they were going out to arrest the rapist – but twice, it didn’t happen for whatever reason.

The third time, when they finally did arrest him, it was 6 months after I’d first walked into that police station.

A few months after this, he was formally charged.

One Saturday afternoon while I was out with S, I had a call from the police. They were supposed to go via my ISVA, but they couldn’t get hold of me. They wanted me to come in and do another interview, on the Monday morning. Suddenly it was urgent. I’ve never found out why, when things moved so slowly both before and after this.

Then the CPS had some questions for me – the idea was that if I did another video interview and answered their questions in that, his defence couldn’t ask me those questions on the stand. It would make things easier for me.

So I went back to that room, and sat through another interview – mainly about the blog post I had published – why did I publish it, how many people saw it, etc. They asked me why I’d waited a year to report the rape. I cried through most of that interview.

The questions I was asked in the second interview were also shot at me in court by the defence barrister, so that interview seems to have been a waste of time and a needless upset.

Then there was a call to say the rapist was going to court to enter his plea.

Except at the time I thought he was due in court, I got a call from Witness Support at the police, saying that actually this wasn’t him going to give a plea – the case had gone before the magistraite to be handed off to crown court. A formality.

They said they were sending me a form to fill in where I could list any days I was not available to attend court.

The man who raped me has a very distinctive name. I have never met another person with the same first or last name. Very early on, I asked the police not to use that name in their communications, and they said yes of course, they would refer to him as the defendant from now on.

Except when that form arrived with the court information… it had his name all over it. The letter arrived on a Saturday morning; S handed it to me, and I had to pretend not to be absolutely knocked sideways when I opened it in front of them.

In the end, I stuck Post-its over every mention of his name and sat in a cafe to fill it in. When I posted it back, I included a note reminding them I had asked for his name not to be used, and that considering they investigate these sorts of cases all the time perhaps they could be more considerate of these things. The woman who had sent the form called me to apologise, and actually said I’m sorry but nobody told me.

That’s not an apology, love. And it didn’t make it better.

When the rapist did go to court to enter his plea, that was another series of phone calls. Each one a punch in the face, a reminder of all of it. And of course he pleaded not guilty because who wants to own up to raping someone? Still, it absolutely knocked me for six. It seems there had been a tiny sliver of hope that he might just hold his hands up and admit what he’d done.

Next there was a call to confirm the court date – which would be 18 months from the first time I had reported the rape to the police. Apparently these types of cases are “fast tracked” to get them through the court system more quickly and avoid undue trauma for victims. So only 18 months of torture then.

Eighteen months of trying to live a normal life, being blindsided by phone calls with questions and requests. But the entire rest of that time, I was not supposed to be thinking or talking about it.

They don’t like you to think or talk about it because each time you do that, you’re not actually remembering the thing that happened – you’re remembering the last time you remembered it. So if you’re talking about it all the time, over time the story changes.

You’re not allowed to talk to a counsellor about it, because if you do that, the defence can examine any notes the counsellor has made, and use those to look for inconsistencies and pick holes in your story.

A few days before the court case began, I had to go into the police station and sit in a tiny room, watching my video evidence on a laptop.

They make you do this so that the evidence is fresh in your mind when you go to court.

At that point, I’d spend two and a half years trying to forget about it, put it to the back of my mind and move on – and now I had to sit and watch a video of myself recounting every move… and then go home and pretend everything was fine over the weekend before going to court on the Monday.