What happens in the aftermath of a sexual assault? Antonia Hart spoke to three victims …
Trigger warning: These are raw and honest accounts from victims and they may trigger anyone who is struggling. This is an important conversation and we thank these women for telling their stories. Find helpful resources available below.
The aftermath of sexual violence is different for everyone. Professor Maeve Eogan of the Rotunda Hospital, National Clinical Lead of the HSE-funded Sexual Assault Treatment Units (SATUs), describes it as an entirely unique, desperately traumatic, desperately intense experience. And it’s something that over half of Irish women have been through. A CSO survey from 2022 reveals the bleak reality that 52 per cent of women and 28 per cent of men have experienced sexual violence. Last year, the National Rape Crisis Helpline recorded over 18,600 contacts. That’s more than ever before in the organisation’s 45 years. Meanwhile, there were 1,062 attendees across the six SATUs around the country. The majority of attendees were women, with eight per cent being men, and one per cent identifying as another gender, or none. Work continues on prevention, but while our society looks like this, there is no room for doubt. Everybody needs to know what services are available, in case of their own need, or so that they can pass the information on to a family member, a friend, or a distressed stranger.
The first thing to do after an assault is, if at all possible, to get medical care. If you contact the Gardaí, they can help get you to the closest SATU. “Your healthcare is the priority,” Professor Eogan says, “so if you have injuries, any physical wounds, they need to be treated. We offer emergency contraception, and preventative treatment for infectious diseases, including hepatitis B. We invite people to come for a followup appointment a month later, and signpost the psychological support available from the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre (DRCC), whose team is amazing.” At the SATU you can have forensic evidence taken, even if you’ve not yet decided whether you want to report the incident: samples can be stored for up to a year. You can also attend a SATU if the assault on you occurred months or years ago.
The prioritisation of healthcare is not something that registers with everyone. In her book Ash & Salt, Sarah Grace, who was attacked in her own bed by an intruder, wrote about how a well-meaning garda advised her not to go to hospital, because of how invasive it might be. Fortunately her flatmates’ instinct was that she did need to go. “In hindsight, it is astounding that none of us had the faintest idea about what to do in such a critical situation …if I hadn’t got the medical examination that night, it would have tanked the trial.” Bláthnaid Raleigh, wounded and upset in the street, having just been raped at a house party, was steered to a garda station by concerned strangers who recognised that she needed help. She said if she hadn’t gone there, and from there to the nearest SATU, she’d have gone home, showered, and changed her clothes. Vital DNA evidence would have been lost, along with the chance to receive medical care when she most needed it. As it turned out, everything happened quickly, including getting in to see a counsellor the following week. “I was with the guards by 6am and in the SATU by 9am. Galway Rape Crisis Centre had someone there for me. But I was still in shock. Then afterwards, my mam, who’s a real fixer, rang Rape Crisis, and put an appointment in place, and the amazing thing was there was no waiting list.”
“We should not take for granted that survivors like these women who do speak out are just strong people. Strength takes effort, and effort has its cost.”
The physical environment of the SATU must by its nature be sterile, and comply with strict regulations around DNA transfer. There will be questions, because staff have to elicit certain information in order to direct their examination and treatment, but the overall approach is responsive and gentle, and in Sarah Grace’s words, “incredibly dignified and professional”. Staff are led by what the patient wants and understand that anyone attending will need to feel fully in control of any examination.
Professor Eogan reiterates that presentations differ and it is impossible to predict someone’s emotional and physical response. “A person can be with a team in SATU immediately afterwards, and can be very focused on what they have to have done: the forensic examination, taking the medicines. Four weeks later when we see them for the follow-up, they may have lost all focus, as they come to terms with what’s happened. It can be the opposite. Somebody can come in very decompensated, very blunted, very obviously distressed. Four weeks later they may be in a better place, perhaps because of support from friends or family, or from Rape Crisis or it’s just their own developing response. No two people are identical.”
In 2013, Karen Stanley was raped in a city centre hotel. “I came outside and I started having a panic attack, chest pains, I was getting sick over the railings of the hotel. I was very disorientated. I was on the ground then, it was winter, the ground was wet and cold, but there was a group of about nine people, and this guy, I can still see him today, said to one of the women, “She’s not okay”. And two of the girls came up either side of me, and I was just like, “No, no. I’m not okay.” They were so delicate. The way that man handled it was poetic. He stayed back and called emergency services, and the girls crouched around me.” It turned out to be two members of the fire brigade who attended. “I can still picture how they handled me. And after that night the next time I saw them was in court. There was this absolute gentleman in uniform on the stand, saying, ‘I remember this girl, I remember how she presented. I remember exactly how she was. I cared for her in that moment.’”
These are vivid moments that stand out for Stanley. She was taken to the nearest garda station. “This is where it gets a little difficult, because all six people did their job, but as phenomenal as they were within their job, they maybe lacked some sense of awareness of trauma. I was privileged, because the detective I dealt with was trauma-trained. But he said to me, ‘do yourself a favour and put this on the back burner. This is going to take years’. So I took that. Right? That’s what you do. Forget about it, go try and live your life. I was trying to manage with my toddler and I was getting my business going. And it was six years until the trial. Six years.”
The perpetrator was arrested very quickly, before Stanley had even left the garda station. But then a combination of COVID and legal postponements spun the timeline out, and on the day the trial was due to begin, she was told that it was being put back for a year. Bláthnaid Raleigh’s experience was very similar, with almost five years of waiting. A quick arrest was followed by an unbearable delay. “I was going to be there for the first day, but the detective had said save yourself coming up, it will only be jury selection. Then she rang and said there was no judge. The same the next day. And she rang on the Friday and said look, we’re not getting going. It’ll be next year.”
The holding pattern continued. “You’re stuck, waiting, worrying, just getting by every day. Something would come up for my family and they’d say, no, better not, we can’t commit in case of the trial. You can’t plan anything and you can’t think about anything else.”
The nature of such cases is that they are criminal prosecutions carried out by the State, and the women assaulted are witnesses for the State. Yet, as Raleigh puts it, “It’s you everyone is discussing, what happened to you, those details, what it has done to you. Th e defence said, ‘Look at the size of these injuries, they’re insignifi cant.’ I wanted to say, ‘You have no idea how they hurt to this day, physically and mentally.’” Stanley’s experience refl ects the same issue. “Th e hardest part was when the defence held my underwear up. My underwear, that had sat in a bag for six years. Th ere must have been 40 people in the court.” She does maintain respect for most of those involved in the trial, even though she found the whole thing horribly retraumatising. “My judge was excellent, very fair. At one point she stopped the defence, she sent the jury out, and told me to go and get a cup of tea. I had to hold the rail to get down this little ramp, it’s not a stretch, and I shook head to toe and I literally had to be helped out by the guards holding my elbows for support.” One of the things that felt most unfair to both women was how they had to give evidence and submit to the relentless process of cross-examination, while the accused, seated nearby, didn’t have to speak.
“There can be no doubt that any trial conducted under the current system is likely to be, at the very least, nervewracking and exhausting.”
Both of these trials were successful, in the sense that the men were convicted and sentenced, but the toll on the victim is weighty. “Everyone in my family was sick aft er the trial, we were all so physically and emotionally run down,” says Raleigh. “I had never let myself think about getting a guilty verdict. When it came, I thought, great. But it dawned on me almost immediately that it hadn’t taken away that dull, sad pain.” Th e strain on Stanley’s mental health was so great that she had to access psychiatric services, and ended up losing her business. Th ere can be no doubt that any trial conducted under the current system is likely to be, at the very least, nervewracking and exhausting. Court is an environment unfamiliar to most people, and any advance preparation can help: Sarah Grace applied for a protective screen between herself and the perpetrator, Raleigh’s volunteer accompanier from the Rape Crisis Centre showed her the court before the trial started. Yet Grace, a lawyer herself, describes the trial as “far, far worse than the assault”, and Stanley says the same. Raleigh’s attacker was only convicted recently, in July. She has, she says, only begun to process things in recent weeks. Despite everything, Grace writes that she would never seek to dissuade anyone from seeking justice. She just wants people to be aware of how rough the process can be.
It’s unfair how disproportionately the burden of explanation, signposting, and informing falls on those who have experienced sexual violence. To speak publicly about their experiences, to explain the system repeatedly, to be as frank as possible about the eff ects while still themselves being in the process of healing, all of these actions are incalculably valuable to us, but they take their toll every time. Th e more openly we talk about sexual violence, and the more we amplify survivors’ voices, the more we relieve a tiny part of that burden. It’s not a straightforward conversation to open, in any context, as you never know what someone’s own history contains. Professor Eogan says that fi gures like those from the CSO have made people working in maternity services pause and realise that 52 per cent of women coming in may have had these experiences, in some cases a long time ago. “We have no idea what the birth process or pregnancy is going to bring out for people. We do need to have a lens of sexual violence alertness across society, in sports clubs, schools, workplaces, everywhere.”
DRCC has a new forum, WeSpeak, which allows people to share their stories online, and this may help to lessen the loneliness and isolation. People need practical advice too, and we have to keep sharing the toolkit of available services, from the gardaí and SATU for medical care both at the time and at a follow-up appointment, to the Rape Crisis Centre. Th ey can off er support at every touchpoint, from having someone accompany you at the SATU, to providing counselling services, to arranging a volunteer accompanier at court, should you choose that route.
As everyone’s experience is diff erent, everyone’s recovery is too. Trauma doesn’t just vanish. Survivors may continue with counselling for years aft er the violent episode, and healing is unlikely to be linear. Horses have been a steadying presence in Raleigh’s life, and their daily needs propelled her through the worst times. “I learned that if I spent less time trying to get rid of a feeling, and instead just let myself be in it for a few days, that wave of emotion would pass.” Stanley focuses on her work and her children. “My goal at the end of every day is that the decisions I make throughout the day will help me sleep at night. I tell the truth. I do what I believe to be right, and sometimes I get it wrong, and that’s fi ne as well.” One of the things she believes it is right to do is to speak out to help others in similar situations. We should not take it for granted that survivors like these women who do speak out are just strong people. Strength takes eff ort, and eff ort has its cost. Sometimes you can pay that cost, sometimes it’s just too much. Few people will feel anything like strong just aft er a sexual assault, but we will be stronger together.
RESOURCES AVAILABLE
Emergency services phone numbers: 112; 999.
Sexual Assault Treatment Units (SATU) phone number: 087 068 1964; Dublin (Rotunda), Cork, Galway, Donegal, Waterford, Mullingar.
Rape Crisis National 24-hour helpline: 1800 778 888. Webchat support service available Mon-Fri, 10am- 5pm; www.drcc.ie.
WeSpeak: Every story matters (a Dublin Rape Crisis Centre project); www.wespeak.ie.
Women’s Aid 24-hour National Freephone helpline: 1800 341 900; www.womensaid.ie.
National Male Advice Line: 1800 816 588; www.mensnetwork.ie/mal.
Finding Your Way After Sexual Violence guide available online; www.drcc.ie/fyw.
Ash & Salt: From Survival to Empowerment After Sexual Assault by Sarah Grace, (O’Brien Press, €16.99). At the end of each chapter is a checklist of what to be aware of at every stage of the process, from the assault itself, through aftercare, reporting, investigation, evidence gathering, the trial, and ongoing healing, making it almost a handbook to dealing with sexual assault. The book is clearly written, to the point, and even manages some lighthearted moments. Well worth getting.