It was the first time the three women had been in a room together. Sipping their drinks nervously in a London bar, it wasn’t long before they were hugging and crying and clasping each other’s hands as they talked about the decades-long battle that had brought them there. In an extraordinary act of teamwork, the evidence of Mary Sharp, Laura Hughes and Lauren Preston had secured a conviction for rape and buggery against Martin Butler, a convicted drug dealer living in Stevenage. All three women have chosen to waive their right to anonymity.
Until the trial concluded earlier this month with a majority verdict at Truro crown court, the women had not been allowed to discuss the case. Hughes and Preston, both 42, grew up in the same area as Sharp, 54, but did not know her and were not even told what her name was. Once Butler, 61, was convicted of his crimes against Sharp, which had taken place in the summer of 1988, the first thing they wanted to do was get together.
All three women knew Butler because he lived in the same area as them – Eastcote in Ruislip, in north-west London – in the 1980s and 90s. Sharp began a relationship with Butler in 1988, when she was 20. She believed he was going to kill her when he raped and suffocated her on holiday in Mevagissey, Cornwall. Six years later he began to abuse Hughes and Preston, then in their early teens.
Sharp tried to block out the trauma she had suffered and did not approach police. Hughes and Preston reported Butler’s crimes separately but prosecutions did not go ahead.
Everything changed in 2018, when Hughes posted an appeal on Facebook for victims of Butler to come forward. She found three photos of him and wrote: “Martin Butler: Call for victims and witnesses. Grooms, drugs and rapes children in Ruislip, London, UK, possibly in Mevagissey, St Austell, Cornwall.”
The post attracted a huge response. “What I wrote was shared 1,700 times in four days and went as far as Australia,” says Hughes. “People who responded to the post said things like: ‘Yeah, he was a right sleaze.’”
Why did she try to bring Butler to justice again when her earlier attempt had failed?
“I was doing a master’s in human rights law, it was the time of the #MeToo movement, and I was involved in a justice campaign for someone who was very vulnerable and which made headlines,” she says. “I put out the Facebook post because I wanted justice for myself and because I was certain I was not Butler’s only victim.”
She says that legal contacts urged her to take down the post, believing it to be libellous. She refused and received many messages from people who knew Butler. It still took five years for her attacker to come before a jury. While Butler was not tried for offences against Hughes and Preston, their “bad character” testimony was used by the prosecution. They gave evidence in person at the trial while Sharp chose to testify via video link.
A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: “We commend the bravery of the two other complainants who assisted the prosecution’s case as bad character witnesses and provided evidence against Martin Butler. Their courage, and that of the victim in this case, meant we were able to secure a conviction.”
Despite greater awareness about rape, successful prosecutions make up a very small percentage of cases reported. And many attacks are not reported at all. According to data collated by Rape Crisis England & Wales from official statistics, only one in 100 rapes recorded by police in 2021 resulted in a charge the same year, let alone a conviction. The highest number of rapes ever recorded was in the year ending September 2022, with 70,633 rapes reported but just 2,616 leading to charges.
All three of Butler’s accusers were vulnerable in different ways. Sharp had become pregnant without being married, something of which her family disapproved. She subsequently lost the baby and was living alone and grief-stricken when she first met Butler. Hughes and Preston also had difficult relationships with their families at the time. Butler’s filthy home, with its fridge full of vodka and seemingly infinite supplies of cannabis, speed and ecstasy, was an exciting escape.
Butler groomed all of them, tied them up and raped them.
Sharp first met Butler when she saw a little girl wandering around the estate where she was living. The girl looked lost and Sharp asked her what had happened. The child explained that she had been with a babysitter who had sent her home to her father – Butler – at the time he was due back home. But he wasn’t there. Sharp took her in and put a note through Butler’s door to explain what had happened. Sharp and Butler eventually became friends – and later started a relationship.
Things started innocuously enough. They had consensual sex on two occasions, Sharp says. “And then he asked me to go on holiday with him and his daughter to stay at his parents’ house in Mevagissey [in Cornwall]. I was happy to go. I remember my lovely dad had given me a present of about £150 for my 21st birthday. We spent a lot of that money on food and petrol for the journey. My dad is dead now; I’m so glad he never got to find out about Butler.”
On the second night of the holiday, Sharp woke up and discovered that Butler had bound her hands and feet so she was unable to move and had begun to rape her.
“He pinched my nose and covered my mouth with his hand. I had no oxygen; I was being suffocated and could feel the life going out of me. Everything went dark. I couldn’t see, but I could hear. I felt as if I could hear the beads of sweat dripping from his face. Somehow, I managed to turn my head so his hand was not so tightly over my mouth and I screamed. He realised that I might wake up his parents and daughter and so he untied me.”
“I remember going downstairs afterwards. He was there and he said to me: ‘It’s all your fault.’ He went out after that and I didn’t see him for the next few days. His dad bought me a train ticket home. I blocked everything out and tried to carry on with my life.”
Six years later, Preston also got to know Butler through his daughter, with whom she was friends. “He threw a 14th birthday party for his daughter and I went along. There was alcohol and drugs everywhere,” she says.
Butler began grooming Preston, using alcohol and drugs and persuading the 14-year-old to perform sex acts on him. “I remember one night at his flat I was paralytic. I went to bed and was leaning over a bucket to be sick. He got behind me and raped me. I was just a lost kid.”
He started to tie her up for sex. “I was absolutely petrified. He told his daughter he was in love with me and he used to collect me from school on his motorbike. He sold drugs to lots of people. I was dyslexic and felt like I didn’t fit in. He turned me against my family.”
At the age of 21, Preston walked into Watford police station to report what had happened. While the police did not disbelieve her, they asked what evidence she had. She didn’t have the kind of proof they were asking for. “I just know what happened to me,” she told them.
At the end of 1994, the year in which Preston’s abuse had begun, 14-year-old Hughes also ended up at Butler’s home. Looking for security, she found the opposite. “It was like a party that never stopped,” she says. “My hands got tired from rolling so many spliffs. It was a filthy and disgusting place. He had created his own world. He used to force people to take speed. I took it every single day for two and a half years and I developed speed psychosis. There were times when I got away from him. I used to run, but I ended up back with him. He used to strangle me and eventually I knew that if I didn’t get away I would die.”
More than a decade later, in 2008, Hughes went to the police station to report a stolen camera. But Butler was in the back of her mind. “There’s one more thing,” she told the police. “When I was younger I was really badly abused by this guy.”
“The police officer called the station commander, who took it really seriously,” she says. “He shook my hand and thanked me for having the courage to report it.”
In the end the case was stayed – not dropped but not proceeded with – though Hughes did get £16,500 from the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board based on evidence she was able to provide. She says being believed gave her an enormous boost. But even years later she was determined not to let Butler off the hook – which is why she made that appeal on Facebook in 2018.
Sharp saw the post. “My Pandora’s box opened up. I started having nightmare after nightmare,” she says. “I had buried this for so long. I realised it went so deep and I needed to deal with it. I was ashamed of myself for not having reported it and thought that if Butler went on to kill somebody because I hadn’t reported what he did to me, I would never be able to forgive myself.”
After Sharp contacted the police, the CPS repeatedly told her there wasn’t sufficient evidence to prosecute Butler. “I had to fight three times to get them to proceed with the case. I very nearly gave up,” she says. “There were so many times when I felt I couldn’t cope. I thought to myself: ‘Why am I living through this hell again and again when it isn’t going anywhere?’”
But she didn’t give up. The case did go ahead – and Butler was found guilty. He will be sentenced in April.
All three women found the process of reporting the crime, getting involved with the prosecution and testifying gruelling. “I shook so much when I was giving evidence that my whole body was convulsing,” says Hughes. She and Preston were in court when the verdict was given. They had been told not to show any expression to the jury whatever the decision was.
“I kept clenching and looking down when I heard the word ‘guilty’,” says Preston. “I immediately felt so much lighter.”
Sharp was not in court. She was out walking her dog when the police liaison officer called her to break the news.
“I was crying, I was laughing, I collapsed on the floor,” she says.
While the women are jubilant to have finally secured justice, Butler has scarred them all. They believe there are other vulnerable people who endured similar treatment from him.
“He stole my family from me and he stole my childhood,” says Hughes.
“He stole a lot of my life,” says Preston. “I was addicted to drugs and alcohol. I suffered from agoraphobia and couldn’t leave the house for four years. A bit of me still feels groomed to this day. And we all blamed ourselves.”
“I wouldn’t want anyone else to experience the near-death torture I experienced from Martin Butler,” says Sharp. She hopes any more victims will now come forward.
• In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html
