Rape survivor joins police campaign to boost convictions: It’s never a waste of time reporting it

Ellie Clarkson was raped after a night out with friends in 2015

(handout)

A woman raped as a teenager today waived her anonymity to support others forced to wait years for justice.

Ellie Clarkson, 22, has joined a police campaign aimed at helping the quarter of victims who report rape but later withdraw allegations — a staggering 145 on average each week in London.

Scotland Yard is now embedding specialist police in two of the capital’s three Haven sexual assault centres so complainants are not put off by repeating their initial account to multiple officers.

Ms Clarkson, who faced a two-year ordeal before her rapist was jailed in 2017, told the Standard: “It’s never a waste of time reporting rape. I couldn’t process the rape until the court case.”

Ms Clarkson was 17 when she was invited to a house party after a night in a pub. She later felt unwell and slept in a spare room. But the rapist entered and barricaded the door with an armchair.

Ms Clarkson recalled: “As he raped me, I could hear the party going on in the other room. I’d only drunk one cider but how I was feeling in my head wasn’t proportionate.”

Officers arrested a married man. But it took until October 2016 for the suspect to be charged with rape.

During his trial, Ms Clarkson said her attacker’s barrister suggested she had made the whole thing up.

She said: “I stood in the witness box and thought, ‘He’s not an arsehole, he’s just doing his job’. But as he went on, he started telling me what happened even though he wasn’t there. He challenged my statement and tried to trip me up.”

Her attacker was sentenced to 12 years in July 2017, reduced to 10 on appeal.

Ms Clarkson said: “When I heard he’d been convicted, I started crying. I was vindicated for telling the truth.”

She backed the Met’s plan for officers based within the Havens, which were recommended in Dame Elish Angiolini’s 2015 review of rape investigations in London.

Often it takes specialist officers up to six hours to attend one of the centres. Now a victim can report offences immediately, have forensic examinations to collect evidence and receive pregnancy testing and sexually transmitted infection screening.

Police hope this move will reduce the number of times victims have to relive what happened and attrition rates.

In the last year, around 7,529 rape complainants - 28.3 per cent – felt unable to support a prosecution.

Although this equates to 20 victims a day, it is a reduction from 37.4 per cent in the same period last year, partly due to closer working between the Met and Crown Prosecution Service.

She added: “I remember having to come back to give my statement to police and reliving it all again. You don’t want those horrible words to come out of your mouth a second time. Today, you can tell one person. I try to look at what happened to me as a positive thing — I can do anything I want now and help other women going through rape.”

Samantha Wickenden, the officer in Ms Clarkson’s case, said: “From the start, Ellie was capable and willing but up against it as witness.

“I knew we had to help her through the long process. There was a lot of pieces of that night to put together and the case had to be water-tight.

“He didn’t plead guilty so she had to give evidence. I have no idea why you would put another person through that.”

Detective Chief Superintendent Helen Lyons, the Met's lead on rape investigations, said there had been a backlog of rape case before Covid but it was now more acute.

She said: “For me, justice delayed is justice denied.

“Victim-survivors do not report allegations of rape because they fear not being believe. They then withdraw support thinking they will be judged.

“I understand the stress defendants, victim-survivors and witnesses are under.

“We are completely working with the CPS to understand the huge backlog and prioritise cases.

“Although there was a backlog before Covid, it has definitely increased.

“I think we have to look at the whole system in order to increase public confidence. Despite numerous recommendations, things are not changing enough.”

Read More

Rapists ‘being left free to strike again amid prosecutions crisis’

Teens accused of attempted murder locked up for months without lawyers