7. Plaid Cymru Debate: Rape and Sexual Abuse

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:55 pm on 15 January 2020.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Jenny Rathbone Jenny Rathbone Labour 5:55, 15 January 2020

I just wanted to pick up on something that Leanne said earlier as to how all women have had some sort of assault on them. I was just reflecting on it, because when I was 18 years old, I gave a lift to a young man from a party. I'd never met him before, I knew nothing about him, but he just happened to live close to where I did. And, when I dropped him off at his house, and I refused to go in, he started beating me around the head, from nowhere. I was perfectly okay—I ran off and left my car, and then went back for it later—but the fact is, I never reported it to anybody; I never spoke to my parents about it and I never spoke to my friends about it. How deeply disturbed was this individual, who I'd never met before and never have met since, that he thought that he had a right to beat me over the head simply because I refused to go along with his advances? All of us must have had a similar experience. How many other people did that man do that sort of thing to, and how many of them succumbed to it? If we don't speak up, then people who are seriously disturbed will go on doing this sort of thing.