Let's Talk About Rape — Empowering survivors, changing the narrative

I had dreams of changing the world. I thought one day I might become Prime Minister. I was a confident, slightly naive, and very determined 18-year old.

ellie

Date-rape and domestic abuse survivor from Scotland

When I headed off to the University of Glasgow to study politics in 2015, I had dreams of changing the world. I thought one day I might become Prime Minister. I was a confident, slightly naive, and very determined 18-year old. I settled in well in my first few years and began to excel in my studies, finding myself particularly passionate about foreign policy and security studies. I joined the university athletics club, training for the 100m, 200m, and 400m sprints, and travelled around the UK competing in varsity competitions. As I went into my third and penultimate year of university in 2017, life seemed to be going well… and then I met him.

Daniel was also an athlete, and a good one too. He had a quiet confidence about him. He seemed shy, he seemed kind. He was studying medicine and dreamt of being a trauma surgeon. We clicked instantly, and when my coach announced he wasn’t able to help with my training anymore, Daniel stepped in. He quickly became my best friend. We were inseparable, I depended on him, I couldn’t imagine life without him. Our relationship developed and I thought that one day I’d marry him. He promised me everything I’d ever dreamed of.

Let’s Talk About Rape® is a collaborative, therapeutic project empowering survivors to reclaim their narratives. Through self-portraiture using a shutter release cable, participants set their own agenda as a tool for healing.

Ellie, Glasgow, Scotland, 2024

Sexual violence, emotional abuse, and physical assault became common in our relationship. It happened so fast, and I felt powerless to stop it.

ellie

Fast forward to June 2020 and I’m sitting across from two police officers. Getting the words out is hard, excruciatingly so. I explained to them that Daniel had raped me. The man I once loved had raped me. It first happened in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2018. I’d had too much to drink and passed out. Instead of helping me, he took advantage of me. It happened again in February 2018. I wasn’t well and I told him no, I didn’t want to. Every time I said no, he just replied with ‘yes’. Sexual violence, emotional abuse, and physical assault became common in our relationship. It happened so fast, and I felt powerless to stop it.

I explained all of this to the detective and he told me ‘this is domestic abuse and it’s not right’. I’d known that Daniel had raped me, but I’d never quite connected the dots to realise that this was also considered domestic abuse. Just a week later, Daniel had been arrested and charged. Then came the excruciating wait for the trial.

In total, it took almost two years since reporting for my case to finally end up in court. In that time, with Daniel out on bail, I lived in terror. I saw his face on the faces of men in the street. I was too scared to answer my front door. I’d regularly cry in the bathroom at work. Life was miserable.

It was worse still when I found out he had started studying at a new university. He was now a student at the University of Edinburgh, just as I had started my first job in that same city. He was joining sports teams, going on nights out, and had effectively started a whole new life all while I was barely holding it together. I did of course get in contact with Edinburgh University to let them know he was awaiting trial for rape—they told me they already knew this, yet they’d offered him admission anyway. I was left in a state of disbelief, it was as if I was irrelevant, as if his crimes were irrelevant.

Ellie, Glasgow, Scotland, 2024

The same defence lawyer who’d cross-examined me was here for the hearing. I’d thought that now the trial was over, he wouldn’t say anything bad about me but unfortunately, I was wrong. He turned to look at me at several points while he proclaimed that Daniel had simply ‘fallen in love with the wrong person’, and that we were like ‘chalk and cheese’ in terms of morality. He said Daniel ‘didn’t belong’ in court and that it should never have gone this far. Finally, he said that it was an ‘injustice’ that I had graduated with a first-class degree and a masters with distinction while Daniel was likely headed to jail.

The sentence was then handed out—5 years. The sentence felt okay to me, until I then realised that 5 years doesn’t even mean 5 years, he could potentially be released after only serving half of that. I left court that day, after my huge battle for justice, feeling deflated. Sure, it was something that looked like justice, but it didn’t feel like it. I was traumatised and fell into a depression.

Somewhere amidst all of the sadness, I knew that my pain had to be worth something. I wanted and needed to make change. So, in July 2022, I waived my anonymity in the media. I spoke out about what happened to me and about the failures I’d experienced in the system. I didn’t stop speaking and I didn’t stop pushing for change. Somehow my story began to have an impact and I appeared on news outlets around the world. Women from countries as far apart as Australia and Canada, Iran and India, got in contact with me to tell me how hearing me speak out made them feel less alone.

My campaigning and demands for change also began to have an impact in politics too. I met the First Minister of Scotland and gave evidence in Parliament. I watched as policies I’d argued for came into effect. Perhaps the biggest victory was winning a compensation payment from Daniel’s lawyer who was found to have ‘abused his position’ for his aggressive questioning and inappropriate comments about me. This set a legal landmark on how victims are treated in court.

Throughout the process of reclaiming myself and advocating for change, I’ve had a quote that’s guided me: ‘pain can either be your prison or your platform’. And how true is that? As devastating as everything I’ve endured has been, it has been my biggest motivator in challenging the status quo.

ellie

Aside from activism, style also became an important part of my empowerment journey. While I was in an abusive relationship, I couldn’t wear what I wanted as my every action was policed. Then during the court case, I also knew that what I wore may influence whether the jury saw me as a believable victim. So once the trial was over, I began to explore who I wanted to be as a woman. I didn’t want to feel like a victim, I wanted to feel strong, I wanted to feel confident, and I wanted to feel sexy.

I gravitated towards structured power suits and sharp stilettos. I had this image in my head of a self-assured, glamorous woman who lived life on her own terms, and knew full well the power she wielded. When I got dressed every day, I really began to feel like her.

For this project, I wanted to have my photo taken outside Glasgow High Court which is where the initial trial took place. It was a place that used to terrify me, but today I feel I’ve conquered it. I’ve reclaimed me, and now I’m the one in charge.