I suspect that as with many people reading Alexandra Heminsley’s article, my jaw dropped on reading the outcome of the trial for two reasons (Yes, bystanders can save women from sexual assault. But I know first-hand that’s not always enough, 17 August). First, that someone can be found not guilty because of the impact that a guilty verdict would have on their lives rather than whether they were guilty of the crime in the first place. Second, because of the way that the magistrate (who should be relieved of their post) framed his decision through such a patriarchal, Victorian view that women who are pregnant are more likely to be emotionally unstable.
This harks back to times when women were judged to be “hysterical” and therefore their views and accounts of events could not be relied on. How on earth does anyone holding those views have the privilege of dispensing justice today? These views are not only abhorrent but have no place in a functioning justice system. No wonder women continue to be failed by the system.
There should be a way for anyone, from magistrate to supreme court judge and every post in between, to be held to account for bringing personal beliefs into the courtroom. They have no place there, where justice should be delivered on the evidence and the probability of guilt rather than being dispensed through anachronistic, outdated beliefs. I hope Jess Phillips reads this, takes note and takes action. Two years on from Sarah Everard’s murder, nothing seems to have changed.
Alexandra Heminsley, I am so sorry you were failed so abjectly and stand with you in solidarity.
Shanti Inglebright
West Molesey, Surrey
• I was assaulted at the age of 14 by a 16-year-old boy who, egged on by his friends, picked up a weightlifting pole from our school gym and hit me in the coccyx, simulating the sex act that he loudly claimed to want to do to me. I was hospitalised with severe pain and numbness in my left leg.
In spite of giving a statement to the police, my friends coming forward as witnesses and his confession – both online and in person – the police did not move forward because of the “potential impact on his future”. To add insult to injury, the school “lost” the CCTV.
Women are taught early on that our trauma matters less than the men who traumatised us. I’m now 29 and I have been groped, harassed and followed by men, but I have never reported it. I know nothing will happen.
Name and address supplied
• Reading Alexandra Heminsley’s account of her sexual assault and her attacker’s acquittal, what struck me most is the double standard regarding the role of alcohol in sexual assault. If a woman is sexually assaulted and under the influence of alcohol, it is she who has to accept the consequences of that state, and she is to blame, whereas a man committing a sexual assault under the influence is somehow excused from the responsibility because he is drunk.
Why are woman held to higher standards than men? And, in this case, how dare the judge consider the impact of punishment on the perpetrator and not the impact of the attacker’s acquittal on the victim?
Angela Oviedo
Halstead, Essex
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