Sadly most rape trials follow a similar pattern.
The victim's evidence is usually confined to a few distressing details, with the following days, weeks or months dedicated to other evidence as the court tries to decide the truth.
Getting a conviction is hard, as the statistics show, but even when there is a conviction in the first instance, for many victim-survivors, that is not the end.
For some, the person who violated them in the worst possible way has the charges set aside, not because their perpetrator was found not guilty, but simply because of a quirk in the law.
This is what happened to Alice.
What angers her most is a justice system that she says keeps victims in the dark, and leaves them feeling isolated and exposed.
Alice's experience of this began from the moment she first reported to police that she was molested as a child.
Her case was rare: a jury found her abuser, Cameron Flynn Tully, was guilty.
But shocking news was still to come.
Alice learned from a Google alert that Tully's charges relating to her had been set aside in an appeal hearing she did not even know had happened.
"I was furious, to say the least," she said.
"I think my anger at not being told … overtook how I felt about the charges being dismissed.
"I'm so angry … and it's a rage that I don't know how to deal with."
The legal glitch that deleted convictions
The ACT's Victims of Crime Commissioner, Heidi Yates, said the treatment of women like Alice was outrageous.
"We need a cultural shift to put victims front and centre … so they are getting the information they are entitled to," she said.
Alice says she was seven or eight years old when Tully first sexually assaulted her at his family's Canberra home.
She says he was smart, charismatic — and arrogant.
She was so young that the horror of what had happened only dawned on her when she was older.
"[It was] the end of primary school, early high school that I sort of realised that … it was a terrible thing."
In 2014, Tully was found guilty of 18 counts of historical child sex offences against Alice and seven other girls during the 1990s.
He was sentenced to 14 years and six months in jail, with a non-parole period of nine years.
However, he later appealed that decision, representing himself in court.
The appeal court rejected most of Tully's case, including his claim that the original judge should have considered the idea that the women had colluded against him.
But the court did find that prosecutors had not proved beyond reasonable doubt that Alice was under 10 when Tully abused her.
Because of a glitch in ACT law — which has since been fixed — the four charges related to Alice were set aside.
The appeal judges made it clear they believed Alice's account.
But the law, as it stood in the 1990s, saw Tully's sentence reduced to 12 years, with a non-parole period of seven years and three months.
He is now free, on parole.
Victims kept in the dark as trial unfolded
Alice kept her abuse secret for years. She says she never wanted her parents to know, fearing how much it would hurt them.
But eventually she did tell them. Through tears, she recalls their response.
Alice was the first of Tully's victims to report his crimes.
When Felicity Andison saw a news report about the case, she went to the police, too.
Tully had abused Ms Andison when she was four years old.
The law usually prevents victims of sexual assault from being named, hiding them even from each other.
In this case, Ms Andison has permitted the ABC to name her, though Alice wishes to maintain her anonymity.
Ms Andison says the victims did not talk to each other until the judge released restrictions on them.
"We didn't get together to talk about what happened until after the trial, and we had all given evidence," she said.
"I didn't even know who half of the other victims were."
Some did know each other, as they had been involved in a home church run by Tully's mother Maureen.
Cameron Tully had been left in charge of the younger children while the adults attended church.
Ms Andison's family left the church when she was five after a disagreement.
She says she was stunned to learn how many others Tully had abused.
The trial was before a jury, which is mandatory for sex crimes in the ACT.
But none of the victims set foot in the courtroom.
They gave their evidence by video from a room several blocks away, which Ms Andison says frustrated her.
"I wanted to know what he was saying and what everyone else was saying against us," she said.
Her frustration was compounded when Tully's lawyer cross-examined her about how she could remember what happened when she was four.
"It was soul-crushing — but also very empowering to stand up and say 'no, this happened'," Ms Andison said.
Both women say the guilty verdict came out of the blue, after the jury had spent three days deliberating.
For Ms Andison, the decision gave her a "deep sense of relief".
"That I didn't have to keep holding on to it and keep this thing deep inside me — that I was believed," she said.
Victims' rights are 'core business'
Ms Yates says the criminal justice system has enough case managers, police and prosecutors to support victims — but they are not prioritised.
"It's essential that officers, at various points of the system, understand that informing victims and upholding their rights is core business."
Situations like Alice's are too common, she says.
"The reality is that all too often the justice system does not deliver a guilty outcome in circumstances where, without question, there has been sexual offending behaviour."
But for many victims, the parole system for offenders is also very problematic.
Ms Andison said she had to provide private information about her life before Tully was released, so he knew where he was not allowed to go.
"But I get to know nothing about where he is or what he is doing.
"I think if the general public had to give that sort of information to someone they really didn't want to see, they would have serious thoughts about it."
Ms Andison cannot imagine how her life might have differed if she were not molested — because she cannot remember a time before the abuse.
But she wonders if she might have avoided the mental illness she has suffered.
"I hope I would be as strong as I am now and as resilient as I am now, but I shouldn't have had to go through that to build that resilience."
Alice said her abuse changed her fundamentally, but was less keen to say it made her stronger.
"I don't want to give him credit for anything," she said.
"So no, I made me stronger."
Momentum is growing across Australia for tougher action against sexual offenders amid widespread concerns about a lack of convictions.
Ms Yates said only 16 per cent of reported sexual assaults in Canberra resulted in a charge.
And only 50 per cent of cases that went to court ended in a guilty verdict.
Change, however, may finally be approaching.
Next month, ACT Policing will begin a landmark review of sexual assault cases to try to answer a question many have asked: why are so few alleged offenders taken to court?
* Alice is not the victim's real name.
