On a mild morning outside Glasgow High Court on Monday, two women shared a tearful embrace.
After years of trauma, Kelly* and Lisa* (not their real names) had just seen their rapist, 38-year-old John Wood, sent to prison for six years. Kelly, from Liverpool, seemed overwhelmed and unsure what to make of it.
Between puffs on her cigarette, she repeated, "it's not long enough". Friends of Glaswegian Lisa, who came to support both women, reassured her: "That's him done now" and "his life is over".
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Despite her disappointment at the sentence, for a long time it seemed to Kelly that this day would never come at all. Justice took more than four years after she found the strength to report her ex-partner Wood for raping her multiple times during their three-year relationship.
Kelly and Wood met at a works conference when he was living in Glasgow and she in Liverpool. After a few months of maintaining a long-distance relationship, Wood moved in with Kelly at her home in Liverpool, and she quickly became pregnant.
When she eventually reported Wood, she described how he raped her 10 days after she had given birth to their child and while she was still "not healed", how he controlled who she saw and what clothes she wore, and was physically violent to her. Wood also raped her violently after she broke up with him in 2018, which led to the reports to police.
But in Kelly's eyes, after trusting Merseyside Police with her case, the force let her down. Even on its own account, had things been left to Merseyside Police - Wood would still have been a free man.
Kelly told the ECHO: "It was an absolute mess. Initially I told the officer assigned to my case that I needed to come in and see a doctor for a sexual assault examination, but she refused. She said there wasn't really any point as we had been in a relationship, even though I had an injury from the rape.
"Then they never took my video statement for another six days. They didn't really stay in touch with me, and I remember the detective in the case told me she didn't really have much experience with these types of assault."
According to the force, Kelly was not offered a sexual assault examination because she and Wood had "consensual sex" the night after the final rape. While Kelly accepts that there was another incident the following day, she told the ECHO detectives appeared to go off Wood's description of what happened and the truth was far more sinister.
She said: "Because the night he raped me was a Friday, I wasn't in work so I didn't have any time away from him on the Saturday. I was in bed and he came up and started to initiate things again. I said no, a few times, but he did it anyway.
"I kind of just had to go along with it because it was like well, if I start fighting him he's going really f****** hurt me, that's what I thought; he would really hurt me. It sounds a bit stupid but I thought he was going to kill me."
In a response to an official complaint from Kelly, Merseyside Police said a doctor with training in forensic issues relating to sexual assault had been consulted. However the response states: "The doctor felt that there was no merit in an examination as consensual sex had occurred since the offence was committed. The doctor's view was that, because of this, it would not be possible to attribute any injuries or marks identified in an examination to the incident during which the offence was committed."
The end result was Kelly was never referred to a Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC), a decision she describes as "ridiculous".
As the investigation progressed, Kelly says other issues arose. She claims the detective leading her case told her it "wasn't a big priority" for her - although the officer denied ever making such a comment according to the response to her complaint.
Although Wood was arrested and questioned, he was released under investigation rather than on bail - meaning no conditions were imposed to prevent him contacting Kelly. The force also admitted failing to alert Kelly when Wood was released from custody, leaving her to find out herself via the rumour mill - resulting in "management action" for the officers involved.
But the biggest blow came around eight months later. Kelly said: "They came to my house and told me it was being dropped. I was like 'oh my god why?'. They said it was because there was sexual messages between us on our phones. But we were in a relationship? I didn't understand how they could drop the case."
Kelly did not give up, and appealed the decision. In the mean-time her mental health deteriorated and she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. She said: "My mum and dad had to come and live with me, I could not leave the house. I was so scared and anxious.
"My mental health deteriorated, and I became quite unwell at that point. I actually made quite a serious suicide attempt."
A review of the case after Kelly's appeal also concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute, a decision that enraged her. But as she was in the process of lodging a complaint, everything changed.
She said: "I was told, you should expect a call from Police Scotland. They called me in around June 2020, and then they came down to Liverpool to speak to me.
"I was told a woman in Glasgow had reported him around the same time I did. They said they had charged him with raping her and they took a statement from me.
"One of the times he raped me was at his flat in Glasgow, so they ended up charging him with that rape. It was like somebody believed me. Before I had lost a lot of friends and suffered from threats because people didn't believe I was raped."
It later emerged that shortly before meeting Kelly, Wood had twice raped Lisa in a flat in Glasgow, one time holding her hostage for around an hour. She later described how the attack left her feeling "traumatised and broken".
She also said she felt like she had been the only victim until finding out through the grapevine, a few years later, that Wood had been arrested by police in England.
When asked what her advice would be to other women in her shoes agonising over whether to report an abusive partner or attacker, she said: "There's part of me that feels, it needs to be reported. People like this just need to be stopped.
"On the other hand, I went through the most horrendous experience of my life not being believed over and over again. I've given up my life, I had to leave my job, I have PTSD from it. I still massively struggle from that, I have constant flashbacks."
However Kelly said overall she does not regret reporting Wood. She said: "I have got daughters, I had to protect them from Wood. He had got to be stopped, we didn't want any other women or men to go through this."
The other offences against Kelly which took place in Merseyside were included "on the docket", meaning under Scottish law they could be used as evidence against Wood in court but did not result in additional charges and were not reflected in the sentence.
After the complaints from Kelly a detective inspector from Merseyside Police conducted a review of how the case was handled. The DI said she could not find any obvious failings other than the failure to inform Kelly that Wood had been released after his arrest.
A spokesperson for Merseyside Police told the ECHO: "In February 2018, Merseyside Police arrested John Wood on suspicion of rape at an address in Liverpool. He was taken into custody, questioned by police and released under investigation.
"At the time Wood was interviewed, there was not enough evidence to bring charges, and further lines of enquiry had been identified. As a result, Wood was released under investigation while additional investigations were carried out and evidence gathered.
Specially trained officers from our Protecting Vulnerable People Unit conducted thorough enquiries into the allegations against Wood including interviews, analysis of medical evidence and analysis of mobile phone records. Following an in-depth investigation, police concluded that there was insufficient evidence to submit the file to the CPS to meet their threshold for a charging decision.
Merseyside Police were in the process of reviewing this decision when we were made aware that there was a separate allegation of rape against Wood from a victim in Scotland. When this allegation came to light, detectives re-reviewed the decision to release Wood with no further action and consulted with the CPS.
"An extensive review by a Detective Inspector from Merseyside Police concluded that there was still insufficient evidence to overturn the original decision to release Wood with no further action. However, we fully co-operated with Police Scotland’s enquiries and shared all information from our investigation. The information we shared with Police Scotland was used to support bad character evidence against Wood and assisted in securing his subsequent conviction."
"We would like to stress that if you have been the victim of any sexual assault, there is extensive help and support available to you."
The force said anyone can report a sexual offence allegation by calling 101 where you will be spoken to by specially trained officers or you can pass information to Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
If you’ve been affected by sexual violence of any kind, support is available through the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Victim Care Merseyside service delivered jointly by two registered charities. In Liverpool, Sefton and Wirral, support is provided by Rape and Sexual Abuse Support (RASA) Merseyside who are available on 0151 558 1801 and, in St Helens and Knowsley, by the Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (RASASC) Cheshire and Merseyside who can be contacted on 01925 221 546 or 0330 363 0063.
Merseyside Police, alongside three other forces, have also been part of a pilot project for a new service to report rape, sexual assault and other sexual offences online – with the option to report anonymously.
The new online Rape and Sexual Assault reporting service is now live on the website here, which enables people who do not require immediate police assistance to report the crime via their local force website.
