I used to be raped by a colleague from McDonalds – nonetheless nothing has occurred

After six months of ready, hoping, worrying, the e-mail lastly arrived. I took a number of deep breaths to calm my racing coronary heart earlier than clicking on the attachment. Scanning by means of the opening paragraphs of HR jargon, I reached a paragraph bluntly entitled: ‘Rape’.

It learn: ‘Despite trying, [we were] unable to speak to the alleged perpetrator.’ There had been a number of additional strains noting that my experiences will need to have been ‘difficult’ and that I used to be ‘brave’ for collaborating within the investigation.

And that, as far I may see, was that.

At work on the time, I used to be left sobbing in a nook of my workplace. I had upturned my life as soon as extra, torn open outdated wounds, gone time and again it — and for what? To be left feeling that what had occurred didn’t matter; that I didn’t matter.

Seven years earlier than, simply eight days after my 18th birthday, I had been raped. A devastating ordeal that had triggered a spiral of disgrace and self-recrimination, impacted subsequent relationships and led to estrangement from my household and a suicide try.

My rapist had been a colleague from McDonald’s, the place I had labored part-time. The electronic mail was from the fast-food big after they performed an investigation triggered by my writing concerning the assault on this newspaper.

I had felt compelled to talk out final summer season when headlines abounded concerning the toxicity of the work tradition at McDonald’s. Employees alleged that sexual assaults, racism and homophobia had been rife. In a BBC investigation, one former worker alleged {that a} male co-worker would contact a lot youthful feminine employees sexually, within the cramped confines of the kitchen.

Telling the world about essentially the most susceptible second of my life was the scariest choice I had ever made, however when McDonald’s received in contact, wanting to research the ‘appalling and deeply disturbing’ allegations, I once more summoned all of the energy I may muster.

I endured a three-hour interview with the exterior lawyer McDonald’s had assigned to research, supplied contact particulars for key witnesses, a recording of the harrowing two-hour police interview that had finally led to nothing and police screenshots of the textual content messages my rapist despatched admitting he raped me.

Doing so was re-traumatising on many ranges, however I informed myself it was definitely worth the ache if it lastly resulted in some form of justice. So to be dismissed through electronic mail felt bruising, to say the very least.

Tragically, my case is a single drop in an ocean of girls let down by a clumsy judicial system. In the 12 months to December 2021, there have been 67,125 rape offences recorded — an all-time excessive. Only 5 per cent of these resulted in a cost, and it may be as much as 5 years earlier than circumstances truly attain court docket. I now know that the company world isn’t any completely different.

I had simply turned 17 once I joined McDonald’s whereas learning for my A-levels. Initially the whole lot appeared regular. But over the following few months, there was a creeping sense of apprehension hooked up to shifts which I didn’t fairly perceive.

I used to be deemed younger and fairly sufficient to be put in customer-facing roles: ‘t**s on tills’, because the unstated rule decreed. I started to note that male workers made up excuses to speak and flirt with me away from prying eyes.

My rapist usually labored out of view of the principle restaurant and kitchen. He would nook me in corridors, make up excuses to speak to me and ship flirtatious on-line messages. I considered him as considerably over-friendly, however however sort. But once I informed him I used to be leaving in late 2016, the whole lot modified.

He claimed to be devastated, saying he’d had a crush on me since my first ever shift and had been terrified to inform me. He stated he was decided to make me his girlfriend and, after weeks of coercion, I agreed to satisfy with him one morning, not lengthy after my ultimate shift. He insisted on coming to see me at my house.

Once there he assaulted me, compelled me to hold out intercourse acts on him and raped me.

I’m satisfied this man felt he may act with impunity due to the grossly misogynistic angle amongst male employees members that the BBC’s investigation discovered was pervasive throughout the entire company.

He might not have punched me or strangled me, however the ache I felt that day was the worst of my life.

I had by no means had intercourse earlier than, so when he instantly plunged his hand down my underwear and three of his fingers inside me, my physique clamped right into a spasm of shock. I stated all of the ‘right’ issues. I informed him I didn’t wish to. I informed him he was hurting me. I stated no. Reduced to desperation, I used to be left begging him to cease.

But he pushed me to the ground, was on high of me, and in a cut up second I knew there was nothing that I may do to cease him. Pure terror took over and I froze.

Afterwards, he acted as if nothing had occurred. Petrified and nonetheless in shock, it wasn’t till hours later, once I phoned ChildLine in tears, that I started to understand what he had achieved to me. Desperate to rid myself of his lingering presence, I showered and threw my garments within the wash — however in doing so I inadvertently destroyed very important DNA proof. I by no means wore the garments once more.

The subsequent day, my finest pal and I despatched a message confronting my attacker. I felt bodily sick when he responded by claiming he ‘didn’t actually perceive’ once I informed him no and begged him to cease.

It astounds me nonetheless that he didn’t ever deny that he had raped me. Instead, he stated he ‘would never treat you like that ever again’, and ‘I care about you more than anything’.

It was ten days earlier than I discovered the braveness to inform the member of the family I used to be dwelling with. Then I went to the police, recounting the assault in a gruelling video interview. I allowed them full entry to cellphone information, employment historical past, college reviews. Yet once more, I did the ‘right’ factor.

But they submitted the file to the CPS 5 months later, by which era the CPS concluded there was not sufficient proof to convict my attacker. The police took nice care to elucidate that it was my fault it had resulted in no prosecution — although they didn’t interview witnesses till months after I reported the assault; in addition they repeatedly failed to show as much as scheduled interviews with them.

Because the rape had occurred after the top of my contract, I by no means thought to report it to McDonald’s.

Meanwhile, the assault continued to take its toll on me. At college I turned suicidal and was admitted to hospital after self-harming. A matter of months later I used to be once more rushed to A&E after overdosing.

In the seven years since, I’ve rebuilt my life, solid a profitable profession as a author and eventually really feel as if this assault not controls my life.

And after talking out, publicly, McDonald’s took my allegations critically, naming them ‘appalling and deeply disturbing’. The firm stated it wished to ‘investigate thoroughly and take the swiftest necessary action’.

It handed on a cellphone quantity for me to name, and a member of their workforce gave me the spiel about how McDonald’s was enhancing as an organization and was eager to research the rape, the circumstances main as much as it, and the broader working ambiance within the restaurant the place I used to be employed.

Per week later I used to be contacted by the legislation agency employed to research its failings. In a single three-hour interview, the KC informed me he didn’t must ask me many questions on the rape as a result of I had supplied him with the police paperwork.

Looking again on the two-hour tape of the police interview is likely one of the hardest issues I’ve ever achieved. Watching my damaged self, my clean stare, my sobs, my shock as I used to be requested query after query — ‘Who took off your underwear?’ ‘Did it hurt?’ ‘Did you tell him it hurt?’ ‘How many times did you tell him to stop?’ — shouldn’t be one thing I would want on anybody. Even him.

The solely query the lawyer requested was whether or not it was ‘only the sexual intercourse’ I had not agreed to. I needed to clarify how I didn’t consent to something that man did to me that day — and the way, at every second, I clearly expressed that lack of consent. I answered the whole lot he requested about work practices intimately. I gave him cellphone numbers and electronic mail addresses for key witnesses, together with my finest pal.

I by no means spoke to the lawyer once more, and though he did get in contact with a few of my former colleagues to debate the working setting, he by no means contacted anybody who knew I had been raped.

Nearly six months later, I obtained the end result through electronic mail. A member of the HR workforce phoned me to debate it 4 days later. To my shock, she was beneath the impression I had been often up to date all through the method.

She was shocked once I informed her I had had no contact with anybody in months. She later informed me that they ‘had expected our investigators to maintain contact with people throughout the process’.

Since that decision, I now know, emphatically, that there’ll by no means be any accountability or punishment for the person who did this to me — as that they had been ‘unable to speak to the alleged perpetrator’.

It wasn’t till a subsequent electronic mail that McDonald’s defined what this meant. They had despatched a single message to the e-mail tackle that they had for him on file, solely to obtain no response. They informed me that in such a scenario there was ‘nothing that we can do’ to pressure him to reply, as they don’t have statutory powers to research crimes. The investigation into the rape ended.

Though the assault didn’t occur on McDonald’s premises, and befell after I left the corporate, I strongly really feel that it was solely potential due to my McDonald’s bosses turning a blind eye to predatory behaviour throughout my time within the office.

McDonald’s exterior lawyer discovered that ‘it was common for female employees to be placed in customer facing roles’ — in reference to the ‘t**s on tills’ tactic. He additionally discovered that, amongst different issues, ‘in the past, some male crew members, on occasion, made comments to and about their female colleagues’.

They assured me that insurance policies have since been up to date to guard employees. Despite this, I imagine the ‘investigation’ was a hole show of concern for PR functions. This had been my ultimate probability at receiving any form of recognition for what I’ve been by means of.

I held out the useless hope that, lastly, my rapist would face some semblance of punishment. Or, on the very least, that my ordeal could be extra absolutely acknowledged by those that didn’t implement protecting measures for his or her employees. Instead, I’m left with an egregious sense of injustice. The ache of re-probing such a hopeless interval of my life was, unequivocally, not price this.

A McDonald’s spokesperson informed the Mail: ‘Last year, Elizabeth contacted us to report an incident involving a former colleague, in a non-work environment, that occurred a few months after she finished her employment with us. We immediately ordered an independent King’s Counsel-led investigation pursuing each out there line of inquiry.

‘These allegations came to light after both employees had left the business, limiting the KC’s powers of inquiry and recourse.

‘While we fully appreciate that the findings do not reflect the conclusion that Elizabeth was seeking, this does not in any way undermine her courage in coming forward. There is absolutely no place for harassment, abuse, or discrimination of any kind at McDonald’s; all confirmed breaches of our code of conduct might be met with essentially the most extreme measures we are able to legally impose, as much as and together with dismissal.’

In reference to the police investigation, a West Mercia Police spokesperson informed the Mail: ‘We launched an investigation as soon as we received the report. An arrest was made within 24 hours, all available evidence was gathered, and a file submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service less than five months later. We commend Miss Haigh for her bravery in talking about her experiences and are sorry to hear she was unhappy with the handling of her case.’

Their phrases give me no consolation. My attacker stole years of my life. I didn’t have intercourse once more for 3 years after the assault. I developed such extreme vaginismus — the place emotions of concern trigger your vaginal muscular tissues to uncontrollably tighten in response to makes an attempt at penetration — that it was, for a time, unattainable. Even to this present day, relationships stay laborious.

The assault nonetheless haunts my waking moments, reappearing in torrid nightmares. It won’t ever go away me. Yet my rapist roams free.

Meanwhile, I have to scrape collectively the remnants of my psychological well being and restart my life as soon as once more following this newest setback. I shared my story final 12 months as a result of I needed somebody to be held accountable. I’m dropping hope anybody ever might be.

• If you’re affected by any of the problems on this article, contact Rape Crisis on 0808 500 2222, or the Samaritans on 116 123.