“I HADN’T really processed the fact that it might be possible,” says Hannah Stakes, of the jury’s decision to pass a not proven verdict last December at the end of the trial of the man she says raped her as she slept after a party. “I knew it existed. But in my case there was a lot of evidence. I didn’t think it would happen to me.”

She also knew the stats – police did warn there was only a small chance of conviction, she admits. But there was DNA evidence, friends who had witnessed her sickening distress following the attack and would testify.

It took almost three years even to see the case come to court, a process slowed further after the accused fled the country as the trial approached, before being re-arrested on his return – the process, with all its inbuilt delays started all over again.

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Throughout the process she was living under immense stress. “I was so unwell,” she said. “You feel stressed even if you have a test or something, but this was relentless. It took so much from my life because I just wasn’t myself and couldn’t function properly or live a full life with the trial ahead of me.”

The trial itself was gruelling, and it was hard to feel her viewpoint was heard, at one point being denied the opportunity to correct a misconstrued point that she says was then used by the defence to undermine her credibility. “The judge kept telling the jury if they had doubts they couldn’t convict. But the defence set up a string of doubts. On their own they were silly but when bought together it felt like someone was firing an assault rifle.”

In the end she says it took the jury about two hours to come back with the verdict – less time, she notes, that it takes her to get ready for some nights out – “which speaks volumes to me,” she adds. “I think it gave them an out. I could perhaps understand if they had taken considerable time.”

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She acknowledges that is there had been a not guilty verdict she would have been “distraught” but does not believe that this would have been possible in her case.

Now 28 and working as an executive assistant, she says she is amazed by her own recovery following the “trauma and heartbreak” of the verdict but remains frustrated by a feeling of senselessness over the result.

“In the end it was horrible that this happened, “ she adds. “But I feel like it was the justice system I survived. I think we need to get rid of the not proven verdict and the whole system needs flipped on its head.

“It’s terrifyingly overwhelming to realise just how awful it was and how many years were lost for nothing. That was directly caused by the justice system which has so far been failing to properly consider those effects and treat the victims like human beings and not just evidence.

“Presently I feel like I did this to myself, that I caused myself years of grief and suffering by phoning the police. What was the point when at the end the system failed so badly?”

She believes that it could prevent people from reporting. “There are so many reasons why survivors do not come forward and in Scotland we then have one final hurdle to overcome which is outdated and redundant.

“The not proven verdict is not benefitting Scotland and its availability is causing a great level of damage. I have been left with 2.8 wasted years and grief that I will carry forever. In spite of acknowledgement that everyone in the court had understood it to have happened, legally it didn’t count.

“I pictured a million ways that this would end but it never crossed my mind that there would be no ending at all.”