‘It’s completely wrong to say if someone doesn’t leave or fight back, it’s not rape’ says Meghan
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
As a teenager, Meghan became involved with a drug dealer, Lewis, who raped her then threatened her for several months.
She reported him to the police, but they said that because she didn’t resist the rape, Lewis had not committed a crime.
Meghan says she was brought up in a ‘pretty normal’ family. ‘Everything was ok until I was about 15, and started hanging out with older people’ she says.
She started a relationship with a man, Lewis, who was in his 20s. He was a drug dealer and Meghan knew he was having sex with several girls who were 15 or 16 years old.
One night, Lewis gave Meghan alcohol and drugs, and he raped her. Soon after, she went to the police to report him. She was not offered the opportunity to have an adult present to support her during the police interview.
She relates ‘They started the interview telling me how I could ruin his life, and how I could get into trouble if I was lying’.
Meghan told the police that she had said ‘no’ several times while Lewis was raping her. But they concluded that because Meghan and Lewis had been drinking and taking drugs together, and because she didn’t fight back or leave, that the rape was consensual sex and it was a ‘non-crime incident’.
For several months after this, Lewis continued to control Meghan, with a combination of threats and intimidating behaviour which he followed with apologies.
She tried blocking him from contacting her, but he would always find her number and message her from other numbers. This only stopped when Meghan left the area where she was living and broke off contact with everyone who knew Lewis.
Lewis was later charged with serious violent offences in relation to another victim.
During the time she was seeing Lewis, Meghan’s academic performance declined. She heard that a member of staff at school said he thought she was a prostitute. She thinks her mum just thought she was ‘being a teenager’.
She began having panic attacks and her weight was affected. She saw the school counsellor and told her about the rape and the threats, but Meghan felt the counsellor did not believe her and no action was taken.
Meghan moved on to further education, but she was suffering with depression and found it hard to concentrate on her work. For one piece of homework, she wrote an account of what had happened to her. Meghan was told that other teachers were aware of her writing, but no one asked her any questions about it.
She failed her course and dropped out of further education. She became involved in abusive relationships with men and carried on taking drugs. On one occasion, one of the men hit her so hard she was unconscious for several hours. However, Meghan didn’t think it was worth reporting him to the police.
Meghan says ‘It’s only recently I’ve realised a lot of my anger should be directed more to the people who didn’t help me’.
She feels particularly upset about the way the police responded to her report of the rape. ‘To say if someone doesn’t leave or fight back it’s not rape is completely wrong. I should not have been forced into an interview without an appropriate adult and they shouldn’t have started the interview telling me how I could ruin his life.’
She continues ‘They commented “You seem really grown up for your age” and despite Lewis’ threats they said there was no need for any protection because there were no children involved’.
Meghan has accessed the crime report, and it does record that she told the police that she had asked Lewis several times to stop, but he didn’t.
She made a formal complaint to the police, but they have said there is no action to be taken.
Meghan is now studying to be a counsellor and does voluntary work. She has a child and a home, and a good relationship with her family.
She says ‘I feel upset and angry and I don’t want to feel like this – I want to get on with my work … it's taken me this long to start rebuilding my life after everything … I don’t want to lose my life to it again’.