I really do think that this debate will help people.

The fact that we are not fully able to integrate policing into the referral pathways that I referred to and the support networks has a hugely detrimental impact on the survivor, any survivor, of a hideous crime like rape. If policing and justice were devolved, we'd be able to look at less traumatic ways of reporting that involve health practitioners, support groups—all these other services that are already working together—and avoid that cold examination room where things so often go wrong.

Just to be clear: rape is a hideous crime. It's not just a physical act. It is designed to eat away at someone psychologically, to rob them of their agency, to take control in the basest, most degrading way possible. Rape isn't about sexual desire or intimacy. It is about asserting power and taking someone's power away. 

We need a system of justice that gives survivors confidence to regain some of that power; a system that supports them alongside other services; a system that is closer to that principal meaning of justice—providing just and reasonable treatment, a recourse to what is fair. Now, there's no fairness in rape. It cannot be undone. But we as a society, an entire society, owe it to survivors to give them a system that shores them up, that begins the path to make things bearable again, that reminds them that there are people and structures in place to support them. Because the justice system we have now is just not good enough.