Hello. Saw this in the news today.
Well done to the woman who realised what was going on and pushed to get this result.
What I found depressing was the way it showed up how women are seen as lacking credibility / men are given the benefit of the doubt in thinks relating to sex offences esp non contact ones.
What jumped out:
- Partner suggested it was pregnancy hormones and she'd got the wrong end of the stick. I'm not saying he's awful or anything. This is the entrenched first response that the vast majority of people will give, even to someone they love and know is reliable etc. When it comes to this stuff.
- The police response oh my fucking God. I was aghast. I mean everyone knows this is usually how it works but to read this was still shocking.
'I rang 101 [the police non-emergency number] and was booked in for an appointment the following day with two male PCs, where I showed them a picture of the clock and they asked "Are you sure it was that clock? Are you sure it was recording you?"
I said I could not be certain that it was, but it looks exactly the same and felt it was worth investigating regardless.
Then they said that they had spoken to a sergeant and that the best way forward was to confirm with the masseur if he had a legitimate reason to be recording people because they said he might feel that he needs to protect himself against accusations.'
-The police FIRST thought was. Oh well women lie and so men need to protect themselves. That's probably what's going on here.
!!!!!????!!!!!
For fucks sake.
- Their suggestion how to move forward if she insisted (which I assume she must have done after the attempted fob off, oh well he needs to protect himself against false accusations...)...
'They indicated that they wanted me to go back and ask him why he was recording me, at which I pointed out I was five-and-a-half months pregnant and vulnerable and I didn't think it was a good idea to send a pregnant woman alone to ask him why he had recorded her.'
What the actually fuck???!!!
I mean. What?!
So she goes back. He says oh no it's just a signal booster or some old flannel. She can't do anything really. She leaves. He deletes everything. Yay?!
And as she rightly said. Sending a woman who strongly suspects she has been a victim of a sex offence back to have a nice 1-1 chat with him?
- Despite this she kept at it. I mean I'd guess most people would have thought sod it at that point. She is determined.
'I made a complaint that I didn't think that it was dealt with correctly, and they said they would look into it.
A couple of weeks later I got a phone call from police to say they had gone to Roddis and he just admitted it outright upon being asked and surrendered all of the equipment.
Police found he had made about 2,000 videos of his clients and that there were more than 900 victims.'
Nine hundred women. NINE HUNDRED. And only caught because she kept at it when the police were giving her a very very strong message to shut up and go away.
Also note it was her sister who said to report.
What a brilliant woman. Thank you to her.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-58249002