Why I refused to give police my phone: one rape survivor’s story

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/apr/29/why-i-refused-to-give-police-my-phone-one-survivors-story

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One woman, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Guardian that she was raped by a stranger at the beginning of last year. She visited a rape crisis centre in the week after the attack, where staff spent three hours gathering forensic evidence. Two months later she plucked up the courage to go to the police.“They told me that the rule was that victims had to give the police their phone in order for the investigation to continue,” she said. “They said they would have complete freedom to search through all of it, that they didn’t know how long they were going to keep it and that they would use any of my personal data in any way they wanted.”

Why might rape victims refuse to give their phones to police?

After seeking advice from lawyers, the woman decided not to go through with the investigation. “The crime itself was an invasion of my privacy and I didn’t really want to be put through that again, so I decided to try and move on with my life with counselling,” she said.“There is a lot of information about my past love life and sex life [on my phone] which I don’t think is of any relevance … but I knew the defence would try and use it against me,” she said. “They were the most private details of my life and they were going to be revealed to anyone and everyone involved in the case when all I was trying to do was get justice.”After one year, the rape crisis centre was legally obliged to destroy the forensic evidence it had gathered from the complainant as the police had chosen not to use it. “That was the final nail in the coffin,” she said. “That’s gone and that was my most solid bit of evidence. Even if things do change then it’s too late for me. I’m never going to get justice. That’s it. That’s the end of the story.”The woman knows the name of her attacker, she has a picture of him and he knows where she lives. “Who in their right mind would go ahead with a complaint when this is how they’re being treated?” she said. “People are just going to get away with rape.”As told to Frances Perraudin