A woman raped by her father has exposed the failings of misogynistic police during her four-decade-long fight for justice.
Carol Higgins, from West Yorkshire, was repeatedly raped and abused by Elliot Appleyard in her youth; Her father, now 77, was convicted of five counts of rape and 10 counts of indecent assault in 2019.
West Yorkshire Police have now made a major U-turn and finally apologized to Ms Higgins for the long wait to convict her father.
talk with Independent Ms Higgins said in an exclusive interview that when she first reported her father to the police for raping her in 1984, a police officer told her that if the case went to court “you will be the biggest liar and slag”.
The 54-year-old said: “Their failure to investigate meant I had to constantly fight to ensure a rapist faced criminal justice.”
Ms Higgins said the police apology was the first time in 39 years that West Yorkshire Police acknowledged her father’s crimes were not dealt with “effectively and promptly”.
The mother of two has been fighting in civil court for four years against the police accused of violating her human rights; This resulted in the police apologizing and paying £15,000 compensation.
Ms Higgins said it had taken more than 30 years for police to take her allegations seriously, as she reported her father’s abuse on five separate occasions from 1984 to 2015.
He said: “The constant fighting and pushing took an additional toll on my mental and physical health.”
West Yorkshire Police Chief Constable John Robins apologized in a letter. IndependentHe said he waited a long time for his father’s conviction, and in 2015 the investigating officer who oversaw the case admitted he had not completed his training.
“Communication should have been more frequent and clearer,” he says in his letter. “It is accepted that this failure has further increased your pain and distress and it is accepted that you have tried to raise this but there has been no reconciliation. “It is accepted that derogatory language was used about you during the investigation and comments were made by the officers that should never be made.”
The spokesperson of the force told Independent: “The chief constable apologized directly to the complainant on behalf of West Yorkshire Police and gave his personal assurance that the force had learned from the mistakes made in his case.”
I first reported my father to the police in 1984, when I was 15, for raping me. I had to give a 17-page statement and endure internal forensic tests. They made me jump up and down on the blotting paper and I was bleeding inside.
Carol Higgins
Ms Higgins said the apology “recognised that their failure to investigate meant I had to constantly fight to ensure a rapist faced criminal justice”.
He added: “This re-traumatized me and compounded my suffering, causing significant additional distress and unnecessarily delaying my recovery.”
It comes after West Yorkshire Police and the Independent Office for Police Conduct said nothing needed to be learned or improved following his case.
Her father was sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexual offenses Ms Higgins committed when she was between 14 and 15 years old.
Ms Higgins, who has written two books about her experiences, said she was “petrified” by her father being released from prison within a few years because he had previously threatened to kill her.
“I saw him hold a gun, telling my mother that he was going to kill her, and cut her from her vagina to her neck with machetes,” he said. “He committed domestic violence against her.”
She added that her father normalized his sexual abuse of her by claiming that all fathers “forced their daughters into their homes” and that some of his friends lived with their daughters as husband and wife. Ms Higgins said she was made to wear her father’s wife’s engagement ring.
Ms Higgins recalled: “I first reported my father to the police in 1984 for raping me when I was 15. I had to give a 17-page statement and endure internal forensic tests. They made me jump up and down on the blotting paper and I was bleeding inside.
“While I was still at the police station, a police officer said to me: “If this case goes to court, your name will be tarnished, you will be dragged through the mud and shown as the biggest liar and slag. Can you handle this?”
Stating that the abuse meant that she lost her father, her childhood, her “innocence and sense of self-worth”, the woman explained that when she was only 16 years old, she was forced to live alone “in a cold, rented house, without anyone, without fear”. to return”.
He said he lost count of the number of times police accused him of lying, adding that he was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and underwent years of therapy.
“I have nightmares,” he said. “If I saw someone who looked like him on the street, I would panic and sweat.”
Ms Higgins said she was keen to raise awareness of paternal rape because it was “taboo” and “an ugly or sensitive topic that people don’t want to think about or acknowledge”.
“If you can’t trust your mom and dad to love and protect you, who else will?” asked.
Rape Crisis offers support to those affected by rape and sexual abuse. You can call them in England and Wales on 0808 802 9999, in Scotland on 0808 801 0302 and in Northern Ireland on 0800 0246 991 or visit their website at: www.rapecrisis.org.uk. If you’re in the US, you can call Rainn at 800-656-HOPE (4673).