The death of 25-year-old Noelia Castillo Ramos after a 601-day legal fight for assisted dying has reignited anger over how sexual violence devastates lives, with a UK abuse solicitor sharing his thoughts
Last month, paralysed gang rape victim Noelia Castillo Ramos died after receiving medical assistance to end her life, bringing to a close a landmark case that sparked global debate and involved a 601-day legal battle.
Her case sparked worldwide outrage. Many have highlighted the system’s failure, as Ramos said she was sexually assaulted twice, first by an ex-partner and later in 2022 by three males, which she described as a decisive moment that changed the course of her life.
Legal rulings said she later tried to take her own life in October 2022 by jumping from a fifth-floor apartment window while under the influence of cocaine, after an earlier attempt in which she overdosed on medication.
Medical reports state the fall left her paralysed from the waist down, with severe, chronic and disabling pain and no prospect of recovery, eventually leading to her becoming one of the youngest people to receive medical assistance in dying. “Well, she was a victim of several sexual assaults, I mean her story is not uncommon,” Malcolm Johnson, Head of Abuse Claims at Lime Solicitors, said.
Johnson has had his fair share of seeing the cracks in the justice system and how those failings can leave sexual abuse victims without answers for years. A solicitor for more than 30 years, he specialises in civil “abuse compensation” claims.
Moreover, he represents people who have been abused, mainly those sexually abused in childhood, but also adults who have suffered sexual, physical or emotional abuse. He also guides them through the process of seeking compensation and accountability.
The revictimisation phenomenon
Johnson exclusively told the Daily Star: “I come across cases like [Ramos’] all the time, and I understand that she was placed [in state-supervised facilities for vulnerable youths].
“But the trouble is that if you are sexually abused, sometimes what it can mean is that you are more vulnerable to sexual abuse again and again and again.
“So you’ll have people who are abused, and it might be a boyfriend, it might be a husband, but it just carries on because abusers have a certain mindset and they’re very good at picking those people who are vulnerable. That’s what they do.
“So you’ve got to understand that dynamic.” Recent UK data suggests many survivors of sexual abuse and assault face a significant risk of being targeted again.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that, for the year ending March 2025, around 51.8% of people who had experienced sexual assault by rape or penetration since the age of 16 said they had been victimised more than once. Among female victims specifically, the ONS found 52.9% reported repeat victimisation.
Nearly a quarter (23.6%) said they had been assaulted more than three times. Research also points to a strong link between abuse in childhood and later vulnerability.
Experts also warn that the environment around survivors can increase risk. Studies suggest hostile social attitudes, including victim-blaming and “rape myths”, can contribute to revictimisation, while some survivors report “secondary victimisation” through the criminal justice process, where cases can take years and victims are repeatedly asked to revisit traumatic events.
“The root problem was her pain”
“Now in [Ramos’] case, what happened is that she tried to commit suicide and became paraplegic,” Johnson continued. “The root problem was the pain that she suffered.”
He further stated: “She was able to get a court order after a lot of fighting that she should be allowed to end her own life, which is absolutely tragic. I was quite shocked when I saw that.
“You know people do commit suicide because they have suffered sexual crimes. So it’s not surprising that somebody would want to take their life.
“I mean, what is shocking is that they were able to say to the state, ‘I want a court order’, and and the state gave that court order. I’m not against assisted dying.
“I think assisted dying is actually a good idea. I think we should have the Spanish system.
“But to somebody in England, I think it’s shocking because it shows us clearly what the effect of sexual crime is. And it’s tragic that the Spanish case brings it home to us about how serious the effect of this problem in society is.”
“It clearly showed us the effect of sexual crime”
While Ramos’ tragic case unfolded in Spain, it doesn’t mean the issues it exposed are confined there. In the UK, Johnson says victims can face years of delay and a system struggling under pressure.
He said: “The biggest problem that we have for victims of rape, I would say, is the amount of time that it takes for their case to come to court. Just to give you some idea of how bad this is, [one of my clients] went to the police in 2019, but he didn’t get a decision until right at the end of 2024 in the Crown Court.
“So it took five years at least for his abuser to be convicted in the Crown Court, and he was the only person giving evidence as well. There were no other witnesses.
“So, a major deterrent for many of my clients is the amount of time that it takes to get a serious sexual crime case into the Crown Court.” According to the solicitor, delays for victims are being driven by systemic underfunding.
He blamed “a lack of resources in our justice system”, saying governments “have not invested enough money into courts”, and warned the knock-on effect is that “the whole system just gets slower and slower and slower”. He revealed: “I’ve never seen anything like this. It has got slower and slower over the years.
“We’ve definitely seen a real slowdown. We’re talking about serious sexual crimes which go into a crown court and the courts are just getting slower and slower.”
Amid an 80,000-case Crown Court backlog, the government has introduced the Courts and Tribunals Bill to speed up and modernise the justice system, aiming to deliver “faster and fairer justice for victims”. It pairs record investment, allowing Crown Courts to sit unlimited days next year and funding repairs to the court estate, with structural reforms such as giving judges more control over where cases are heard and creating a new “Bench Division” for less serious cases to be dealt with more quickly.
The Bill would also expand magistrates’ sentencing powers, streamline appeals, and allow some complex fraud trials to be heard by a judge alone, while protecting jury trials for the most serious offences. Ministers warn that without reform, the backlog could rise to around 130,000 cases by 2030 and 200,000 by 2035.
“I’ve never seen anything like this”
Johnson also warned that even when cases are pursued, the process can deepen trauma because “the problem with any kind of litigation or any kind of prosecution or any kind of legal process is that it’s not therapeutic”.
He said victims can be forced to repeatedly revisit what happened, while handing over intensely personal information to “a complete stranger”. Cases like Ramos’ should serve as a warning about the wider impact of sexual violence and the strain placed on survivors when justice drags on, Johnson argues.
He said the system can be punishing in itself because “you have to go through all of these hurdles for a very long time”, leaving some people feeling “it’s just not worth it”.
And where criminal prosecutions fail to materialise, he added, survivors are often left with only one route. He said: “The reason why we have compensation claims is that sometimes the criminal process just does not work.
“So there is no criminal prosecution.”
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