SIMPLY by being captivated by the drama that played out inside that committee room on Washington’s Capitol Hill on Thursday you felt tainted. You knew that when you discussed it with friends at the weekend you would be using words like ‘theatre’ and ‘extraordinary’ and ‘breathtaking’ as if it were the latest in the Star Wars franchise. And so the process of anaesthetising yourself from the effects of something genuinely wicked would have begun.

This wickedness forced a woman who was the victim of a violent sexual assault and attempted rape to justify her decision to come forward and then to attempt to strip her of her dignity, her self-worth and humanity. That she prevailed in the eye of this onslaught was the only blessed and untainted aspect of this perverse and unholy charade.

Christine Blasey-Ford was the victim of an attempted rape 35 years ago at a social gathering in the elite Wisteria neighbourhoods of upper-state Washington DC. Not even Brett Kavanaugh, the man whom she accuses of perpetrating this crime, questions it. One of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, a prosecutor himself, who listened to Ms Ford’s testimony remarked that she had easily met all the conditions demanded by the US judicial process for a complaint of this nature to succeed: she was consistent, specific in dates and times and clear in her recollection of the detail of the attack.

Yet here she was being cross-examined at a hearing hastily-convened to ensure Brett Kavanaugh’s elevation to the Supreme Court happened before the US mid-term elections. Her pleas to have her case properly examined by the FBI had been refused and so she had been forced to come to Washington to be violated once more.

The Republican senator for South Carolina, Lyndsey Graham, in his best Boss Hogg tones, said: “You’re looking for a fair process; you came to the wrong town at the wrong time, my friend.” He was talking to Kavanaugh and it concluded a venomous and hate-filled rant against the Democrats for being responsible for stitching up his "friend". In truth, the words ought to have been addressed to Ms Ford. Almost a year after #MeToo in the country where it began, the nation which fancies itself as the greatest and most sophisticated, gave us something bestial and malevolent.

The odour of Donald Trump was all over this hearing. It was present from the moment the nation’s President defended his man Kavanaugh by denigrating the character of Ms Ford and two other women who have come forward, in the most sickening and vile manner. How could anyone have been shocked at the treatment of violent sexual assault in this place when the boss laughs in the face of the 19 accusations (and counting) of similar crimes laid at his door? How could we not have known that it would come to this? Mr Trump may actually be the first man in history to make political capital from being cast as a serial sex pest.

If you were seeking the perfect victim of sexual assault it would be Christine Blasey-Ford. All those wretched tropes that the entire judicial system – from the police upwards – throws at women who report sexual crime disintegrate when confronted by Ms Ford. She is successful, affluent and academically brilliant and hails from the elite of US society. Most crucial of all, she had everything to lose and nothing to gain by coming forward. She has no obvious connections to the Democrats and does not easily fit into the arch-feminist of Republican and Conservative caricature. She simply felt it was her “civic duty” to report her ordeal. This was because her country was facing the prospect of a man who might have been guilty of such sexual violence gaining a position which would grant him the power of life or death over his fellow citizens.

It would have been far easier for her to have continued her therapy sessions and to seek the private solace of trusted friends and family. What made Ms Ford’s testimony compelling was the little imperfections and flaws which nibble at your recollection of an historic event. She had been forced to flee her home following the online river of filth and poison which flowed towards her when she first came forward. Yet she was a picture of poise, elegance and dignity as she delivered a testimony free from vengeance or spite.

Victims of rape will often say that the process of reporting a sex crime was almost as traumatic as the assault itself. Their character; their sexual history, their mental and physical health; their choice of friends are all scrutinised and used as potential weapons against them. All of these were used against Christine Blasey-Ford on Thursday. She prevailed, but at what cost to her health and career and family?

Sadly, the bitterness and resentment absent from Ms Ford’s testimony suffused Justice Kavanaugh’s. In his own eyes he was the victim here. As he delivered a lengthy oration about his anointed career he peppered it with the glowing encomiums of friends and colleagues that a lifetime of privilege and money can attract. In effect he was saying to the white, male Republican senators sitting before him: “I’m one of you. We’re all in this together. If she can bring me down then none of us are safe.”

Crucially, while he acknowledged that his accuser was indeed the victim of an attempted rape there was no hint of the compassion that you might reasonably expect any normal human being to extend to another who had endured such an ordeal. His defence was: no one has ever accused me of this before and anyway how could someone as bright and gifted as me be capable of doing something like this?

As she often does, Scotland’s First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon conveyed something human and universal about this. Last night she tweeted: “Just caught a few minutes of the US Senate session with Christine Blasey-Ford and it is sickening. A woman forced to relive trauma live on TV in a partisan political forum. It is medieval. I salute her courage but despair that she is having to endure such an ordeal.”

It’s what the US President should have said instead of aligning himself with the mob.