Sexual Assault and the Statute of Limitations


It’s that time of year again, October’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Each year here in the US many people organizes events to help raise awareness against violence and abuse. We do need to see as many purple ribbons, as we see pink ribbons for Breast Cancer Awareness. I’m sure we’ll get there.


As each year passes we slowly get a little further with changes for victims, notably this week we have seen the state of California lift its Statute of Limitations for Sexual Assault. This is going to be interesting.


Years ago, when we were assaulted, we were given the ‘it happened, it’s really nothing, it happens all the time, don’t know why you're upset, stop it and get on with your life’. Do any of these sound familiar?


I had all those comments thrown at me after I was assaulted. It was difficult at the time because it had extra weight added to it. I was a mortgage broker with my own business in the UK, working closely with several mortgage lenders. It was a good time to get a mortgage, even a sub-prime mortgage. Rates were low with fixed terms and low redemption rates. They were as good as mainstream lenders, some were better! There was one, in particular, if we are talking about giving a client the best mortgage it was usually placed with the lender in London.


The business relationship had been wonderful for two years, we had become friends with some of the directors. The marketing director had invited us to London for their events, in turn, we invited him down to ours. It was a good business relationship, until one weekend.


Many people bad gathered in Devon to see a solar eclipse. The evening before he arrived, I cooked, we all had a wonderful meal, went to the seafront, wandering around the fair, watching the firework display. We were friends having a relaxing evening. We had invited him down for s couple of reasons, he was a friend who really wanted to see the eclipse in the path of totality and we knew he was stressed. They had gone over the credit limit with the bank and it had pulled funding from them. Their mistake, they should have kept s closer eye on their line of credit. It had caused us immense problems, but we stayed loyal, as they had done with us.


It was later that evening when we got home the problems started. We sat on the sofa chatting until my partner went to collect something from our offices attached to our house. As soon as he disappeared, the marketing director lunged at me, hands everywhere, trying to kiss me, as I struggled to get his hands out of my blouse and pants.


PHF Magazine October 2016 4


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