\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>t her kitchen table, in a village in southern England, Annie* sits with a blue folder stuffed with court documents, witness statements and correspondence relating to the trial of her stepfather, whom she had reported to police for alleged childhood abuse.<\/p>\n As she prepared to tell her story for the first time, she was flooded with emotion when a photograph fell from the folder. The square Polaroid showed a young girl standing in a field beside a pony, dressed in jodhpurs and a riding hat.<\/p>\n The young girl was Annie, who at the time was 12. \u201cThat\u2019s what I was like when the abuse started,\u201d she said. \u201cI was just a developing young girl. And that\u2019s when my childhood stopped.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Annie reported her childhood stepfather to the police in 2017. She had previously disclosed the alleged abuse, when she was 18, in front of her mother, stepfather and a friend, but no action was taken.<\/p>\n By 2017 it had been some time since she had last disclosed the alleged abuse, but she had learned that her stepfather was babysitting young extended family members, and felt that unless she came forward \u201cthis was never going to stop\u201d.<\/p>\n Annie resolved that she was \u201cgoing to do something about this\u201d. It marked the start of an almost decade-long fight. And one which continues.<\/p>\n <\/span>A picture by Annie.<\/span><\/p>\n When Annie\u2019s case against her alleged abuser finally came to trial in 2021, after multiple abandoned court dates, the case resulted in not guilty verdicts and a hung jury.<\/p>\n In a rare case, she is now suing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). Her lawyers, at the Centre for Women\u2019s Justice (CWJ), argue that the prosecution was so badly executed it amounted to a breach of her human rights.<\/p>\n One of Annie\u2019s key complaints is that prosecutors did not apply to introduce bad character evidence about her stepfather, and so all references to the domestic abuse and cruelty and neglect she also alleged she had suffered as a child were edited out of her police interview.<\/p>\n A photograph she had provided to the police, which she says was taken of her mother just after she had been assaulted by her stepfather, in which her injuries were clearly visible, was not shown to the jury; a solicitor\u2019s letter that mentioned a violent assault on another family member was not referred to, and reports of police speaking to him about allegations of domestic abuse were also not introduced in court.<\/p>\n It meant Annie could not put her allegations, and her difficulty in reporting them, into the context in which she says they had happened.<\/p>\n \u201cHow can I not talk about the fact that these enormous fights are going on?\u201d she said. \u201cAnd that fear: that\u2019s the main thing that is around this family, fear.<\/p>\n \u201cWe walk on eggshells, it\u2019s more like broken glass, all of our lives since they got married. That\u2019s what it was like.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a loaded shotgun behind the larder door. How can you live a normal life when there\u2019s a loaded shotgun there? You can\u2019t live a normal life. You\u2019re petrified that if you take a step wrong, that gun is going to come out.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>A sketch by Annie.<\/span><\/p>\n A 2025 inspection report into adult rape cases found there needed to be better identification and consideration for bad character applications to strengthen prosecution cases, stating: \u201cIn fewer than two in 10 cases where it was relevant did the prosecutor address how bad character relating to the suspect could have strengthened the case.\u201d<\/p>\n Annie said: \u201cSexual abuse on children doesn\u2019t just happen in a moment in time, in isolation.<\/p>\n \u201cSo often there are things going on in the background. There is violence, there is intimidation, there is domestic abuse.\u201d<\/p>\n By the time the case eventually got to court, her stepfather had been charged with multiple counts of indecent assault, and one of rape.<\/p>\n On several occasions before the trial, Annie had to watch her achieving best evidence (ABE) interview, which was three-and-a-half hours long, only for those court dates to be cancelled at short notice.<\/p>\n When her case finally came to court, she met her CPS-allocated barrister.<\/p>\n \u201cNot once in four years have I met my barrister who\u2019s going to defend me,\u201d she said. \u201cHe comes down to see me after I\u2019ve watched my ABE again. His first words to me were: \u2018I\u2019m sick of your face, to be honest.\u2019 And I literally couldn\u2019t speak.\u201d<\/p>\n He had said this, she said, \u201cbecause he\u2019s had to watch my ABE so many times\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I just felt like crumbling,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like saying I\u2019m sorry. You know, what do you say?\u201d<\/p>\n One trial was begun and then abandoned after the wrong evidence was shown to the jury.<\/p>\n The police wrote a letter \u201csaying how sorry they were that the judge was inconvenienced that day\u201d, Annie said. \u201cI had to watch my ABE again in the victim room downstairs in the cellar with the cleaner, the court staff listening to my abuse, to me discussing my rape.<\/p>\n \u201cI didn\u2019t get anybody writing to me saying: \u2018I\u2019m really sorry you had to do that,\u2019 but the judge got a written apology.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n According to Annie\u2019s complaint, during the trial key witnesses who would have supported her account of events were not called. She says she was not told why.<\/p>\n Bad character and hearsay evidence can be admitted only if a judge agrees the jury can hear it, and so it is not clear whether this would have been the case should the CPS have asked.<\/p>\n The jury found her stepfather not guilty of some of the sexual assaults. It was unable to reach a majority verdict on the other counts or on the rape chaarge. His defence was that Annie had fabricated the allegations.<\/p>\n It is impossible to know whether the verdicts would have been different had the bad character evidence been introduced.<\/p>\n Soon after, Annie attended an online meeting with the CPS, and days later, she learned they would not be seeking a retrial.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019d had no prior warning to this; I received a letter just as I was about to walk out the door, saying that my stepfather had been acquitted of all charges,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI was so shocked; I just took the letter upstairs and just fell back on the bed and I was so upset. I couldn\u2019t even tell [my husband] about it, I just couldn\u2019t,\u201d she said. \u201cI just couldn\u2019t tell anybody because I just didn\u2019t have the language for it.\u201d<\/p>\n But for Annie, it did not mark the end. She began throwing herself into legal research.<\/p>\n \u201cSo on my own, feeling the worst I\u2019ve ever felt in my life, physically and mentally, I had to start writing this complaint, which took a year,\u201d she said. \u201cBut at the end of it, the CPS did come back and said that they had made this legal error not to adduce all of the bad character evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n Armed with this admission of failure from the CPS, she took her case to the CWJ, which has issued a claim against the public body on Annie\u2019s behalf.<\/p>\n \u201cIn Annie\u2019s case there appear to have been so many bases on which the CPS could have applied to introduce the bad character evidence,\u201d said Kate Ellis, a CWJ solicitor.<\/p>\n \u201cFor example, the law recognises that evidence of domestic violence can be admitted as evidence that the defendant has a propensity to commit other forms of violence against women and girls.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis is why, we think, the CPS has admitted to getting the law wrong in response to Annie\u2019s complaint,\u201d she added, \u201cbut that admission is, sadly, too little too late.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think I could have imagined that nearly a decade on I would still be feeling like I did this morning,\u201d Annie said. \u201cFinding the photographs, looking at all the documentation, and it just ripping me up, to those same emotions.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m still having to fight to be heard. I haven\u2019t received justice. But I do see an end is in sight, and I do hope that something good will come out of this.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that other women will be listened to, and their abuse will be listened to in its entirety.\u201d<\/p>\n A CPS spokesperson said: \u201cDue to live civil litigation proceedings, we are unable to comment on the specifics of this case.<\/p>\n \u201cMore broadly, we recognise the profound impact that rape and serious sexual offences can have on victims, and are committed to continuous learning to strengthen consistency across the CPS.\u201d<\/p>\n *Name ha<\/em>s been changed<\/em>.<\/p>\n Get in touch<\/p>\n The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know. If you have something to share on this subject, you can contact us confidentially using the following methods:<\/p>\n The Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. 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As she prepared to tell her story for the first time, she was flooded<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[682,6768,15932,4776,2128,745,24921,3951,1983,2131,668],"class_list":{"0":"post-50897","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-abuse","9":"tag-childhood","10":"tag-cps","11":"tag-crown","12":"tag-prosecution","13":"tag-service","14":"tag-stepfather","15":"tag-stopped","16":"tag-sues","17":"tag-trial","18":"tag-woman"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Contact us about this story<\/h4>\n
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