Survivor speaks: ‘I felt really judged’
PhD candidate recalls gruelling reporting process to police after sexual assault
An Otago woman who is a survivor of “stealthing” says police wouldn’t take her case seriously — and two years on says she’s been failed by the justice system.
Katharine Cresswell Riol, who goes by Kitty, says she was sexually assaulted in 2019 when a man she was sleeping with removed a condom without her consent, known as stealthing.
Cresswell Riol is telling her story just days after a Wellington man was sentenced to nearly four years’ jail in what is believed to be the first conviction for rape after he stealthed someone during sex.
About two years ago the PhD candidate was out with her friends when she met a man in a Dunedin bar. The pair hit it off, and Cresswell Riol said she invited him to her house where they started having sex. During sex, she noticed the condom had been removed. Assuming it had fallen off, Cresswell Riol said she asked him to put one back on, to which she alleged he replied “but we were already having sex without one”.
This is when she said it dawned on her that the man had taken it off without her knowledge. She was angry, so they stopped having sex.
The next morning, Cresswell Riol started googling what happened and saw that a man had been charged with rape overseas after removing a condom without consent.
“I felt angry but I also felt very uncomfortable because this person was still in my flat, and part of me just wanted to get him out and forget about it and this other part was . . . I [wanted] some form of justice.”
Later that day she received a text from the man apologising for what happened the night before.
Shortly afterwards Cresswell Riol went to Rape Crisis, where she had pregnancy and STI tests, then she went to the police. Initially, she claimed, they were not interested in investigating. A few days after, however, she received a call from the detective who had said they were now willing to take the case. For more than a year, the researcher had to keep the text message on her phone for the police to use as evidence. The case was dragged out by the fact the man worked in a different part of the country.
Throughout this whole process, the woman said she felt like she was the one with the problem and that her case was trivial. “It was really upsetting because I felt really judged, it felt like he was insinuating that somehow I was at fault.”
Cresswell Riol made a formal complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority about her treatment, citing concerns about the detective’s attitude toward her and derogatory comments she said were made.
“In my first interview, victimblaming comments were made as to me being too trusting.”
Later in the document, she noted when she burst into tears at the start of the second interview, he commented he thought she was more “rational” than that. She finished the complaint by saying she felt there was a severe lack of awareness as to how traumatic sexual assault is.
In response to her complaint, the authority apologised for failing to properly update her during the investigation and acknowledged the officer could have spoken with more empathy. “Police have discussed your complaint with the officer involved to ensure he understands the concerns you raised,” a document seen by the Herald on Sunday reads.
Senior case resolution officer Tony Gayle said the authority would not take any further action.
Acting Southern District commander inspector Mike Bowman acknowledged they should have done better during her case.
Cresswell Riol’s story is just one of many survivors of sexual assault who have spoken to the Herald on Sunday about what they say has been a traumatic experience dealing with the reporting process.
A police spokesperson told the Herald they put victims at the centre of their approach, and endeavour to keep victims informed as inquiries progress.
Victoria University of Wellington’s Dr Samantha Keene said research from a Melbourne sexual health clinic indicates one in three women who present at the clinic reported they had experienced stealthing and around one in five men also had.
In Aotearoa sexual violence cases are notoriously difficult to secure convictions for and the threshold for pressing charges is high.
Keene said in cases like this it could be hard to get a charge as an alleged offender may say there wasn’t an explicit conversation about the need for one, or that it just “slipped off”. However, the recent rape conviction after stealthing could help influence this, and Keene said it might encourage more survivors to come forward.
Cresswell Riol still feels she has not had justice in this case.
“The whole system definitely failed me and so many other people.”
Despite what happened to her, she still urges other survivors to come forward and report it if they can.
The whole system definitely failed me.
Katharine Cresswell Riol