Why do we find it so hard to believe female victims of crime?

Why didn’t she escape? Because she was scared no one would believe her

What makes the perfect victim? It sounds like the tag-line for a new thrilling summer read (‘Girl on a Jet Ski?’) but it’s a serious question. If someone survives a horrifying attack, how do we expect them to behave?

Two news stories this week have prompted me to ask this. The first was the conviction of 17 men and one woman who were part of a Newcastle grooming ring. Their victims were vulnerable teenagers, many of whom were homeless or care home runaways, and who were for years ignored or denounced as liars. Their accusations were given so little credence that, in the end, the police resorted to paying a child-rapist £10,000 to infiltrate the gang and help secure a conviction.

The second story was that of Chloe Ayling, the 20 year-old model who says she was kidnapped by sextraffickers in Milan. Her captors allegedly drugged her, bundled her into a bag in the boot of a car and then tried to auction her on the dark web to the highest bidder. The case is now under investigation by the Italian authorities.

In the five days since Miss Ayling returned home, she has been greeted not with sympathy but with a barrage of suspicion. As the story unfolded, there were some who suggested that something about her account was “fishy” and didn’t quite add up.

Why, for instance, did she apparently go shoe-shopping with her abductor and share a bed with him if she genuinely feared for her life?

I won’t speculate, although for what it’s worth, I have interviewed a survivor of sex-trafficking and her story was very similar: her kidnapper approached her on holiday pretending to be interested in her romantically before inveigling his way into her life and subjecting her to a level of emotional oppression that meant she no longer knew how to survive without him. He also took that woman out shopping.

Why didn’t she escape? Because he had told her that she would be found and punished. Because she had no money and didn’t speak the language. Because she was scared that no one would believe her.

The question of credibility was notably raised back in 2012, when details of the Rochdale sex scandal started to emerge.

A culture of victim-blaming had flourished in Greater Manchester and teenagers who reported their grooming and abuse at the hands of older men were dismissed. Girl A was just 15 when she was repeatedly raped by up to five men a night. When she became pregnant, she went to the police. Despite DNA evidence and detailed testimony, the Crown Prosecution Service deemed her to be an “unreliable witness” and dropped the case. Simply, she didn’t fit the mould of a perfect victim.

This is why some of the media coverage surrounding Miss Ayling has troubled me. The tone has been snide, sceptical and sexist. When the model emerged to read a statement outside her home, she was condemned for “wearing just a tiny pair of hot pants and a cleavage-revealing vest top, while beaming at the cameras”.

I’ve watched the footage. She doesn’t beam: she smiles uneasily towards the end and yes, it looks a bit strange out of context. But maybe she was happy to be home; maybe the waiting photographers asked her to; or maybe she was nervous and her default is to smile when she doesn’t know what else to do. We all react differently to trauma.

Every detail about Miss Ayling has been pored over and scrutinised: the fact that she has a baby son who lives with his father and who she hasn’t seen since being back in the UK, as if this is a clear indicator of her lack of moral fibre. “Chloe’s always been looking for fame,” her former agent said, as if this were the real crime.

Can you imagine a nice, middleclass male kidnap victim being subjected to the same level of disapprobation if he had clearly defined pectorals and wore a vest when he gave his statement? Would we rush to judgment in the same way? I don’t think so.

Those of us with longer memories will remember the case of Joanne Lees, whose boyfriend Peter Falconio was murdered in the Australian outback in 2001. When Ms Lees appeared at a press conference wearing a T-shirt with “Cheeky Monkey” emblazoned across the front, she was roundly derided for her glazed expression and seeming lack of emotion. Later, it turned out she’d been given Valium to calm her nerves. For weeks, she was criticised for her “callous” demeanour and colourful personal life. There were accusations that she was hiding something and was in some way involved in her boyfriend’s killing. It was all false, of course. DNA evidence later led to the conviction of Bradley Murdoch, currently serving life imprisonment.

Chloe Ayling is the product of her time: a glamour model with more than 220,000 Instagram followers who probably wanted to be famous. But it is perfectly possible for a 20-year-old who aspires to celebrity to have been the victim of a crime. It does not mean she should be treated with less credence, any more than we should ignore the plight of vulnerable adolescent girls preyed on by older abusers who have been trying to tell us the truth for years.

Let’s set aside our prejudice and examine the facts. Otherwise, we run the risk of letting the real abusers get away with it.