The trial: Wrong time, wrong place [21]

It is still the first day of the trial and for the first time, Phil and I are hearing the details about what happened that dreadful night over seven months ago. The prosecution barrister reads the defendant's prepared statement which will haunt me for the rest of her life. It becomes more and more clear that the rape was entirely random, that Bea was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

Trigger warnings: this podcast deals with rape, sexual assault, anxiety, depression and eating disorders.
There are references to unwanted sexual contact and some strong language.
 
 Everyone is Talking About This is the true story of an ordinary family forced to face an extraordinary circumstance. I’ve tried to be honest and forthright about my desperate struggle to help my child get justice - and, on many occasions, to see the reason to go on living.

Please be aware that this podcast mentions sexual assault, rape, eating disorders and mental health issues. There is occasional strong language and some graphic detail. 

If you have been affected by any of the issues in this podcast, here are some organisations you can contact in the UK:
Rape Crisis
0808 500 2222 - calls are free.
Or you can visit their website - https://247sexualabusesupport.org.uk/

Beat, the UK's eating disorder charity
08088010677 - calls are free.
Or visit their website - https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/

You can also speak to your GP or, if you are still at school, someone from your safeguarding team. 


To my listeners - please do tell your friends about this audiobook podcast and encourage them to listen so that as many people as possible are aware of the reality victims of rape are up against on a daily basis here in the UK and across the world. 

Help me to spread the word!

And contact me on: everyoneistalkingaboutthis@gmail.com 
or via Twitter: @63136_survivors to tell me what you like about the podcast and what I could improve. 

Thank you! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Sarah, the prosecution barrister, is still giving her opening speech. The next bit of information leaves me open mouth with astonishment. She tells the jury that the very next day after the rape, Mr. Y went back to the location where it took place. This seems shockingly incriminating. Isn't it often the case that criminals revisit the scene of the crime to check out what's happening, to see what's going on, to suss out if anyone knows, to get information on whether they've been rumbled? When Mr. Y got there, the entire grassy area behind the nursery school was sectioned off with police tape and guarded by a policeman. Mr. Y asked this officer for directions to a tube station, not the nearest one, but one a little further away, and knowing where Mr. Y was living, it's impossible that he didn't already know how to get there, as it is only a few minutes' walk from the accommodation he was staying in. It's clearly a ploy to strike up conversation. But nobody tells the jury that Mr. Y has asked a question he must have known the answer to. I know there are some maps in the jury bundle. Is there a map that shows the hostel where Mr Y was living, the local tube station, and the location of the rape? So that jurors can see how close they all are. I have no idea. I reiterate that as the victim's family, we are not allowed to see any of the evidence, and we have no chance of examining the jury bundle. It's so unbelievably frustrating. Mr. Y gets told everything and has oodles of time and opportunity to digest it all and weave his version of events around it, but we get told nothing and have no opportunity to point out obvious issues or problems, discrepancies. Sara continues with another gobsmacking fact. When Mr. Y was subsequently arrested, the same officer who he'd spoken to at the location was involved. Apparently, Mr. Y said to him, Do you remember me from the other day when I asked for directions? As if the policeman had dropped round for a chat or a cup of tea. The incredulity I feel at this is too knocked right out of me by what Sarah does next. She tells the jury that she is going to read out the statement that Mr. Y gave to the police when he was arrested. To explain a point of law, a suspect does not have to speak to the police. The options are to do an interview without a solicitor, to do one with a solicitor, or to give a prepared statement. Apparently, most solicitors advise their clients to do the latter. This way, the suspect can find out what the police have on them before deciding what to say. Of course, that does leave them vulnerable to an adverse inference being drawn during the trial. It's what the caution refers to in the words, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. However, to find that even though there are multiple places where we feel an adverse inference should be drawn during Mr. Y's evidence, none is ever made, Mara reads out the prepared statement. Terrific. A 19-year-old boy's rape porn fantasy. It is the script of every disgusting video he's ever watched online, every revolting conversation he's ever had with other toxic males. He made my daughter part of his sick desires. At this moment I want to get up and smash my hand through the glass window of the dock, haul him out and wring his crawny neck. Utter, utter bastard. With rage and sickness in my heart, I remember D.C. Luke Gallagher at that dreadful meeting, telling us that B's medical records would be relevant if she'd ever confessed to her therapist that she had rape fantasies. I'd been appalled about this at the time, that a middle-aged man should think that a young girl with a serious eating disorder fantasised about being raped, that having a fantasy, which is not illegal, could be seen as incriminating and could be used to get someone off a charge of rape, which is illegal. Now it's clear that there's only one person fantasizing about rape and all this, and that's Mr. W. In his statement, this appalling apology for a human being claims that whilst B and Sophia were at the bus stop waiting for Sophia's dad, B was making eye contact with him and smiling, that when she walked off, she fell over and he went to help. Oh the good Samaritan, the tears. It breaks your heart, it really does. Not. Mr. Y claims he offered to call B a cab, and that B asked for his number and gave him hers. He said she held his hand, and when they got to the grassy area, she pulled out his penis, pushed down his trousers, and started to suck it, and that he, Mr. Y, was saying no, but she forced him, and she also forced him to have vaginal sex with her. According to him, she was saying as this went on, fuck me, baby, come inside me. It's so astonishingly, ridiculously implausible that it would be funny if it were not so horrendous. I cannot understand how the jury could not already have him marked down as guilty. But there's just so, so much to take in, and even for me, who has some familiarity with it all, I'm struggling to keep up with the pace of the revelations. Sarah presses on. In the days after the rape, Mr. White's phone shows multiple online searches for local news, something he had never done previously. There's some information about when the number ascribed to Baby appears in Bead's phone, but I can't hear what's being said. This is so frustrating, but I don't know if I'm allowed to say anything about it. We already mentioned the audio problems once. I wonder if the jury can hear. I hope so. It is not until the closing speeches that we will learn that Baby's number is entered into Bee's phone just 17 seconds after the time she and Mr. Y move out of the range of the CCTV cameras. This is far too soon for her to have had a conversation about exchanging phone numbers. It's quite clear to me what has happened. B is on her phone, so the phone is unlocked. She doesn't fall over, but she does drop her phone. Much later, we will hear that the version of events told by Mr. Y to Miss X does not include any mention of B falling over. So I am sure that this was always a lie. In any case, Mr. Y rushes over, grabs the phone, either from the ground or from B, and immediately enters his number. We also find out later that B's phone makes a call to Mr. Y's phone at this time. So clearly he calls himself from her phone. He then enters her number on his phone, also as Baby. So he may be an opportunist, but he's a quick thinker when it comes to the disgusting aim and objective he has in following B. He's seen something he wants and he thinks he can have it. So he takes it. Monster. Next thing is supposed to be the playing of B's BRI, the video recorded interview she did two days after the attack, the one where she had to go into a room in the police station with two men on her own, and we, her parents, were not even allowed to enter the building. We handed her over to David, the Stowat officer, in the street, like a lamp to the slaughter. I'm still angry about that. Is there anything about this whole case I'm not angry about? No, not really. The VRI starts, but there's a problem. Mr Y complains that he can't hear. He's not supposed to speak English, so I don't see why it matters, as long as his interpreter can hear. Anyway, he's seen and read it all before. I guess he's still gathering information to refine his story. The judge must be impatient to get home because she calls the court to an early close. As she does so, she mentions something that had completely slipped under my radar. There's a tube strike tomorrow, Tuesday, and again on Thursday. This means getting to the court and back is going to be very difficult for the rest of the week, because although each strike is for 24 hours, the effects last much longer as the trains are all in the wrong places when everything gets going again. I can't believe it. It took us over an hour to get to the court by tube. The bus will take up to two hours. We also have to somehow get B and Iris to school. They will have to get a bus too, which means being at the bus stop by 7 a.m. latest. Despite the strike, as I leave the court, I feel a glimmer of hope. Surely, surely no jury could hear what has been said today and think this man is innocent. Surely they couldn't. By the time we get home I'm so tired I can hardly speak. My sister has sent food from one of those companies that make homemade dishes and deliver them to your door. I could cry with gratitude. We eat and I go to bed. All I can think is, how on earth have we ended up here? Our daughter's future hanging in the balance, our lives on hold for the near future. What terrible thing has any of us done that bee deserved this? That she had the enormous bad fortune to be walking up that road on that day at that time. The sheer randomness of it brings tears to my eyes. It could have been any young girl. It was B, and she'll never, ever get over it.