A woman who alleges that she was raped as a teenager by an older man has called for changes to the judicial process after finding the experience of going to trial traumatic.
Isobel Goatcher claims that a man in his 60s attacked her after a party at her parents’ house in 2016, when she was 16. He faced a one-week trial in November after pleading not guilty to two charges of rape and sexual assault. The jury failed to reach a verdict.
The prosecution pushed ahead with a retrial, which was scheduled for July, but Goatcher has now withdrawn from the process because she says she cannot bear to endure another “horrendous” trial.
