LIKE all victims of sexual offences, Suzannah Mahe was entitled to lifelong anonymity. It was a right she chose to waive.
“I’m trying to do it for others, so that other women see that they’re not alone,” she said.
Miss Mahe spoke in June at a Westminster Insight conference, and is due to give another account of her experience at an event which is due to take place shortly after yesterday’s sentencing of her abuser, Gavin Roberts.
She wants to speak in favour of making non-fatal strangulation a specific offence and for more people to use Clare’s Law, which enables the police to reveal whether somebody’s partner has a previous conviction for violence. The law was named after Clare Wood, who was murdered by her abusive ex-boyfriend in 2009.
Commenting on her decision to waive anonymity, Ms Mahe said: “There are quite a few women in Jersey who have lived experience and want to talk about it, but are just not being heard.”
The court allowed Miss Mahe to read out a statement about the impact the abuse had had on her. Within that, she pointed to long-standing mental-health consequences.
“I think my health is going to be a journey for the rest of my life, unfortunately,” she said, adding that she was “ashamed” that non-fatal strangulation was not a standalone offence in Jersey.
She said: “That is a person putting their hands around your neck to do harm.
“And in this case, when he did it, he said he wanted to kill me.”
Sarah Hamon, the service manager at Jersey Domestic and Sexual Abuse Support, agreed and said that the Domestic Abuse Law, which came in last year, had been “a missed opportunity” to legislate.
After the non-fatal strangulation, Miss Mahe was diagnosed with an upper airway dysfunction and paradoxical vocal cord dysfunction, as well as potential asthma.
She said that getting a diagnosis had been difficult, as doctors dismissed her symptoms as psychological, even though she had never had asthma before.
“I lost my voice and it felt like I was being strangled over and over again,” she said.
New guidelines suggested
The case could be a landmark in the prosecution of rapes.
With nine Jurats assembled for the sentencing, the prosecution proposed a new way of sentencing rapes in Jersey.
Instead of using case law, Crown Advocate Matthew Maletroit suggested a “simpler and less formulaic” method than that which is used in the UK, with a range of sentences available.
Under this proposal, the starting point for sentencing would be five years’ imprisonment. The most serious offences would have a 15-year starting point, and judges could then add or deduct time, depending on circumstances.
A written statement will show whether the court used these suggested guidelines.
Police comment
Detective Inspector Aiden Quénault, who leads the States police’s public protection unit, said the 15-year sentence handed to Roberts “reflects the severity of the offences committed”.
“The offences were committed over a length of time against numerous different women,” he said.
“I would like to take time to recognise the strength of those women and thank those women for their strength in coming forward and supporting us through the prosecution and the investigation.”
He said the police took such crimes seriously and encouraged survivors to come forward.
DC Carla Garnier, who was in charge of the investigation, explained that victims came to the police through a variety of channels, including victims coming forward or discussing their case with the Jersey Domestic Abuse Service (though JDAS does not send them to the police), or through a friend.
DC Garnier explained: “Ordinarily, someone makes an approach to the police, and the process that follows is that they will be offered [the opportunity] to make a complaint. In these type of cases, it will be by video and audio interview. It wouldn’t be a written statement like it normally is.
“It’s in those interviews, called Achieving Best Evidence, that people probably feel more at ease to talk about things, rather than telling you about it, waiting for you to write it down. Things come out more freely and, more times than not, it’s in those interviews that [they voice] things from the past or concerns that they previously had and never told anyone.
“The complainant will give various lines of inquiries. Then our job as the investigating officer is to follow those lines of inquiry and almost try to corroborate what they’re saying.”
In this case, with some of the incidents having happened in Turkey, there were still gaps in the story that the police were able to piece together.
“But I think that from the moment Suzie made the disclosure, her account remained very similar throughout,” DC Garnier added.
“It was very difficult. Simple things like trying to speak to the local force or getting CCTV from the hotel or speaking to staff members at the hotel [in Turkey] was quite tricky, and, in the end, there wasn’t really much as a result of those inquiries, but those were inquiries that I still needed to follow.”
After being told, through Clare’s Law, that Gavin had a history of domestic abuse, Miss Mahe started documenting attacks and immediately took photos of her injuries when she had been assaulted the night before.
As a result of the investigation, additional voyeurism charges were put to Roberts, stemming from videos found on a hard drive that were “consistent with the offence of voyeurism”, DC Garnier said.
She also commended a friend who had raised the alarm, filing police reports on Miss Mahe’s behalf. DC Garnier said: “She needs to be commended for coming forward, because [if she hadn’t], I don’t think Suzie would have, and if Suzie hadn’t, would we have had the other ladies that followed? Probably not.”
