CLARE knew as she stood in the shower after her rape that she would not report the crime to police.
"I have seen the absolute trauma and crisis of women who have been raped and assaulted by people they know and people they let into their homes," Clare said.
"It had happened, but it honestly seemed like it might be less traumatic to go to therapy than go to the police."
The Newcastle Herald reported on Thursday that Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research figures showed 849 sexual assault reports were made to Hunter police in 2020, up from 754 the previous year.
The number has risen about 10 per cent a year from 577 five years ago.
Clare said this figure would only be the tip of the iceberg.
"I feel like women already contemplate all the questions that will be asked of them and about them and about the scenario," she said.
"It all seems so very overwhelming and re-traumatising that why would anyone come forward when you know how low the rates of conviction actually are?
"It's easier to try and get therapy than get justice."
Clare said her rape occurred seven years ago, after she invited a man into her home.
"I had consented to stuff happening," she said.
"Then he started getting really rough and I said no. He was laughing at me, saying 'You like it, you're having fun, stop it. You asked me here, what did you want me here for?'
"Then I stopped being able to say no, because he pushed my head into my pillow and anally raped me.
"I was just trying to breathe honestly, I was so scared I was going to die. That's all I was really thinking about, was just trying to breathe."
Clare said she was frozen with fear.
"I just stayed still," she said. "He let me go and I heard him get up and I just stayed still.
"I always thought I would fight and I would kick and I would scream. I just stayed still.
"He got up, got dressed and I heard my front door close, his car start and then I knew that he was gone. I wasn't dead."
Clare said she stood up, vomited and had a shower.
She had an STD test and counselling, but didn't go to police.
"There's the whole 'real rape' thing," she said.
"If it's some random stranger who drags you off the street you get all of the sympathy.
"I was aware that I was really drunk, I'd invited him in, that it was going to be his word against mine and that doesn't seem to carry a lot of weight in the courts.
"I was also thinking of my career and I thought 'I don't want this to have happened, but I also don't want to have to be subjected to telling my story to people that will ask what I was wearing and ask what the circumstances were and ask exactly how much I'd had to drink'."
Clare said her world had changed in an instant - but her rapist's hadn't.
"I know that and I worry about what he might be out there doing to other women and so I also carry a tremendous amount of shame and guilt that I didn't do it and I wasn't willing to stand up and fight."
Clare said her decision not to report was influenced by an experience almost 20 years ago, when she was physically assaulted by a friend's ex-partner.
She reported it at Newcastle police station.
"Because he didn't break my arm they were like 'Eh, that's not that serious," she said.
"I was interrogated about what my relationship with his partner was and she was interrogated about what her relationship with me was.
"It was awful. I walked out of there feeling like maybe I'd done something wrong or bothered them somehow.
"There was never any follow up."
Clare said her rape had made her much less trusting.
"I have moments where I think I was lucky compared to some of my friends and people that I know, that he didn't kill me and that it ended relatively quickly, that it wasn't more violent," she said.
"You do all kinds of weird internal rationalisation about that stuff.
"It made me feel like I had joined the ranks of so many other women that just get no justice and it left me with a keen awareness that the systems that are designed to protect and serve don't actually do that if you're the victim of a rape, particularly if you're a victim of a rape where it's somebody you let into your house.
"Once you get away from that concept of 'real rape', there's a whole bunch of questions that get asked about me and very few questions that get asked about him."
Clare said sexual assault was a "huge problem" in Australia and existing systems were "inadequate".
"These experiences are not unique and they're not new, but we are not coming up with new solutions, or new systems, or new structures, or new ways of responding."
1800RESPECT
Rape Crisis Counselling Service: 1800 424 017
