[TW: This article includes personal accounts of sexual assault which some may find distressing]

Anyone affected by such stories can seek help through a number of local agencies including the charity for victims & witnesses of crimes in Guernsey

‘ONE Christmas when I was 15 I’d had an argument with my parents and got drunk.

My boyfriend at the time showed up at my house asking to hang out. He’d been pressuring me into sex for the three or four months that we’d been together but I’d kept saying no. I didn’t want to because I was a virgin. He had not drunk anything and all I remember is feeling him on top of me.

I woke up the next day to some texts from him detailing what had happened and referring to it as ‘sex’, so I didn’t realise that I had been raped until I confided in a friend about it.

I knew what had happened because of the texts, and because I was bleeding, and I knew I didn’t feel OK with what happened, but when a friend I told said ‘You know that’s rape, right?’ it really hit home.

I didn’t tell anybody what happened, but eventually the friend who I had confided in told everybody, and everybody said I was ‘lying about being raped’.

I lost all my friends and people were horrible to me for months before it died down.

I broke up with him a few days after it happened and since then I’ve not spoken to him but I have walked past him multiple times. For five years I couldn’t drink around men because every time I tried I’d have a panic attack.

I still can’t drink that brand of red wine I had drunk that night.

A year later I met a man who was here on holiday and we’d stayed in touch when he went back to England.

He said he was going to visit Guernsey and I was excited, because as far as I was aware he was a good friend and it would be nice to see him again.

When he was here he was persuading me to stay in the hotel with him. I was nervous because of what happened when I was 15, but after what had happened my mental health had dipped so far I was very vulnerable.

For the five days he was visiting, he got really rough with me.

He raped me multiple times and spat on me, pushed my head under the water while I was in the bath because it made him laugh.

On the last day, he punched me in the face and caused permanent damage to my jaw.

When I turned 20 and found out I would have to pay a fair amount of money to get a retainer to keep my jaw from sitting weirdly, I was really angry.

I finally decided to report it, partly because of anger and also because I realised he could have done it to other women.

I did a video interview as evidence but after I had relived all the trauma they told me that it was too expensive to go and arrest him because he was in England, but that they would arrest him at the borders if he ever tried to come back to Guernsey.

I agreed and said that was fine, but then a few months later the police officer that was dealing with my case called me at work and told me they had reconsidered and that English police were happy to make an arrest.

They gave me the weekend to decide, because obviously a court case is a massive decision, and then lockdown happened so they didn’t end up calling me for a few weeks but, by the time they had, I had spoken to my youth worker, my psychiatrist and my boss and they had all told me not to bother with pressing charges because mentally I’m doing very well and I didn’t want to backtrack, so I told them I didn’t want to press charges.

I also didn’t think I could mentally deal with the fact that a defence lawyer would be being paid to sift through my social media and my private life and find reasons why I deserved what happened to me, so I just left it and that’s where I am now.’

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RECENTLY, I was followed home by a neighbour from the pub who I knew well and who I thought was happily married and trusted.

But he grabbed and forced himself on me, he put his tongue down my throat and touched me inappropriately.

He stalked me the following day and tried to apologise but made me feel it was my fault as I was showing some cleavage.

He told me most women at the pub didn’t mind attention from guys and I should be flattered.

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I WAS 15 when I was raped by two older boys who I thought were friends.

They told me I brought it on myself for being gay. I believed them and was so ashamed that I told no one for over 20 years until I sought counselling for PTSD as the flashbacks were impacting my daily life.

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I WAS walking home at about 9.30pm down Brock Road and a man caught up to me and started talking to me – he had clearly been drinking.

I sped up but he chased me, put his hand on the small of my back then slid it between my legs – I was in jeans. I slugged him with my shoulder bag and carried on home. I told my parents who were horrified but I was unconcerned – it was not an unusual occurrence. I was 13 years old and am now in my 60s.

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I WAS out with friends, having a few drinks and a good time.

It was crowded in the last bar we went to and, after getting inside after a long queue of rowdy and loud people out for the evening, I stood in line to get a drink.

While I was there, I felt a hand across my lower back. I was unnerved, but didn’t think much of it, these things happen in a crowd all too often. Then, the hand lowered.

I couldn’t believe it at first but they had put their hand inside of my jeans, inside of my underwear and were squeezing my bottom.

I tried to turn around and move away but there were so many people that I couldn’t.

The next thing, I felt his hand quickly slip out of my jeans and he rubbed ‘himself’ up against my bottom.

I was horrified and didn’t know what to do. As he side-stepped away, all I saw was his grinning face followed by a yellow jumper/coat – I did not know this person. Even if I did, this would not be OK.

Within seconds, I had told my friends and was outside the bar hyperventilating.

This has affected me in so many ways and I’m now really worried about being in a crowded place. This is sadly not the first time this has happened to me but it was the first time in Guernsey.

Since this event, I have spoken openly about it to some of my friends who have shared similar stories, many far worse than mine.

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I WAS 12 when a man in his 50s forcibly kissed me while pushing his hand down my underwear. I told my Dad (who knew him) and he said he would deal with it. We never spoke of it again.

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AT THE age of 11 a bloke kissed me and I told his sister.

He hadn’t wanted people to know so he fractured my fingers by twisting me around in a swing I was sitting on with metal chains and trapped them – refusing to undo it even when I screamed, because I had told his secrets.

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IN THE field at school, I was introduced to vodka – rather a lot in one go.

Whilst I was passed out in the field a guy decided he’d ‘have a go’. I woke up to find him inside me.

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I WENT to stay at my ex-boyfriend’s house when his parents were on holiday (we had split up but we were friends). When I got there he said I was to be staying in his bed. I didn’t like that idea, I’d have preferred the spare room, or the sofa.

But I said OK – on the condition it was just as friends. He agreed. But then he changed his mind later. He put a pillow over my head and told me it didn’t make any difference if I screamed. He said if I told anyone they wouldn’t believe me. I was covered in bruises. One of my friends I told (because I was quite vocal about it) went to the police. I gave a statement. He didn’t even receive a caution because there was ‘no evidence’ at that point because I wasn’t the one to report it.

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WHEN I was 16 a male friend asked to take me out for dinner and I agreed, thinking it was a friendly thing. I didn’t see an ulterior motive.

He took me to a nice restaurant and insisted on buying me an expensive meal and a whole bottle of wine to myself. I didn’t really want to drink it all, but he kept insisting and making me feel bad that he’d paid for it and that I wasn’t drinking it. So I did.

We went back to his to watch a film and he immediately kissed me. I didn’t know what to do at the time so I kissed him back.

I don’t remember saying no at first, but I don’t remember saying yes. I remember being underneath him and we started to have sex. There was a point where I felt my brain become less fuzzy and I could focus more. It hurt.

I asked him to stop and he did for 10 seconds or so, then he carried on without me saying it was OK for him to do so.

I told him to stop again and he did the same thing. I asked again but he didn’t that time, he flipped me over and my face was pressed into the mattress so I couldn’t really breathe.

It seemed to go on for ages and I was crying into his shoulder but it didn’t seem to matter to him. He made me swallow it.

After it was over, he said to me that having sex with me was his intention from the start and that’s why he took me out in the first place – I felt so disgusting.

I feel incredibly uncomfortable going to restaurants with a man now. I never really got a chance to explain what happened properly to my friends because they knew him too and they had already played the situation off as a ‘misunderstanding’ or an ‘unintentional mistake’ before I even got to tell them about the fact that he didn’t stop when I asked him to.

I’ve never really felt comfortable with sharing my stories until now. Having had things like this happen to me made it really difficult for me in regards to dating. It took me so long to become comfortable in myself again. Things NEED to change. Rape and assault culture in Guernsey is bigger than people think, it resides in so many friend groups and is downplayed in so many more.

As a member of multiple minority groups as well as being a woman, walking alone at night is one of the most nerve-racking things I will ever do.

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About a year and-a-half ago after a party one night I allowed a boy to sleep on my sofa while my friend and I would sleep in my room. On my way up to my room he took my phone and said he wouldn’t give it back without a kiss.

I got annoyed and said no but the more I said no the more he kept pushing. I kissed him even though I didn’t want to, thinking it would be the end of the situation.

Instead, as soon as I pulled away I was pushed onto the sofa and my wrists were pinned down either side of me by his hands.

He kept trying to kiss me, even though I was literally twisting my head from side to side, giving off a clear signal that I didn’t want it.

It was at this point I began really panicking and telling him outright ‘no’ and ‘stop’ over and over again.

But instead of stopping he just held me down with more force and started kissing down my neck as if he thought he could somehow change my mind?

This only stopped after I used all my weight and strength to half-push and half-roll him off the sofa and onto the floor.

I am lucky enough to be able to say that this was all that happened that night.

However, I found myself suffering with the memory of the events of the evening for a long time afterwards. I often catch myself thinking, ‘did he even know that was wrong? What would have happened if I hadn’t been able to push him off me? What would have happened if it was a smaller girl than me without the same strength? or a drunk girl unable to even move?’

Guernsey is a small island and it is often a place commented on for its safety and security. However, I do feel that assault and harassment over here are incredibly under-reported and very often dismissed all because no one wants to listen to survivors and address the fact that the perpetrators of these crimes are people we all know in the community.

Guernsey must do better on educating young people on sexual harassment and it must also implement prosecution reform and stronger sentences to those convicted of sex crimes in order to combat this increasingly prevalent issue.

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My friend and I were really drunk at a party where I didn’t really know many people.

I willingly walked into the bedroom. The men in there were much older than me. They made me uncomfortable when I said to stop, and when they didn’t I felt like there was nothing I could do.

The next day when the drunk memories came back to me it was so strange because it was like I wasn’t really there.

What makes it worse is that I’m the one that felt embarrassed and ashamed and they didn’t/don’t seem to have an issue.

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The island has its own sad record of violence against women

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Support resources: Guernsey Mind, Safer, Victim Support, Samaritans