A BRAVE woman has waived her legal right to anonymity to speak candidly about her traumatic experience – and how a stranger’s shocking message changed everything.
Jessie, 26, from Kent, had been in a year-long relationship with an older man when she was a teenager, during which she says he repeatedly sexually assaulted her in her sleep.
She tried to bury the truth inside for years after their break up – until one day she received a chilling Facebook message, which forced her to face her trauma head on, the Mail Online reports.
Jessie appeared in Stacey Dooley‘s harrowing two-part documentary, Rape on Trial, which follows Jessie, then 23, and two other victims of rape, shedding light on what happens once a woman reports her rape to the police.
When Jessie first met her boyfriend, he had charmed her easily, quickly fitting in with her welcoming family.
“What I saw as charming I now see as manipulative, but I thought I was in love – now I look back and think I had no idea,” she explained.
As the relationship progressed, her boyfriend’s manipulative behaviour developed into fully fledged sexual abuse.
Jessie would wake up in the morning, and find her partner “inside her,” without her consent.
Her pleas for him to stop fell on deaf ears, and he continued to abuse her – pinning her down with his hands between her shoulder blades using so much strength she couldn’t move.
A year later, Jessie and her partner split – the decision was mutual, as she headed off to university and neither of them wanted to continue the relationship long-distance.
Confused and dealing with an “innate feeling of not being safe” Jessie kept her trauma to herself, trying not to think of the awful crimes her ex-partner had committed against her.
But everything changed one morning in April, 2021, as Jessie was getting ready for work.
She received a message from a girl named Lauren, who she knew had also dated her ex-boyfriend, but she had never met before.
Lauren’s earth-shattering message sent a chill down Jessie’s spine.
She wrote: “It’s taken me a lot of time to send you this message, I am his ex-girlfriend. Me and him were together for a year and a half, and in that time he raped me twice. It took me a very long time to accept what happened to me.
“I don’t know anything about your relationship with him, and I really hope that he was not inappropriate to you in any way.”
Jessie met with Lauren that same day, and the shocking revelation pushed Jessie to admit she’d been in denial about her past.
It was really overwhelming, I was having to confront something I’d kept down for so long.
Jessie
Lauren, who also appears in the BBC documentary, told Jessie she had gone travelling with the man, who had raped her twice while in Australia.
Her attack had also taken place in the morning, in a shared hostel room, where he had “pulled her knickers down” and “carried on until he finished,” despite her begging him to stop.
How to report a sexual assault
- Contact a doctor or practice nurse at your GP surgery.
- Contact a voluntary organisation, such as Rape Crisis, Women’s Aid, Victim Support, The Survivors Trust or Male Survivors Partnership.
- Call the 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247.
- Speak to the rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales – you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year).
Lauren had reported the crime to police in Australia, but her case was dropped due to lack of evidence.
While her case could not be prosecuted in the UK, it meant she could be called as a witness if Jessie went to the police.
It wasn’t just about me anymore, I knew I had to do something for the sake of the women before and the women after. It was bigger than just being about me.
Jessie
Jessie bravely headed to the police, and was questioned by a female officer who treated her with respect.
After this, her ex was arrested and charged with three counts of rape – two in relation to Jessie and one in relation to an anonymous woman.
But Jessie’s ordeal was far from over – her judicial process lasted nearly four years and her ex was eventually found not guilty by a jury in January this year.
Lengthy waiting times that prolong the trauma of victims are sadly all too common in the UK – with some victims, like Jessie, waiting up to five years before their cases come to trial.
Despite feeling wronged by the system, Jessie insists she is glad to have spoken out – saying she feels empowered by telling her story.
“I had to do it, not just for me, but for other women like me, I don’t know the answers to getting better conviction rates, but I know we have to try to do better.”
