I know how a sexual assault on public transport never leaves you

As British Transport Police reveal that reports of sexual assaults and harassment on trains have risen 37 per cent in 10 years, the author Alexandra Heminsley recalls the trauma of being assaulted while pregnant – and the hopelessness she felt when the resulting prosecution failed

Last week’s report on the rise in reports of sexual assaults and harassment on trains will have made grimly unsurprising reading for most women who use the UK’s train network: a freedom of information request from the BBC to British Transport Police (BTP) found a 37 per cent increase in reports of sexual offences since 2015.

This rise of more than a third in 10 years contains a kernel of positivity: BTP do now seem to encourage women to report crimes, are clearer on what constitutes these crimes, and run intelligence-led operations using “plainclothes officers who are specially trained to identify offenders”.

However, it also conceals a bleaker truth: the number of these reports that lead to arrests, let alone convictions. As our criminal justice system continues to buckle under the weight of underfunding and delays, women in the UK are increasingly realising that sexual assaults are not crimes that lead to punishment for most men. Meanwhile, a Labour government and minister for women who talked big about “halving violence against women and girls in a decade” seems to have focused its scant attention on the vanishingly small risk of assault in single-sex spaces.

These moments are unutterably terrifying, leading you to question what sort of woman you are in a crisis (Courtesy of Alexandra Heminsley)

The actual risk of sexual assault on public transport is not just a source of anxiety for women who use it, but one of fear and frustration. Even when, as happened in my case, BTP do all they can to arrest a suspect and encourage victims to take the assault seriously enough to file a complaint, the lack of convictions hammers home the bigger systemic battle that women face to simply travel in safety.

I was eight months pregnant when I was assaulted. I was close enough to my due date that I was travelling, as instructed, with my blue book of medical records and had a less-than-alluring spill of olive oil down the front of my maternity dress. Not that the perpetrator noticed any of this, on account of his inebriation.

When something you have long feared finally happens just as you least expect it, what happens next replays in your mind for months, years. I had got up from my seat and moved when I saw someone drunk enough to fall on my bump take the spot opposite me. He drunkenly insulted and grabbed at me when I passed. As I felt his hot hand on my behind, I also felt my blood run entirely cold: I knew I was on one of the then newly conductorless Thameslink trains, and that with half an hour reception-free through the South Downs between East Croydon and Brighton ahead of me, there was no one coming to help.

These moments are unutterably terrifying for women. Trapped in a moving metal tube, with no idea what might happen next, your world immediately shrinks. In an instant, future choices are made: plans you haven’t even made yet are cancelled in case they mean a train home alone, trust in people you haven’t even met yet is stopped in its tracks, and confidence in “what sort of woman you are in a crisis” crumbles.

In my case, I had absolute confidence that I had the system on my side. I was sober while he demonstrably wasn’t. There was CCTV of me moving across the train. I was able to contact BTP once I had reception, and separate teams met both me and then him at the station, where he was immediately arrested. I was treated with respect by every officer I encountered, and when my case made it to the magistrates’ court nearly a year later, I was sure that my sobriety, my reliability and my genuine vulnerability in this moment would all stand me in good stead.

The risk of sexual assault on public transport is not just a source of anxiety for women who use it, but one of fear and frustration (Getty)

So, when the perpetrator was found innocent, my world shrank even further. The magistrate who led the case – a man – concluded that, as the CCTV was slightly obstructed by my coat, it could have been the strap of my bag I had felt, not the clammy heat of a middle-aged man’s hand. It could have a long-term impact on this man’s life for him to be convicted, when we couldn’t be sure what happened, this magistrate went on. With that, I was left to return home, the long-term impact on my life unmentioned by the court.

I know how shockingly far from alone I am in this experience. And I know that conductorless trains and a crumbling justice system can only have added to this situation since my assault. While I can take comfort in all BTP’s efforts to do their very best, what impact can any of it possibly have if the key deterrent of a conviction is still so lacking? I’d love to hear from our government on what they have planned, but it seems we must continue to rely on the goodwill of the public and the hope that tonight, ours will be one of the lucky trains.

Alexandra Heminsley is the author of several bestselling books, including The Queue (Orion) and Some Body to Love (Vintage)