The justice system is a disgrace, says sex attack victim Gabrielle Browne
As the debate about rape intensifies, Judith Woods talks to sex attack victim Gabrielle Browne about her fight for justice.
The BlackBerry on Gabrielle Browne's coffee table is vibrating almost continuously. The mobile phone in the pocket of her pale linen suit chirrups with new message alerts. The doorbell chimes twice in as many minutes.
On Wednesday, Browne, a 45-year-old mother of two who was attacked in 2003 by a serial sex offender freed from prison early, broke down in tears as she confronted Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, on a radio show about his proposals to slash jail sentences in half for rapists if they admit guilt at the outset.
Today she has regained her considerable poise, adeptly fielding media requests, while Mr Clarke fights for his political life after a series of blunders that have left him looking less like a big beast liberal reformer and more like a woefully out-of-touch dinosaur. As he sought to justify ill-judged comments about "proper" rapes, involving strangers, as opposed to date rapes, which by implication don't really qualify as such, he exacerbated the controversy by accusing his critics of concentrating on rape in order to inject some "sexual excitement" into the debate.
"There's something very wrong about the minister responsible for justice claiming date rape isn't as bad as 'classic' rape," says Mrs Browne, who works in IT in the City. "I believe that in some respects to be violated by someone you already have some sort of rapport with could be worse than some unknown man pulling you into a bush, as happened to me. And it beggars belief that Ken Clarke thinks rape is about sexual excitement – it is all about power and control."
Surrounded by all the trappings of suburbia – a 4x4 in the driveway, bikes in the garage, a trampoline in the garden – Mrs Browne, who is articulate, fluent and has a detailed knowledge of sentencing law and human rights legislation, doesn't quite match the stereotype of a disempowered victim. Yet disempowered is precisely how she has felt for eight years, first as a result of the attack – what Mr Clarke would call a "proper" assault, if he now dared – and subsequently as she struggled with a criminal justice system that she describes as incompetent and unfit for purpose.
"I have had to fight all the way for information and have had to push for the man who attacked me to be brought to court. I have written countless letters and attended meetings, and I have undergone the trauma of standing in front of the parole board having to make a case about why the person who assaulted me shouldn't be released. I've experienced the system at first hand and it's a disgrace."
It is significant that her voice cracked with emotion on BBC Five Live, not when she recounted the assault she endured, but when she described her fight to bring her attacker to justice, which, she says, won't be over until Sierra Leone-born Mohammed Kendeh, currently in prison for yet another crime, is finally deported. Kendeh, who attacked her in a park as she trained for the London Marathon, has thus far avoided deportation by claiming a right to a family life under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – a defence that Browne says is an insult to his many victims, who may never recover.
She would be perfectly entitled to vent her outrage at Mr Clarke's remarks, but is surprisingly restrained – because hers is a longer-term strategy. She was no random caller to Victoria Derbyshire's radio show, but had been invited on to air her views; in recent years she has waived her right to anonymity specifically in order to speak out in favour of legal reform and has become an increasingly vocal campaigner on behalf of more transparent and, above all, tougher sentencing.
"This Government is going against the grain of previous Conservative government policy on crime and is incredibly weak, sending out the wrong message to offenders, that committing crime is fine and doubly fine if you own up," she says.
Next Tuesday, she will meet Mr Clarke and so, instead of joining Ed Miliband's calls for him to be sacked, she is "reserving judgment" on him until then.
"I was asked by one newspaper to doorstep him today and demand a face-to-face apology, but what use would that be, unless sincerely meant?" she says. "Besides, this isn't about me, it's about every victim of crime who is being ill-served by the criminal justice system. The idea that a rapist can get a 50 per cent discount on his sentence by pleading guilty is appalling; it doesn't reduce the victim's trauma by 50 per cent.
"Nor do I think it's motivated by any genuine desire to spare women the stress of giving evidence – which is hugely patronising – but by cost-cutting, which does nothing to protect the public. My attacker had previously sexually assaulted six other women in the same park, and escaped a custodial sentence. He was in prison for burglary but because he was released after four months of his 13-month sentence, he was free to attack me."
She says she felt cheated by the fact that, after consistently pleading not guilty for 688 days from his arrest, Kendeh suddenly pleaded guilty on the eve of his eventual trial at the Old Bailey in 2005. Not only was she deprived of her day in court, he was given a third off his sentence of four years.
He was then released after just two years, in February 2007, and by October that year was back in prison, having been sentenced to five and a half years for street robbery and two years on licence. The judge at that time recommended he be deported on release, but until he has actually left UK shores, Mrs Browne says she cannot even begin to feel safe again.
"Not giving sex-attack victims the opportunity to give evidence means they can't explain to the judge the effect this crime has had on their lives," she says. "I have been fundamentally changed by what was done to me; I am fearful, I get flashbacks, I'm sensitive – hypersensitive – about even mildly suggestive office banter and, like all survivors of a sexual crime, I find it very hard to be emotionally or physically demonstrative. I also had to tell my children what happened because I couldn't do otherwise."
Mrs Browne was born and brought up in Hertfordshire with three brothers. Her father was keen for his sons to be educated in the independent sector, but he was indifferent about his daughter's schooling.
"I once heard him saying that, as a boy, my brother was much more important, so his fees were a priority," she says dispassionately. "From then on I learned to stand on my own two feet and developed an acute sense of fairness and justice that has propelled me to this point to speak up for those who don't have a voice."
At one stage she set up a support group to help other victims of rape find their way through th
The justice system is a disgrace, says sex attack victim Gabrielle Browne
As the debate about rape intensifies, Judith Woods talks to sex attack victim Gabrielle Browne about her fight for justice.
The BlackBerry on Gabrielle Browne's coffee table is vibrating almost continuously. The mobile phone in the pocket of her pale linen suit chirrups with new message alerts. The doorbell chimes twice in as many minutes.
On Wednesday, Browne, a 45-year-old mother of two who was attacked in 2003 by a serial sex offender freed from prison early, broke down in tears as she confronted Kenneth Clarke, the Justice Secretary, on a radio show about his proposals to slash jail sentences in half for rapists if they admit guilt at the outset.
Today she has regained her considerable poise, adeptly fielding media requests, while Mr Clarke fights for his political life after a series of blunders that have left him looking less like a big beast liberal reformer and more like a woefully out-of-touch dinosaur. As he sought to justify ill-judged comments about "proper" rapes, involving strangers, as opposed to date rapes, which by implication don't really qualify as such, he exacerbated the controversy by accusing his critics of concentrating on rape in order to inject some "sexual excitement" into the debate.
"There's something very wrong about the minister responsible for justice claiming date rape isn't as bad as 'classic' rape," says Mrs Browne, who works in IT in the City. "I believe that in some respects to be violated by someone you already have some sort of rapport with could be worse than some unknown man pulling you into a bush, as happened to me. And it beggars belief that Ken Clarke thinks rape is about sexual excitement – it is all about power and control."
Surrounded by all the trappings of suburbia – a 4x4 in the driveway, bikes in the garage, a trampoline in the garden – Mrs Browne, who is articulate, fluent and has a detailed knowledge of sentencing law and human rights legislation, doesn't quite match the stereotype of a disempowered victim. Yet disempowered is precisely how she has felt for eight years, first as a result of the attack – what Mr Clarke would call a "proper" assault, if he now dared – and subsequently as she struggled with a criminal justice system that she describes as incompetent and unfit for purpose.
"I have had to fight all the way for information and have had to push for the man who attacked me to be brought to court. I have written countless letters and attended meetings, and I have undergone the trauma of standing in front of the parole board having to make a case about why the person who assaulted me shouldn't be released. I've experienced the system at first hand and it's a disgrace."
It is significant that her voice cracked with emotion on BBC Five Live, not when she recounted the assault she endured, but when she described her fight to bring her attacker to justice, which, she says, won't be over until Sierra Leone-born Mohammed Kendeh, currently in prison for yet another crime, is finally deported. Kendeh, who attacked her in a park as she trained for the London Marathon, has thus far avoided deportation by claiming a right to a family life under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act – a defence that Browne says is an insult to his many victims, who may never recover.
She would be perfectly entitled to vent her outrage at Mr Clarke's remarks, but is surprisingly restrained – because hers is a longer-term strategy. She was no random caller to Victoria Derbyshire's radio show, but had been invited on to air her views; in recent years she has waived her right to anonymity specifically in order to speak out in favour of legal reform and has become an increasingly vocal campaigner on behalf of more transparent and, above all, tougher sentencing.
"This Government is going against the grain of previous Conservative government policy on crime and is incredibly weak, sending out the wrong message to offenders, that committing crime is fine and doubly fine if you own up," she says.
Next Tuesday, she will meet Mr Clarke and so, instead of joining Ed Miliband's calls for him to be sacked, she is "reserving judgment" on him until then.
"I was asked by one newspaper to doorstep him today and demand a face-to-face apology, but what use would that be, unless sincerely meant?" she says. "Besides, this isn't about me, it's about every victim of crime who is being ill-served by the criminal justice system. The idea that a rapist can get a 50 per cent discount on his sentence by pleading guilty is appalling; it doesn't reduce the victim's trauma by 50 per cent.
"Nor do I think it's motivated by any genuine desire to spare women the stress of giving evidence – which is hugely patronising – but by cost-cutting, which does nothing to protect the public. My attacker had previously sexually assaulted six other women in the same park, and escaped a custodial sentence. He was in prison for burglary but because he was released after four months of his 13-month sentence, he was free to attack me."
She says she felt cheated by the fact that, after consistently pleading not guilty for 688 days from his arrest, Kendeh suddenly pleaded guilty on the eve of his eventual trial at the Old Bailey in 2005. Not only was she deprived of her day in court, he was given a third off his sentence of four years.
He was then released after just two years, in February 2007, and by October that year was back in prison, having been sentenced to five and a half years for street robbery and two years on licence. The judge at that time recommended he be deported on release, but until he has actually left UK shores, Mrs Browne says she cannot even begin to feel safe again.
"Not giving sex-attack victims the opportunity to give evidence means they can't explain to the judge the effect this crime has had on their lives," she says. "I have been fundamentally changed by what was done to me; I am fearful, I get flashbacks, I'm sensitive – hypersensitive – about even mildly suggestive office banter and, like all survivors of a sexual crime, I find it very hard to be emotionally or physically demonstrative. I also had to tell my children what happened because I couldn't do otherwise."
Mrs Browne was born and brought up in Hertfordshire with three brothers. Her father was keen for his sons to be educated in the independent sector, but he was indifferent about his daughter's schooling.
"I once heard him saying that, as a boy, my brother was much more important, so his fees were a priority," she says dispassionately. "From then on I learned to stand on my own two feet and developed an acute sense of fairness and justice that has propelled me to this point to speak up for those who don't have a voice."
At one stage she set up a support group to help other victims of rape find their way through the criminal justice system, but there were no takers; the perceived stigma of sexual assault remains too potent. So she is now focusing her considerable energies on bringing about systemic change.
"This media storm that has blown up since I spoke to Ken Clarke gives me the opportunity to speak directly to him and to other criminal justice policy makers, and I hope I can have some effect," she says. "I don't for a moment expect him to agree to everything I suggest, but I very much hope he will listen and understand the position I am coming from."
But is it realistic – or even desirable – to shape the justice system round one woman's experience, however convincingly she marshals her arguments?
"I would agree, but the issues I'm raising aren't just related to the offence that I suffered," she says. "They affect the protection of the public and the release of offenders into the community.
"If I thought my ghastly experience of the criminal justice system was a one-off I could walk away, but it's an experience common to a great many people and it transcends party politics. Although I accept that I am unlikely to get as tough a criminal justice system as I would like, that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep on trying to instigate change."e criminal justice system, but there were no takers; the perceived stigma of sexual assault remains too potent. So she is now focusing her considerable energies on bringing about systemic change.
"This media storm that has blown up since I spoke to Ken Clarke gives me the opportunity to speak directly to him and to other criminal justice policy makers, and I hope I can have some effect," she says. "I don't for a moment expect him to agree to everything I suggest, but I very much hope he will listen and understand the position I am coming from."
But is it realistic – or even desirable – to shape the justice system round one woman's experience, however convincingly she marshals her arguments?
"I would agree, but the issues I'm raising aren't just related to the offence that I suffered," she says. "They affect the protection of the public and the release of offenders into the community.
"If I thought my ghastly experience of the criminal justice system was a one-off I could walk away, but it's an experience common to a great many people and it transcends party politics. Although I accept that I am unlikely to get as tough a criminal justice system as I would like, that doesn't mean I'm not going to keep on trying to instigate change."
(telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/8524732)
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