In July 2024, I boarded a London-bound plane from the other side of the world to take the stand.

It was the longest, hardest flight I have ever been on – knowing that, for the first time in a very long time, I would have to see the person – once a friend – who assaulted me.

‘They wouldn’t have pressed charges if they didn’t think they would get a conviction, right?,’ I told myself.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

In 2010, this friend asked if he could stay at mine after a night out. I said he could sleep on the sofa; he suggested he could sleep in my bed.

‘Sure, whatever, just don’t snore,’ I replied. It didn’t feel like a big deal – he was my friend, I trusted him.

But then I fell asleep – and woke up to find my pyjama bottoms around my ankles. He had his fingers inside me, and a smile on his face.

‘What are you doing?!’, I said – and he stopped.

I don’t really remember what happened next. But I saw him at work on Monday – and I made a choice, in that moment, that I wouldn’t tell anyone. I went back to being friends with him, making sure I was never left alone with him.

I pushed down my shame. I refused to let myself think about what had happened, and I became numb to life. I’d hear myself laughing when I was with friends, but it didn’t feel like me. 

In 2016, I moved from the UK to New Zealand, away from my past. My new job kept me busy. I never let myself feel anything – I was just constantly working.

Then Covid hit and suddenly, I couldn’t keep my mind occupied. I started having nightmares about the assault; everything I hadn’t let myself feel started coming up. I had therapy and, after about five months, I could finally admit to what had happened – and its impact on me.

I opened up to my family and friends by writing a blog about it.

I wasn’t expecting to press charges, but I found out he’d actually admitted it to a mutual friend of ours. Apparently they’d asked him if it was really true, and he’d said ‘Yeah, but I apologised the next day’.

For the first time, I was livid.

Then, a friend said: ‘What if he does it to someone else?’.

I made an online report to the Met Police in London while I was still in New Zealand – and then it was three and a half years of waiting. It took 18 months alone for the CPS to say if they were going to press charges.

I never thought my case would make it to court. It had happened a decade previously, there was very little evidence, and everyone – from friends to the police – told me: ‘It is rare for historical cases to go to court.’ So, for 18 months, I didn’t get my hopes up. I prepared myself for the day I would hear the words: ‘There is not enough evidence to proceed.’

That day never came. Instead, I was given hope. I was told that they would charge him with assault by penetration.

Even then, it was another 12 months before I took the stand, and I was in this weird limbo that whole time.

Eventually, in July 2024, I flew to London.

The day before the trial began, I met with the prosecutor for about half an hour. ‘Don’t give the defence more than they ask for,’ they told me again and again. ‘Keep your answers short.’

Before the trial started, I’d been informed that the judge had explained to the jury all about rape myths. I appreciated there being some acknowledgement of what victims of sexual assault have to face if they dare speak up – but then rape myths were used in my assailant’s defence.

For hours, every choice I’d made before, during, and after that night was on trial as the defence cross-examined me. His defence hinged on my decision to resume a friendship, photos of us together, and the lie that it had been consensual.

It was constant. ‘Look at those photos,’ the defence insisted. ‘You went back to being friends; there are pictures of you being friendly together.’

It was assertion after assertion, including mention of the fact that we’d kissed months before the assault (after which we’d decided to just be friends).

The prosecutor, meanwhile, barely asked me anything. They played a video of me being questioned by the police in New Zealand, then asked me a few questions for maybe 10 or 15 minutes. That was it.

They never gave me the opportunity to counter any of those rape myths. Never gave me the chance to say, ‘You tell me, in your words, why you went back to being friends with him. You tell me how it felt for you.’

The water glass shook so violently in my hands I didn’t dare drink it.

Then came the worst part: I was informed I had to return the next day because they’d run out of time.

As the jury left, my legs gave out, and I fell into my chair. The tears I had stopped during my testimony flowed unchecked. I left the court in a daze. I don’t know how long it was until I could speak; I don’t remember leaving the courthouse. I’m lucky I wasn’t alone, I had two university friends with me.

The next morning, I repeated the long walk to the stand. I was only there 20 minutes, but they nearly broke me in that short time. And the final words of the defence knocked the wind out of me with as much force as a baseball bat, ‘I put it to you that you’re lying.’

All I could say was, ‘You’re wrong.’

I wanted to say more. I wanted to scream, ‘ the liar! He’s already admitted it to his friends!’ – but that hadn’t been brought up in court at all, and I had been advised to say no more than was asked of me.

Just before the trial concluded, the judge said: ‘So tell us, why  you go back to being friends with him?’.

By then, I knew it was over and that they’d won.

‘It was easier for me to be friends with him,’ I whispered.

Taking the stand had created a whole new level of trauma. It was a prolonged attack on my actions, my choices and on me. I have never felt so alone and judged as I did in that courtroom.

Once I got back to New Zealand, I got a text from the Police Sexual Assault Liaison: ‘The jury’s come back: They found him not guilty.’

I wasn’t surprised. I tried to tell myself I was grateful that I’d managed to speak up, but that was a lie.

By August 2024, I started therapy again. 

For a very long time, the story I told myself was that things like this don’t happen to people who are worthy of being loved. But I have come to realise that, while the verdict, my mistreatment on the stand and the broken legal system are a part of my story, they do not get to decide who I am and what I’m worthy of.

I am still angry with the system that chose to protect him; a system that tells victims not to be ‘too much’ and then shuns us when the verdict is not guilty. There is no aftercare; we are not allowed to use our names, hence why this piece is anonymous. They break us on the stand and then want us to disappear. I very nearly did. No verdict is ever going to take away the truth and make me feel less than.  

Looking back, I would take the stand again; but I’d do it differently. I’d ignore the prosecution’s advice.

Because my only regret is not saying everything I wanted to say.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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