A revealing testimony from Australia

This incident took place about seven years ago and I wrote this account about three years ago. I then e-mailed it to an acquaintance but I don't know if they read it. Other than that I have not told anyone else about it until now. I have not changed the account except for some small changes in order to conceal the location. I'll just say it took place somewhere in Australia. My intention in posting it is not to obtain justice, in an official sense, for the crime or crimes that may have happened here, but rather to reveal something of the true nature of the system, what really goes on, and to inspire discussion, or action, on the subjects raised. I think that I would be unable to provide testimony of this to the police, because I would be too scared.

In 2010 I was living by myself in a one-bedroom flat. I lived very near to a store which selled a lot of organic and other specialty foods, although it operated like a general grocer in a lot of ways. Being that I lived so near to it, I used to go there quite a lot, every two or three days. There was a middle-aged man and a middle-aged woman who seemed to run the store at the time, I assume they were a married couple. There were also several other employees, usually two or three in a given shift, mostly in their late teens or early twenties. Many were only employed for a few months at a time, presumably due to school, uni etc.. In mid-2010, there was a young woman newly on the staff who seemed maybe a little older than the others, but still in her twenties. I'll call her "A" here. A seemed quite tense to me, not in a really obvious way, but just in way that I could "sense". Probably she had been working at the store for two or three months by the time of the events I will describe here.

In probably July or August 2010, I noticed that for a week or so A seemed considerably more relaxed and happy than before... though it would be hard to describe how exactly. Then suddenly one rainy day, she seemed much more tense again, perhaps moreso than before. At that time and for a year or so prior to that (well, for many years really, but particularly at this time), I had been thinking a lot about how there was a lot of hidden sexual abuse in society, rape, sexual assault and so on, and that this might be the reason that people, especially young women, were so uptight, obedient to authority and things like that. I thought that maybe A had suffered rape here, and that this could be a chance for me to do something about it. After returning home with the groceries I had bought, I pondered it a little, and then wrote down my name and phone number on a small piece of paper and went back to the store, less than 100 metres walk. I said to A, (these quotes won't be perfectly accurate but they'll be very close) "I just want to say that if you've ever been the victim of rape, recently or in the past, you can talk to me about it." She just smiled and nodded or something and went away. I was unsure whether to give her the name and number for a moment but then I decided to, I went up to her and said "here's my number if you want to talk about it, and you can give that to anyone else, who you think might have been the victim of rape", and gave her the piece of paper. She seemed quite taken aback at that. Some other people in the store seemed amused at me, and I walked out, muttering "what the f*** is wrong with you people" under my breath.

I think I returned after two days, as I would have anyway. This time, at some point while I was choosing things, A said, quite clearly and loudly, such that everyone heard, "he raped me". I don't think she pointed or anything, but from the context of the situation, it was clear that she meant the middle-aged man who appeared to run the store. The man (I'll call him B) looked a little surprised or frightened, and it didn't look like A wanted to talk about it or anything (she didn't ring me at any time, as far as I'm aware), so I just paid for my things and left. I didn't do anything about it until the next time I went to the store, which was probably another two days later. This time, A and B seemed to have reconciled, and she smiled at him. This must have distressed me a bit, because I remember feeling a bit dizzy (I think my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was quite severe at the time), and I said to someone who I knew through my family, who happened to be in the store at the time, that B had been raping his staff. The person didn't seem to want to get involved. I think B could sense that I had said something to this person. I then grabbed an apple off the shelf and took a bite out of it, fearing that otherwise I would faint. I then paid for the apple so as not to get in trouble for it, and left the store.

I went home and thought about it. I thought that probably A had been subject to some kind of intimidation or further sexual assault to change her mind like that, so I decided that I must do something about it. I rang the police station, and told them that I wanted to report a crime. They put me onto a woman (I'll call her C), who I described the situation to. She seemed a bit reluctant to do anything about it, she seemed to want to let it go maybe, and said "anyway you've been a great friend", to which I replied that A wasn't really a friend. It seemed like C thought I was a nuisance. When I told her it was the man running the shop, she asked "is he a bit...". I think she wanted me to say B was dark or foreign or something - he wasn't. Then when she realised I was determined, she became a bit more helpful. She suggested that I tell A about Sexual Assault Services, and gave me the number, which I wrote down on a piece of paper. I took it to the store and was trying to get A to come toward me to talk in relative privacy, though it didn't seem like she wanted to. Suddenly, B comes out from a back room looking red and angry. I feared he was going to attack me, and so I rushed to get out the store's door before he could cut me off. I ran or walked quickly home, and looking back I saw B coming out of the store and maybe looking to cross the road to pursue me.

I was very scared at this point, and so when I got home, I immediately rang 000. I asked for police, but then when I explained the situation a little, the police person immediately said I should call the "Non-Urgent Police Attendance" number, which is fair enough maybe, but I don't think he'd really heard me out enough to judge whether it was urgent or not. So I rang the non-urgent police attendance number, and was met with the voice of a man who seemed quite angry, and saying "You shouldn't have been there in the first place" and stuff, really quite scary, he seemed to know more about the situation than he ... logically would have... I think I just hung up on that. Fortunately, though, C had given me her direct number in case I needed to discuss the matter further with her. I rang her and told what had happened at the shop. When she heard that, she almost immediately decided that it required police attendance. She asked me few more questions, such as where exactly the shop was; she seemed disappointed when I gave her a rough street number... I feel like they were hoping to "not be able to find it" or something. So I think she said they were sending someone out and that was the end of the call. I didn't have a mobile at the time, only a home phone, so I was just sitting, waiting at home, in case they needed to contact me. I had not given C my address.

After about half an hour or an hour, there was a loud knocking at my door, and I opened it to find two police officers. A man and a woman, both a little overweight. I was a little relieved that it wasn't B, but then not so much really, because the officers seemed quite angry. They asked something like "Did you talk to a young woman at the store?", I said yes, but I think I must have looked really frightened, because of how angry they looked. The male police officer said "We're coming in" (no warrant or anything), and they came in, obviously I was no match for them, with their various tools swinging from their belts. I started to back towards my windows, thinking I could open them and jump out, if they were going to bash me or something. I mean I was just terrified because I knew this was completely against the rules. The male police officer took this backing towards the windows to be me hiding something, so he rushed toward my pot-plants by the windows, thinking he was going to find them to be marijuana I suppose (they weren't). He then went into my bedroom and opened one or two of my cupboards, the female police officer seemed worried about this.

Then he went back into the living room part of the flat. I think I was sitting down by now, and the female police officer asked me some things, something like this "Now we've just come from the store and the girl there said that you said that if she had been raped she could talk to you about it!", in a loud, angry voice. I replied with something like "Yes... but why are you being so serious with me about it?" "Because that... is a serious case of sexual harrassment!" she shouted. At this point the male police officer is looking through a pile of unopened mail in my kitchen. "Who's this xxx" he asked. "The guy who lived in the flat before me", I replied. Now the woman says, still angry: "Now I don't want to see you back at that store again, or I'll put you in the lockup overnight, ready for trial in the morning!". I agree, unreservedly. The male police officer is still looking through my mail. He comes across an open letter, which is an appointment for me to be assessed by a forensic mental health psychiatrist, in relation to an assault charge from a couple of months previously. "He's being assessed... for court" he says to his partner. The blabber on their walkie-talkies seems to be telling them to leave, and they do. I don't think they said bye or anything.

I didn't go to the store again after that. I moved out of the flat four or five months later, not because of this event - not directly, anyway. I did not contact C again. Neither A nor C, nor anyone from the police contacted me either. I have tried to raise the matter of rape in various contexts since then, but virtually everyone refuses to talk about it with me, even a (supposedly) feminist academic declined.

So there it is. It is all true to the best of my recollection. I have not omitted important things, embellished, or exaggerated. Thanks for reading it if you did.