‘Don’t ask rape victims like me to hand over our phones’
Last week, news broke that police were telling rape complainants that if they didn’t provide access to their personal phone data, there was a risk of their cases collapsing. When Annie*, 30, refused, her case was dropped. Now she’s preparing a legal challenge to fight the decision to give victims what’s been described as a ‘digital strip search’.
YOU NEVER THINK it will be the services you turn to for help after a crisis that will make you feel even worse. But that’s what happened to me when I reported my rape to the police in January this year.
Distraught, I sat in front of an officer and was shocked by what I was hearing. I was told that if I took the matter to trial, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would rip my life apart; that the defence would do all they could to make me look like a bad person; that other women who have come forward have said the investigation has been more traumatic than the rape.
After I gave my statement, the invasive requests began. I was asked to consent to them accessing my medical, local council and counselling records and a full data download of my phone. They would be able to trawl through the complete history of any app I had ever used to contact another person, in my case that’s seven years of data.
When I refused, my case was dropped. What’s worse, police are rolling out this practice in England and Wales via a digital disclosure form – officially announced last week – that asks complainants to consent to full access of their phones.
I was happy to give access to information from the relevant period. But I was faced with the choice of handing over my full phone history or knowing the man who raped me wouldn’t be brought to justice.
What I’ve been doing over the past seven years has no relevance to the night in January when I woke up in a stranger’s house, alone, covered in blood and terrified after blacking out the night before.
The director of public prosecutions has said only ‘relevant’ material on phones will go before a court. But before smartphones, police weren’t seizing every letter a rape complainant had written, or requesting every photograph she had in her house.
The prospect of opening up my phone felt like I’d be the one on trial. After all, phones allow access to the most private parts of us. Like most women’s phones, mine holds conversations about break-ups, health scares and insecurities. There are details about people I’ve slept with, photos where I don’t have any clothes on, and messages between me and my friends
– none of which was ever intended for anyone else’s eyes, let alone a lawyer whose mission is to discredit my character.
Official statistics released last month showed just 1.7% of rapes reported last year led to someone being charged or summonsed. The unfairness of the system is too much to bear. After the attack, I felt like I wanted to cut off the bottom half of my body and throw myself out the window. Knowing strangers might see pictures of me naked made me feel violated all over again.
Now, I’m working with the Centre for Women’s Justice to prepare a legal challenge against the decision to drop my case. I’m also fighting for the consent forms to be withdrawn. There needs to be safeguarding so only information from the relevant time period is downloaded. Rape victims shouldn’t be subjected to this unnecessary infringement of our human rights.
The prospect of opening up my phone felt like I’d be the one on trial