Ione Wells: powerful letter to her attacker has sparked a campaign against shame
|
Version 0 of 1. In the traumatic moments after she was dragged to the ground and sexually assaulted outside her north London home, Ione Wells felt her only path to justice was to see her attacker in the dock. Related: Oxford student's open letter to her sex attacker inspires others to speak out Now, three weeks later, after writing an extraordinary open letter and spearheading a campaign to support victims of sexual violence, Wells says she has achieved a more satisfying kind of justice. When her 17-year-old assailant – who has admitted sexual assault – is sentenced in a London youth court in London next week, it is unlikely that Wells will be there. Rather, she says, she will be “getting on with my life” studying for her English degree at Oxford University. “When I first heard about the court hearing I thought that going to that would be the only way I could feel I had some control in the situation, but actually this campaign has already given that to me and already made me feel like there’s been an incredible sense of justice,” she says. Dozens of sexual assault victims have been inspired to speak publicly about their ordeal for the first time since Wells, 20, published an open letter to her unnamed attacker in her student newspaper, Cherwell, this week. Waiving her right to anonymity, Wells wrote that she would never become a victim or change her behaviour after being sexually attacked while walking home from her local tube station in Camden, north London, shortly before 1am on 11 April. Addressing the letter to “my assaulter” – Wells has not been told her attacker’s name due to his age – she wrote: “I don’t know anything about you. But I do know this: you did not just attack me that night. I am a daughter. I am a friend. I am a girlfriend. I am a pupil. I am a cousin. I am a niece. I am a neighbour. I am the employee who served everyone down the road coffee in the cafe under the railway. “All the people who form those relations to me make up my community and you assaulted every single one of them.” The letter was shared thousands of times online, transforming Wells overnight from a sexual assault victim with lifelong anonymity to the public face of a campaign – dubbed #notguilty – to raise awareness that victims are not to blame. Since its launch on Wednesday, the #notguilty campaign website has received powerful first-person testimonies from more than 50 people who say they were previously too afraid or ashamed to speak out. Many more have shared their experiences on Facebook and Twitter. One anonymous contributor wrote: “I am sick of not wanting to go outside. I am sick of not wanting to look my parents in the eye, after the blame that they laid upon me. I am not guilty for what happened, and I will not let anyone make me feel that I am anymore.” Wells says she has been “overwhelmed” by the response to the campaign – and that she has been confided in by a number of Oxford students whom she knew before but who have not previously spoken about their experiences. “I get the impression from people just writing into the campaign that it’s something that they’ve felt is just one step for them, even if it’s not solved the problem yet. Being able to write it on paper has been the first step to getting proper help for some people,” she says. The first-year student was walking home after a night out with friends when she was brutally attacked. Her assailant, who had followed her from Chalk Farm tube station, dragged her by the hair before forcing her to the ground and kicking her in the back and neck. The attacker eventually ran off when neighbours heard her screams. Speaking in detail for the first time about the assault, Wells said her mother, Cindy, 57, was dialling 999 after she was woken by screams but she did not know it was her own daughter in trouble. “It was close enough that they were able to hear the screaming but they couldn’t recognise it was me,” Wells said. “My mum was calling the police just as she was opening the door and there I was with two neighbours. Everyone was in a state.” Police used CCTV to track down her young attacker and caught him about half an hour later stalking another woman, possibly moments away from striking again. In the police station, Wells says her initial reaction was to blame herself for getting the last tube home – but she realised she had done nothing wrong when a policewoman said to her: “For God’s sake, Ione, you have every right to walk on your street and feel safe. Don’t in any way feel guilty about what happened to you.” It was those words that prompted Wells to walk down her street the following day, past the spot where the attack happened, to take biscuits to the neighbours who came to her aid. Even though it was broad daylight and despite living on the street since she was 13, Wells says she still felt deeply uneasy. “You don’t even know why but psychologically you feel very shaken walking past a spot where something like that happened because you still feel in shock from it and remember it. You get flashbacks of it happening to you,” she says. “But the more you do these actions and the more you get used to it, the more you realise that it is a one-off and that communities are places where we should and do have every right to feel safe in.” She may have “reclaimed” her street and taken the last tube home, but the attention her campaign has brought remains unfamiliar territory for someone so young. She rebuffed one tabloid’s £3,000 interview offer, delivered in a contract to her college dormitory, and was bemused to see her face on the front page of the Times newspaper. Waiving her right to anonymity was a “very personal decision” and one that is unique to each individual, Wells says, but one she believes has allowed others to summon the courage to talk about their own experience for the first time. “You read about these stories in the papers all the time and people can feel very upset by them and very moved or even relate to them but it can be quite hard to use that as a platform to speak out if you feel detached from it,” she says. Sitting in the peaceful gardens of Oxford’s Saint Giles church, near her gothic-style college building, Wells marvels at the number of harrowing accounts from people “absolutely streaming in” to the #notguilty campaign website. Her attacker, meanwhile, is on police bail facing a jail term when he is sentenced on Wednesday. Three weeks after the attack, would she meet the perpetrator? “If it was something which they felt was very important and something they felt would make a big difference, I think I would meet him,” she says. “It would obviously be hard to do but the positive side I want to bring out is not revenge, it’s trying to prevent these cases from happening in the future.” Katie Watts: ‘I blocked it from my memory’ “When I was training to be a nurse in London, I was raped by one of my flatmates in student halls. “After a falling out with my close friend at uni, I called him. I asked him to check on me in the morning because I was very drunk and vomiting. Because I was drunk, I neglected to fully lock my dorm room door and when he got home from work at about 2am he let himself in and sexually assaulted me. He had already sexually assaulted my friend. “I went into shock and completely blamed myself. I blocked it from my memory. How could I see I was not to blame? I had not taken my friend seriously enough when she suggested he had raped her, and twisted it so she was partly to blame in my mind so I didn’t have to handle the truth. I eventually remembered this incident two years after. “I had to leave uni in my final year due to mental health problems. I went to the police and he got taken to trial. He was not found guilty on my charge. I still blame myself daily and it is a hard task trying to persuade my mind otherwise, but i try everyday. I suffer from PTSD so every day is hard, but one day I hope I can be as strong as Ione.”* Anonymous: ‘I rang Mum. We cried for ages’ “I was a shell. He had taken everything from me. I made up every excuse to why he did it, why he was innocent and I was guilty. But I wasn’t guilty. It hurt everyone. Made everyone feel guilt, my family, my friends, my neighbours, my lecturers. Everyone felt guilty, for something they had not done. I felt guilty for the pain that was being caused, but it was not me. It took me a long time to be OK. Let alone good. I saw counsellors. Made my own coping strategies. Was on antidepressants. Made new friends. I eventually left uni. It was the toughest decision ever. “All you need to know is that he took everything from me. “I woke up Sunday in a panic, crying and not realising why. I had to get out of the house. My house. I went to a friends. Got dragged to the police. Everyone kept asking if I wanted to ring my parents. I couldn’t. It would have made it all too real. It would have meant me causing them pain. ‘This is not your fault, you’ve done nothing wrong, you do not deserve this, you are innocent, you are not guilty,’ were all repeated so many times. I was probed in every way possible it seems. Questioned, re-questioned, forensics, blood tests. I was even given the emergency hepatitis jab. We were there all day. There was so much information. I remember mostly how kind the police were being to me. They believed me, it seemed. They dropped us at my friends late on the Sunday, with the news he was in custody. “I rang my mum. ‘Hi Mum. How’re you? I need to tell you something … ’ deep breath … I’ve been with the police all day … reporting a rape … to me.’ ‘What?’ ‘Don’t make me say it again please Mum.’ “I was strong, convinced her not to come and see me until the morning. It was late and she was an hour and a half away. Logically it didn’t make sense. Then we broke. The whole thing came crashing down on me. We cried for ages it seemed. She was already on her way, promising me that she wouldn’t drive. Someone else would. She told my dad and they drove up together. “My friend and her flatmates walked me home. Back to that house. That room. My mum and dad stayed with me for the next few days. Everyone kept telling me to go home, that I didn’t have to carry on in that room, that house, that uni, that city. I refused to let it beat me. I was not the guilty one. Why should I suffer? “But we did suffer. I took three weeks off. I was a shell.”* * From statements made to the #notguilty campaign |