Stacey Dooley: Rape on Trial review – it's impossible not to feel profound admiration for these brave women

The Guardian

13-03-2025

It's a tough job, being the presenter of a documentary about rape and its victims. But – given the enduring and increasingly scandalous horrors those victims are facing in a country whose appallingly flawed legal approach has effectively decriminalised the act – someone's got to do it.
This time it is Stacey Dooley's job. The two-part documentary Rape on Trial focuses on the difficulties presented by cases in which the supposed perpetrator and victim are known to each other. It also looks at the suffering caused by the ever-lengthening delays between rapes being reported and reaching trial, in the surpassingly rare instance (despite recent efforts to improve matters) that the Crown Prosecution Service agrees to let them proceed. The documentary was slated to take a year to film – it ended up taking three, so slow was the progress on any of the cases its makers were following.
Dooley deploys her natural talent for exuding a kind of stalwart sympathy as she interviews three women who all knew the men they say raped them, as they wait for their cases to be heard. Jessie (all the women have waived their right to anonymity and appear on camera) endured, she says, repeated unwanted sex from her much older boyfriend when she was a teenager. ('I would wake up with him inside me.') It is four years from the time of her reporting the rape to getting a verdict. In the meantime, he is out on bail and Jessie frequently sees him around town, and working near her house. Jessie's mother, Michelle, says that her daughter has become all but unrecognisable under the strain. 'She means everything to me, that girl, and I just want her back.' Jessie's is a rare case in that she has additional witnesses, including a former girlfriend of the defendant and another woman who each say he raped them too. Will three women's word against one man's be enough to win what one defence solicitor calls 'the credibility battle' in court? How much does it take to persuade a jury not just that you are telling the truth but to meet the required standard of proof – that the accused could have had no reasonable belief in consent?
Emma says she was orally raped at 16 by a classmate in college. Until then, she says, she thought 'to be frozen with fear' was just an expression. 'You can't move. You don't believe it, but it's true.' Her mum persuaded her to report him to the police. The trial has been postponed three times. 'I've just got to do it because if not I'll regret it for the rest of my life … even though I'm dying inside.' She has been suicidal – a woman once intervened as she was attempting to kill herself. After that, Emma's father slept in a sleeping bag in front of the front door every night so they could keep her safe. In cross-examination, the defence suggests she has made the whole thing up because she was in love with the popular, wealthy accused. Emma is 19 before she gets a verdict. As she sobs uncontrollably in its wake, her mother puts her arms around her and stares dry-eyed into an incomprehensible future.
Becca says she was raped by a man she was dating at university. 'I felt like I knew him, then in that moment I realised I didn't know him at all.' She waits three and a half years for the trial, before which she is advised by the witness service team to wear muted colours and keep her shoulders covered. The defence suggests that Becca, as a former drama student, has made up her story for effect.
Dooley is the right person for the emotional parts – straightforward, unobtrusive and safe without being soft. But she is underpowered in the interviews with others, such as the deputy national lead on rape and serious sexual offences, Siobhan Blake, and defence lawyers who represent alleged rapists.
It will, as Jessie – incandescent with fury alongside her misery – hopes, heighten awareness of the problems faced by claimants who enter this profoundly flawed system and the endemic biases that greet them from every quarter. But it is hard to admire a documentary that doesn't also move the conversation on. This could be done by proffering some possible answers to what can be done to redress inbred prejudices that accompany he said/she said trials in which there is no forensic or other evidence. Or by interviewing people who have some idea of what reforms can be made to the law, examining what difference further funding could make, or how we change a culture in which disbelief of rape claims is/seems to be the default position. .
It is difficult to feel anything very much apart from profound admiration for the women involved, and the loving people who support them, and a profound despair at their suffering – and that which is still to come.
Stacey Dooley: Rape on Trial aired on BBC Three and is on iPlayer.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [e-mail] or [e-mail]. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org
Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html