Martyna Ogonowska was just 18 when she was convicted of the murder of Filip Jaskiewicz in 2019. She stabbed him once in the chest as he was sexually assaulting her. Her case raises serious questions about whether prosecutors are following their own guidance on rape myths when an alleged victim becomes a defendant, and this week, Martyna will ask the court of appeal to grant her permission to appeal against her conviction.
At her trial for murder, Martyna’s defence team relied on her allegation that she had been a victim of rape by an older man when she was aged just 14. They argued that this incident had caused her significant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which made her hypervigilant in response to triggers, such as the sexual assault by Jaskiewicz. Martyna had reported the incident to the police, but no one was charged.
At the murder trial four years later, the prosecutor relied on evidence from the earlier rape investigation – including Facebook messages between Martyna and her alleged attacker - to imply that Martyna had fabricated the earlier allegation. They also cited a psychiatrist who argued she was suffering from mild, rather than severe, PTSD. Thus they sought to undermine the credibility of her account.
It is widely known that rape is a particularly difficult crime to prosecute because of commonly held myths and stereotypes about the way a victim ought to behave. Over the past few decades a range of measures have been introduced to improve the criminal justice system’s response to allegations of rape, from granting anonymity for rape victims to limiting cross examination about previous sexual history and providing guidance to jurors to challenge any presumptions based on myths and stereotypes. While this has led to increased reporting and more prosecutions of rape and sexual assault, less than 3% of reported allegations of rape are charged.
The Crown Prosecution Service has repeatedly stated its commitment to improving the situation, and recently updated its comprehensive guidance on tackling rape myths and stereotypes. The guidance published on its website makes clear that “there is no typical response to rape – the traumatic nature of the offence means that the victim can behave in a huge range of ways, some of which might seem counter-intuitive” and includes warnings such as “consent cannot be implied from what might be interpreted as flirtatious behaviour or from the way a person is dressed”. Yet at Martyna’s murder trial, no such caution was observed in respect of her allegations.
Martyna’s story is an object lesson in the state’s failure towards vulnerable women. She arrived in the UK from Poland at the age of 12, with her mother and brother. She spoke little English and was bullied at school, and her grades suffered. At 14, she arranged to meet up with a 20-year-old Polish man whom she had met through a friend from school – a man who she alleges gave her alcohol, which left her feeling unwell, and raped her. She felt confused by the encounter but initially communicated in a friendly way with him. When she later disclosed what had happened to a friend, they called the police. On being arrested, the suspect initially denied any sexual intercourse, but later changed his account to say Martyna had consented, and he had not known at the time she was underage. The police took no further action, placing emphasis on Martyna’s inconsistent behaviour before and after the alleged rape.
Following the investigation and the decision not to prosecute, Martyna became depressed and more or less dropped out of school. She self-harmed and would sometimes go missing from home. She came on the radar of Operation Makesafe as a potential target of child sexual exploitation. She later met another man, became pregnant at age 16 and gave birth to her child. The father was not involved in the child’s life. A year or so later she met Filip Jaskiewicz. She had known him for only a few days when on a night out with friends, he offered her and two others a lift home, but instead drove intoxicated in another direction. He stopped the car and started sexually assaulting her. She stabbed him with a small kitchen knife she had for self-protection. She subsequently handed herself in to the police.
There is a crisis in the investigation and prosecution of allegations of rape and child sexual abuse and exploitation. Women and girls who do report feel that they are the ones under investigation, required to disclose all their intimate personal data to assist with the investigation. As a result of the recent outcry about the near decriminalisation of rape, which led to the government’s end-to-end rape review, both the police and the Crown Prosecution Service have announced initiatives to improve the response.
The police initiative, Operation Soteria, aims to introduce more suspect-led investigations. I was invited to review the police investigation into Martyna’s allegation of rape and I believe it would have benefited greatly from more focus on the suspect’s behaviour rather than on the vulnerable victim. The CPS recently updated its legal guidance on rape and sexual offences, which comprehensive guidance on rape myths and stereotypes. The impact of these changes is yet to be reflected in outcome statistics.
What is clear to me is that it is far easier to investigate, prosecute and convict a vulnerable teenage girl who has been subject to repeated victimisation than to prosecute and convict men who target young women.
In my view, the way in which the CPS used evidence from Martyna’s previous allegations to undermine her defence and thus secure her conviction for murder contravened its own guidance on rape myths and stereotypes. This double whammy of misogyny shows us how far the criminal justice system has to go before there is anything approaching justice for women.
• This article was amended on 8 November 2022 to correct a misspelling of Martyna Ogonowska’s surname in the headline.
Harriet Wistrich is a solicitor and the director of the Centre for Women’s Justice
