‘It would have cost £25,000 to see my court transcript’: The hidden cost of VAWG

Many survivors of abuse experience lingering financial and professional ramifications – and the impact of this on the larger economy is often overlooked (Picture: Getty Images)

‘I used to be a happy-go-lucky person – really positive and just got my teeth stuck into life,’ 33-year-old Flora* tells Metro. 

Then, in 2017, she was raped in her sleep. 

‘My love for life completely flipped after the incident,’ she remembers. ‘I lost myself mentally, physically and emotionally and gained weight from overeating and drinking a lot of alcohol.’

Nearly 10 years on, Flora is still feeling the impact of the assault in many ways – but there is one aspect that she believes is rarely talked about.

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), out of all the women who reported rape or assault by penetration (including attempts) between March 2017 and March 2020, 21% said they had to take time off work and 5% reported losing or giving up their job.

While understandably the long-term emotional and physical effects are often the predominant focus in conversations surrounding VAWG, many survivors feel the lingering financial and professional ramifications of these crimes – and the impact on the larger economy – is often overlooked. 

‘I was fortunate that I worked for my family’s business, which allowed me to prioritise my mental health, but it had a wider impact on the company,’ Flora explains. ‘I couldn’t face my front-of-house role after the assault, so my family had no choice other than to hire more people.’

Flora spent nearly £2,000 to prove she didn’t suffer from sexsomnia (Picture: Getty Images)

Three years after the incident, she moved back to London to start a new job and prepared herself for the upcoming trial by booking compassionate leave around the dates, only for the criminal case to be dropped days before the start date. 

When lawyers for the defence claimed that Flora had ‘sexsomnia’ – for which she later spent £1,850 on sleep consultations to prove that she didn’t have it for her own peace of mind – the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) closed the case. 

Her assailant was also formally acquitted because the case was dismissed just a few days before the trial. Without compelling new evidence, it can now never be reopened – which means Flora will potentially never see justice.

After admitting that they made an error in dismissing her case without taking it to trial, the CPS awarded Flora £35,000 in damages, however, the emotional impact was cataclysmic. 

‘Two weeks later, everything sunk in and it took me back to day one of being raped and the emotional, mental and physical state I was in,’ she recalls. ‘Knowing there’s a rapist out there with no accountability made me spiral. I was completely broken, but this time it felt 10 times worse.’

Flora has to come to terms that she might never see justice (Credits: Getty Images)

For the first time in her life, Flora felt suicidal and had to seek emergency help. When she tried to return to work in June 2021, she was signed off for six monthson mental health leave. After attempting a slow-phased return, sadly, Flora realised she could no longer cope with her managerial position.

‘I could barely manage myself, let alone a team, so I took a demotion,’ she says. ‘To go back to where I’d started in the job was very demoralising, and obviously a financial hit too.’

While she’s now returned to a more senior role, Flora knows she can never get back those lost years of career progression.

From March 2021-22 in England and Wales, 798,000 women were the victims of sexual assault, while 1.6 million women experience domestic violence. With only one in six women reporting rape and even fewer reporting instances of street harassment, the real figure – and financial impact – of VAWG is likely higher.

For the first time in her life, Flora felt suicidal (Picture: Getty Images)

While the costs are too complex to itemise, every incident comes at a price, and the UK government estimates that the cost to the country was around £66 billion for the year ending 2017, including healthcare, social victim services, housing, and the lost economic output of survivors. 

To break it down, each NHS appointment is between £30 and £40 per consultation, a specialist police service can cost up to £100 per hour and it takes thousands of pounds to hold a trial. Alongside the expense to the state and career impacts, there are also plenty of other ‘hidden’ levies, such as private therapy, new phones if the police have victims’ in evidence, and security systems for peace of mind. 

‘Some forms of VAWG, like domestic abuse, can also involve financial abuse, including the man restricting or sabotaging the woman’s ability to have a job and wider social contacts,’ adds Dr Sara Reis, deputy director and head of research and policy for Women’s Budget Group. 

‘Survivors of domestic abuse are therefore more likely not to have had a job and so when leaving the abusive relationship, they may struggle getting back into the labour market, particularly if they have children and have to arrange childcare.’

Some forms of VAWG, like domestic abuse, can also involve financial abuse, says Dr Sarah Reis (Picture: Supplied)

Nuffield Professor of Economics at Oxford University, Abi Adams, has conducted groundbreaking research into the economic costs of VAWG, focusing on Finnish data. 

She tells Metro: ‘Perpetrators of violence in the workplace are less likely to end up leaving the firm and losing their job than the victim, and the suicide rate quadruples for survivors of sexual assault.’

According to Professor Adams, the data also shows that ‘women who are raped have 26% lower earnings in the five years’ after an assault compared to women who had identical career trajectories and identical mental health right up to the assault.’

The research also demonstrates how it can impact women who experience assault before they even enter the workforce. ‘Those in their late teens and early 20s are almost a third less likely to complete university,’ she adds. 

Anu Verma, a trauma therapist and survivor of childhood sexual abuse, says that she experience low self-worth which impacted her ‘schoolwork and career path,’ she tells Metro.

Childhood sexual abuse survivor Anu says that her ordeal has had an ongoing impact on her life (Picture: Supplied

‘I remained in lower-paid jobs because I didn’t feel I deserved anything more.’

Anu now sees the same story repeatedly played out with her clients, who struggle to fulfil their potential after abusive experiences have shredded their self-confidence.

For Charlotte*, a major financial outcome appeared in the form of trying to access court transcripts. After enduring a Magistrate’s court trial in which she was grilled for over four hours, Charlotte’s alleged perpetrator was found not guilty. However, as she had been advised by her legal team not to stay in the room after her testimony, she didn’t know how the remainder of the trial had gone.

‘I just didn’t understand how they reached that verdict,’ she tells Metro. ‘Eventually, I asked if I could have the transcripts to read what was said.’

However, what Charlotte didn’t know was that typically they cost between £0.74 and £2.30 per 72-word folio, which could result in a price tag of over £25,000 for a full trial transcript. ‘I was immediately told that they would cost thousands of pounds, which I didn’t have, so I wasn’t able to get them,’ she says.

Charlotte couldn’t afford to pay thousands for her court transcripts ({Picture: Getty Images)

Charlotte’s trial had been held in the magistrate’s court where proceedings are never recorded and notes are only kept from three to six years. When she was finally able to ask for closure, she discovered they had already been deleted.

In a bid to stop it from ever happening again, Charlotte launched the campaign Open Justice For All, to fight for all crime victims to get their notes for free. A pilot scheme which was launched in May 2024 now allows victims of rape and serious sexual offences to apply for transcripts of judges’ sentencing remarks at no cost – marking a huge win for the initiative.

Talking about the government’s 2024 pledge to halve VAWG in 10 years, which has seen them invest £13million so far, the government’s former Safeguarding Minister Jess Phillips tells Metro: ‘The plague of violence and women and girls continues to scar victims up and down the country, and also brings a significant economic burden for our society. We are committed to supporting survivors to raise awareness and ease the burden of hidden costs.’

But those working in the sector are well aware that there is no ‘magic money tree’. 

‘At the end of the day, the government has a budget constraint,’ Professor Adams points out. ‘There’s a finite amount of money and resourcing, and what we want to understand is, where should that be going?’ 

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