This is a
horrifying article. It's a litany of failures to provide justice to rape victims.
The police accused Emily Hunt of pretending it was rape so that she wouldn't be accused of cheating by her boyfriend. (She was single at the time.)
The police wanted to take Hunt's phone the morning after the rape and ended up taking numbers to "check my story out", even though she wasn't ready to tell people what had happened.
The police wanted to take Hunt's clothes, in the middle of the night, without providing replacements. And when she refused labelled her as "difficult".
Days later the police informed Hunt that sex had taken place but when she asked about the risks to her health was told "Oh, you don’t need to worry, they found used condoms on the scene." and that "‘We didn’t have to tell you, it’s just a courtesy."
The toxicology report contained multiple mistakes and concluded that Hunt had not been drugged. Hunt's rapist, Killick, was revealed to have been sober at the time and carrying Viagra and a drug believed to be LSD.
Police arrested Killick but didn't charge him, citing a "lack of evidence" (despite there being CCTV footage of her stumbling and appearing intoxicated and him claiming he thought she "might be mentally ill or on drugs").
Over a year later Hunt was informed that Killick had filmed her, unconscious and naked. She was told there was nothing illegal about this. After much campaigning to get the law changed to make it illegal, she received a letter from the Ministry of Justice explaining actually it
was already illegal and eventually a case was brought and the rapist was sentenced, and placed on the sex offender list for 5 years.
In May, Killick stood as an independent candidate in the Hartlepool byelection, revealing that registered sex offenders can run for public office. There is now a
petition to change the law to prevent this.
Incredibly, there are some positive steps including one from my local police force (Avon & Somerset) which has a pilot project that is shifting the focus of credibility from the victim to the perpetrator. About bl..dy time, and I really hope it produces good results. As the piece points out, while most men are not rapists, rapists are usually multiple rapists. One study found "some suspects were linked to up to 19 sex crimes (and 60.5% were linked to other types of crime)" while a US study found that unprosecuted rapists committed an average of 5.8 rapes. So prosecuting and convicting these people not only provides justice for their victims but prevents there being new victims.