The UK’s archaic court system is not fit for use

When I walked into court on 1 July 2022 to see my rapist Daniel McFarlane receive a sentence for his crimes against me, I expected to feel triumphant. This was my chance for closure. He’d been found guilty and now he would face the consequences. What I hadn’t anticipated, however, was that his defence lawyer Lorenzo Alonzi would use the hearing to launch into a tirade of insults against me – while I had to sit and listen in silence.

Alonzi spoke of how my first-class honours degree and masters with distinction were an ‘injustice’ compared to the fate of my abuser. How we were like ‘chalk and cheese’ in terms of sexual morality, and how really what happened wasn’t a serious crime, but rather a case of McFarlane having ‘fallen in love with the wrong person’. It was played off as a tragic love story, rather than a pattern of sick abuse at the hands of a convicted rapist.