麻豆社

Reporting a rape is never going to be anything other than traumatic and it will always involve a painful retelling of events the victim would far rather forget.

That, however, does not mean the process can not be made far easier than it has been in the past.

In August 2007, Helen Britton House, a new Sexual Assault Referral Centre was getting ready to open at North Ormesby Health Village.

Detective Chief Inspector Gordon Lang from Cleveland police admitted the system at the time, which often left victims of rape sitting in police stations or casualty department waiting rooms, was far from perfect. "At the moment, were you to be subject to rape or serious sexual assault in Cleveland, then you would have to go to a police station for the examination aspect of that inquiry and it's not ideal by any stretch. This is a huge step forward."

'I felt Downgraded'

According to the British Crime Survey, there were fewer than 5000 rapes reported to the police in 1993, in 2005 there were nearly 13000.

Jane was raped eight years ago. She told 麻豆社 Tees her traumatic experience continued, after she reported her rape:

"I had to wait about nine hours before I actually went to the toilet, the man who normally would take your DNA and everything was on a court case the following day with another rape, so I had to travel all the way through to York to get my DNA done in an accident and emergency room."

The idea behind the state-of-the-art facility on Teesside is that as soon as you call the police you can go to one place, where there is just you and an expert on hand to look after you.

Everything is done in one place, from taking your statement to forensic and medical examination, even getting a shower and a change of clothes.

Dr Deborah Beere is lead consultant with the contraception and sexual health service. She said the centre would continue providing help and support long after the initial visit. "There will be counselling services if people need them, and they usually do, they will also be able to provide a full range of contraception and sexual health services and indeed any other help that may be required."

Jane agreed to look around the centre with 麻豆社 Tees to see how it compared with her experience being dealt with at a police station. "It's a lot to do with the people. I mean, when you've got medical staff, they're not really dealing with you, they're dealing with their job, which isn't really to be bothered about you as such, whereas here people have been through something similar themselves, or have experience of dealing with people themsleves."