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After my catague three sexual assault trial i was in the special victims unit with the DPP. i spoke out in the Sunday Telegraph a nation wide newspaper in Australia about my experience and how it made me feel. That i was mentally scared by speaking out about this experience when i was in the witness box. When i went home i wanted to hide away under my bed and never speak to another human ever again as i was so traumatised by this. The Sunday Telegraph was doing a story on sexual assault survivors and how they are treated in trials. The article was called Justice for women and how there needs to be big changes to how sexual assault trials are handled. It also said how their needs to changes to how the jury and staff of the court need to be educated as to how sexual assault effects victims. How it needs to change so victims are not traumatized by this. As i was one of the worst sexual assault survivors in Australia at the time. i was raped for eight hours when i was seven and a half months pregnant and nearly lost my baby. I had two social workers supporting me at the trial to look after my well being, one from the DPP special victims unit and my case worker from the crisis center that i was involved with where i lived. I was not drugged or drunk in any way when sexually assaulted like some survivors are though. The Sunday Telegraph would ring me to ask me my opinion about what change need to happen to improve the system for other victims. I also went to the attorney general, the domestic violence prevention team to tell them my story so they could make changes in how victims are treated when in the witness box. i also was used in the police system to educate training detectives about what happens to rape victims and what they need from them and what helps them. i wanted to speak out about this because the amount of survivors who go to trial is really low and often it is not a pleasant experience for them to do this. i also had a member of Parliament talk to me about my experience and what needs to happen so my experience of abuse and abuse from the system does not happen to another victims and changes are made in Parliament for this to happen. i also spoken out on the ABC Radio about domestic violence too. i also received a letter from the commissioner of police in Australia for my work through my charity and as a victim of serious offences of domestic violence.
