‘Police dismissed my sexual assault because I was drunk – I’ve spent 15 years fighting for justice’
Horrified, shocked and traumatized, Nina Cresswell called the police to report what had happened to her when she managed to escape from the grasp of the man who she said had violently sexually assaulted her.
Shaken after his ordeal, the officers came to his house; There he waited to be heard, to be assured that the evidence would be checked and retrieved, and that the police would do their best to find the attacker.
Instead, he said his account was shut down because he was drunk and cops wouldn’t interview him when he was sober. Within hours, police decided not to register the attack as a crime.
The 35-year-old said it was the beginning of more than 15 years of unnecessary “hell” as she struggled with “trauma after trauma that women face just to try to get basic justice.”
Now she is suing Northumbria Police to ensure no other survivors endure the same ordeal. He claims the force violated his human rights by failing to conduct a proper investigation, meaning there was “at least a significant chance” the outcome could have been different. The alleged perpetrator could be punished.
Mrs Creswell said Independent: “It’s so frustrating because I had to do what they did [the police’s] It was a job for them; That was 15 years ago and I’m still talking about it. If they had done their job that night, if they had been properly investigated, if they had obtained evidence, if they had done what they had to do, then I would not have been forced to do what I had to do.
“There are so many women in my situation across the country who did not survive the attack or died due to the psychological torment of these attacks and silencing, it really makes me angry.
“Even though it almost killed me, I would do it all again because I couldn’t do it.”
Although police twice restarted the investigation and ruled there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of a criminal conviction, a High Court judge ruled in 2023 that Ms Cresswell had been “violently sexually assaulted” by William Hay, known as Billy, after meeting her at a nightclub in Sunderland in the early hours of May 28, 2010. While the burden of proof in a criminal conviction requires the person to be guilty “beyond reasonable doubt”, in civil cases the decision is made based on the “balance of probabilities”, which is a lower threshold.
The legal ruling was part of Hay’s libel case against Ms Cresswell, who declared herself the attacker online in 2020, amid the Me Too movement in a bid to protect other women from him.
In this case, police records detail Ms Cresswell’s report to officers on 28 May 2010; Cresswell said a man “pinned her down and tried to have sex with her” before she “had to run away from him.”
The judge described the subsequent treatment of Ms Cresswell by police as “inadequate” and described the investigation as “superficial”. Miss Magistrate Heather Williams said: “He was interviewed while he was still under the influence of alcohol and had not slept. He was not given the chance to check any recordings made by officers of what they believed he had said… [The officers] failed to undertake the thorough investigation required and was assessed prematurely and rejected the defendant’s credibility and decided not to criminalize the defendant’s allegation within hours of its initial report to the police.”
Following the High Court ruling and a further complaint from Ms Cresswell in 2023, an internal investigation completed by Northumbria Police last year found that “the original investigation in 2010 fell below the standards of investigation expected in today’s policing.” It was stated that the service provided to him was “unacceptable” and the police apologized.
Northumbria Police also reopened the case in 2020 after Ms Cresswell contacted them, this time treating the incident as a criminal matter. However, no further action was taken by the police following the investigation, which the police force’s internal report deemed “acceptable”.
The force reopened the case in 2023 but closed it again last year “for evidentiary reasons”. “This will be reviewed if new information emerges,” the union spokesman said.
Ms Cresswell told how the “exhausting” ordeal had left her seriously damaged. “I lost everything, including my home and my job, due to legal fees,” he said.
“The focus eventually started to shift less on the perpetrator and more on me – I was the accused. It eats away at so many women by hiding the shame of the perpetrator for years, knowing they could do it again. Then you get the institutional betrayal of the police who are supposed to protect you…
“[But] this time it feels like the shoe is on the other foot; “I am the plaintiff.”
The January deadline for the force to respond to its legal case has now passed. A spokesman for the force said: “This is under consideration and it would be inappropriate to comment further.”
Ms Cresswell said she wanted the force to publicly acknowledge failings regarding sexual assault reporting and push for wider systemic change within the police. “At least this will be something positive after all the hell I’ve been through,” he said. “The more people who hold the police to account publicly, the more the police are in the public eye, the more they are scrutinized, and the more they are forced to change.”
Catherine Knight, senior lawyer at the non-profit Good Law Project, which supported Ms Cresswell’s legal claim. fundraiser He said of her case: “It’s time for police forces to protect women rather than brush them off.”
Harriet Dowse-Bland, a solicitor at the Help Center for Women’s Justice, said: “Unfortunately, we regularly see under-resourced police investigations characterized by long delays, lack of access to support services and investigating the victim rather than the suspect. This needs to change if we want a legal system that truly protects victims and brings perpetrators of sexual offenses to justice.”
In the year ending March 2025, 209,556 sexual offenses were reported to police in England and Wales, according to the latest government figures; The charity Rape Crisis estimates this accounts for only around 15 per cent of actual crimes. During the same period, only 4.2 percent of recorded sexual offenses were charged; Crown Prosecution Service data shows that only about half of these cases, roughly 2 per cent, result in a conviction.
A spokesman for Northumbria Police said: “We apologize for our response to the report in 2010 and for any distress that subsequently arose.
“We further investigated a complaint linked to the report. This work has now been completed and we have highlighted areas where our provision was inadequate, for which we have also apologized. Although no misconduct was identified, progress has been made in learning.
“The outcome of the complaint also recognizes that policing practices nationally have improved significantly over the last decade, both in terms of the investigation of sexual offenses and the support offered to victims. “As a force, in recent years we have been part of the national Operation Soteria initiative, which aims to improve outcomes for victims and create meaningful change in the way investigations are carried out.
“We encourage anyone who has been the victim of any sexual crime to get in touch; we are here for you and are committed to carrying out professional and diligent investigations to bring offenders to justice.”
A Home Office spokesman said: “We expect the police to investigate and respond to all reports of sexual violence in a timely manner to ensure that victims and survivors are protected.
“We have declared violence against women and girls a national emergency and are mounting the biggest push in British history to halve it within a decade.”
Rape Crisis support line You can contact us free of charge 24/7 at 0808 500 2222.
