Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
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Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma with different people.
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Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
#58 - Sarah Hicks (Part 2): Surviving Sexual Assault, Systemic Failures, Victim-Blaming Culture, Advocacy for Change, Violence Against Women and Girls & Societal Transformation
In the second part of this two-part episode, Matt continues his conversation with Sarah Hicks as she reflects on her journey through trauma, recovery, and advocacy.
Sarah shares the harrowing experience of surviving sexual assault, the long-term psychological impact, and her path to seeking justice. She candidly discusses the systemic challenges she faced during the investigation and legal proceedings, highlighting the critical need for change in how victims of sexual assault are treated.
The episode also delves into Sarah’s commitment to advocacy, exploring her work with the Violence Against Women and Girls Independent Advisory Group and her role as a lived experience coordinator.
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We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Christopher Tait of the band Belle Ghoul & Electric Six for allowing us to use the track Jonathan Tortoise. Thank you, Chris, for being a part of this journey with us.
This is a Renew Original Recording. Hello and welcome to Believe in People, a British podcast award-winning series about all things addiction, recovery and stigma. My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host or, as Alex say, your facilitator. Today we have the second of a special two-part episode and we're joined by our guest, Sarah Hicks. In the second part of our conversation with Sarah, we continue her extraordinary journey of survival and advocacy. Sarah reflects on the long-term psychological impact of trauma and how her journey for recovery and resilience has fuelled her passion for advocacy. As a co-chair for the Violence Against Women and Girls Advisory Group and a lived experience coordinator, Sarah now uses her voice to drive systemic change and empower others. I begin part two with Sarah bravely discussing the most harrowing experiences of her life a brutal sexual assault and the subsequent challenges she faced navigating the legal and support systems of being raped.
Speaker 2:So I appreciate how hard of a topic this will be to talk about just in your own time, really. Yeah, so I used to be an actor. So I went to uni in 2013. So I'd gone to an acting class at Hull Truck Theatre an adult one and within six months, I'd done some performances at do you remember Fruit which?
Speaker 1:is now Social.
Speaker 2:And then I'd kind of like done this play and it was a big monologue, it was 20 minute monologue and I'd kind of took it around different places, around hull and stuff, and this guy I was kind of close to at the time, just a friend, he said, why don't you do the drama degree? And I thought, right, and like my cousin and my friend who I was talking about earlier, done the social work degree. We're going that year as well. So last minute scrambled to apply to go, so yeah, so throughout them years I was like trying to act and stuff and be a single parent and obviously be back in a relationship with Christina's thingy and whatever. So yeah, so anyway, um 2016, you know, I said I left, I left the relationship and whatnot and I was really making a go of my acting and it was city culture year. So I was just, I was doing stuff from a place called Humber Film at Cardoma and I was kind of part of the Humber Film team and I rented a desk there and a beautiful, beautiful man who sadly passed away not so long back, mal Scott. He owned Cardoma and yeah, I was around some really great people. Mal took me under his wing, a guy called Phil at Humber Films took me under his wing and we just was doing so much stuff.
Speaker 2:I was still drinking, but some really, really beautiful things were happening and I'd been in some short films. I'd just got a part in a feature film, I was just about to produce a film, which I ended up going on to Amazon and all this stuff. So life was looking up a bit. Like I say, the drinking was still there, but things were starting to look up. I was going through family court because obviously I'd stopped, you know. But then I was going through family court and kafkas decided it wasn't safe for my daughter to to see her dad. Um, so it was just me and her and things were. They were looking up and then one night, me and my friend who I spoke about, who did the social work degree and stuff her name's Katie I don't know why I say her name Me she was going through a bit of a tough time because she was like doing her. I think she was doing her. Yeah, she was doing her master's because we'd graduated in 2016 and she went on to do her master's. She's so clever, she's like literally one of the most brainiest people you'll ever meet, but she was finding it really tough.
Speaker 2:So there was a night on Adelphi, so we decided to go there and I had knee-length denim shorts, on my big red Jeremy Corbyn T-shirt because it was just after the 2017 general election and my Doc Martin boots, and we go out just like you know, and my friend was really drunk and thought I thought, oh, we need, we need to go now. Um, because it was usually it was usually me in in a bit of a mess, um, so we walked and we walked onto beverly road and um was trying to flag a taxi down because I'd booked a taxi from adelphi but I think it had left. You know, we didn't get outside in time. So we walked onto Beverley Road and trying to flag a taxi down and then I vaguely remember something happening and my friend kind of walking off because something had happened. It was like a bit of an altercation of words because something had happened. It was like a bit of an altercation of words.
Speaker 2:And then the next thing I remember was vaguely, vaguely, vaguely being in a car. And then the next thing I remembered was being in my friend Johnny and Charlotte's student accommodation and I was waking up and I just thought like what's going on? And previously, after my dad had died, I had been found unconscious through alcohol in the street. So I thought the same had happened and they'd rang the police and I panicked because I thought I'm going through family court. What if somebody finds out I've drank, I've knocked myself out. I've been an idiot again Because I was this big ball of constant shame. I already felt disgusting. So every time I drank too much and did something embarrassing which I did a lot I just felt like this, just added to it as well.
Speaker 2:Massively, like that was a big thing. With my drinking and using was. I always embarrassed myself. I did something embarrassing and I don't care what anybody says, it is worse for a woman If you see a man in a pub and the drunk, oh the drunk. If a woman's doing it. Look at the state of air and and it was just I'd, yeah, I'd just get like people speaking about me and and it was the way I felt about myself.
Speaker 2:So obviously in that moment I just felt like this big embarrassment again. I've let my daughter down, I've let everybody down, I've, you know, I've got out my head again and been found. And then I like kind of like stayed over at their house and like my friend was trying to get in touch with me and she was like I came back to look for you, like where did you go? Blah, blah, blah, and my bag had been stolen, um, and stuff. And and my friend john, he went back and he found my phone and my e-cig, but no money, no bag, no, nothing. And I remember the police come in and I just said, oh, I've just fell, I've just banged my head, and it was actually a woman. I knew who I used to go running training with when I was a kid and I just wanted it to go away. I just wanted to die in that moment and I just wanted it to go away. I just wanted to die. In that moment I just thought, oh, just pleased. You know, it was just awful.
Speaker 2:And it wasn't until the morning that, like, I came round properly and I went to the loo and I'd been bleeding a lot and I just thought what's this? And at the time I was getting the pill injection and I didn't have periods. So I thought there's something not right. So I rang my friend Johnny and he came down and I just showed him the front of my shorts. I went, what's happened? And he went.
Speaker 2:I said I think I need to go to the police and he went. I really think you do, and I think that's why they'd rang him the night before, you know. But then obviously it might have looked that I'd just maybe started my period or whatever. So I went to the police station and reported it at the desk and stuff, and they took me into the back. My friend met me and came in with me, my friend Danny, and we went through into the back and they took all of my clothes off me, including my underwear and my shoes. They didn't give me any underwear to put back on, no sanitary products for, obviously, the injury and the bleed. They just gave me jogging bottoms and a top and some sand shoes and I was made to wait in the reception for five hours.
Speaker 1:Do you want to dress like that, yeah.
Speaker 2:Jesus After being raped. Fucking hell.
Speaker 2:Erm. I will never, ever forget how I felt, erm, like a lot, a lot had already happened in my life and I already felt disgusting, I already felt a lot of shame and that just blew me apart. My friend ended up leaving because they kind of had to. They were really close, him and his boyfriend were really close to me and my daughter at that point because I'd started spending a lot of time with them after leaving her dad and stuff, and we used to sleep over at their house and stuff like that, and they had to organise getting the key off christina to get me into my house because I didn't have my bag or anything.
Speaker 2:And I I kept going to the reception, to the police, and I kept saying like I want to be in a room on my own, I don't want to be in reception. And they'd say, well, you need to go home. And I'd say I ain't, ain't got my key. You know they've stolen my bag. Whoever it was has stolen my bag. You know I ain't got a key to get in. Oh well, just wait, we need to get you to the SARC.
Speaker 1:What's the SARC?
Speaker 2:So the SARC, it's the Sexual Assault Referral Centre. I think that's the acronym I think and that's where you go to have, like, like you know, the forensic testing and stuff, and it was just horrendous, like I already felt all them things throughout my life. So then this was confirmed I was a piece of shit, I was disgusting, because this is just the way I'm always going to get trapped and I just didn't ever believe that an authority like that would treat somebody like that. You know, I was very naive.
Speaker 1:And when you're sat in reception as well, obviously having no memory of the night before when you're sat in. There. Was any memory coming back to you about the incident, or was there still some denial there? Was you still thinking, oh, it could have just been my period? Or when you were sat in that waiting room, did you know that you'd been a victim of sexual assault? At that point, Am I allowed to swear? Yeah, absolutely. I've sworn about three times already. My head was fucked. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Fucked is the only way I can say how my head was. Like I'd woken up. I'd seen this stuff, felt a bit uncomfortable but at the same time, like I didn't. I still to this day don't remember the rape. I still to this day don't. All I remember is when I was sat there in that reception it was vaguely coming back to me about being in a car. I know I felt very trapped in a car. That's all I knew.
Speaker 1:No recollection of who was driving, or anything like that, at the time either.
Speaker 2:No, okay, no. And then I went to the Sark and the Sark were absolutely incredible, absolutely amazing. And I was fed because I wasn't allowed to eat all day, I wasn't allowed to drink because I had to get forensic testing. So obviously I'd been drinking the night before. I'd just been sat all day with no food, no drink, in public, exposed with no pants on, worried that blood was going to come through. That is probably. I've felt disgusting before, but that is probably the most I've ever felt in my life. Um, because it was that, like I've said, it was that whole. Well, it's confirmed, because if they're treating me like that, then it must be true.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I'd got to the Sark and some of the meetings I'm in now like the woman who trekked me on that day is in these meetings and I just don't remember how kind she was. There was a really funny moment. They were horrified but I laughed. Obviously they had to do internals and stuff. I had an injury inside and the injury that I got only two out of 1,500 women ever sustained that type of injury. It had to be sent to London and forensically, scientifically tested and stuff. So I didn't learn until it. It went to court and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:But but they have to like they even have to have a camera in there to, you know, to look at everything and invasive, I suppose, to get to go through that yeah, and then I remember standing up off the bed and there was just a camera picture of my vagina in my face and it was like, and they were horrified, but I just laughed, I just laughed. I thought, god, did you know? I just, I don't care, you know, that's the least of my worries right now.
Speaker 1:Did they find the person that did it? Yeah, that's the least of my worries right now.
Speaker 2:did they did. They found the person that did it. Yeah, and how, but with you not knowing, you know to be able to identify the person. Anything, how, how did that?
Speaker 1:come to be then.
Speaker 2:So they got for they obviously got samples off me dna samples and stuff and you can only have certain ones of the dna samples fast-tracked, you know, so up to five days that you should get the results back. All the others take a lot longer because there's only kind of the resources and probably the funding to do certain fast-track, certain tests. So they sent my pants off for forensic testing and they had his DNA and they also had him on CCTV stalking me up Beverly Road. So they knew who he was it took them from. So the night it happened to me was exactly the same night as Grenfell, because I remember watching the Grenfell and watching how Corbyn was supporting all the people you know who had gone through something so horrific. And I kind of felt through watching that somebody had my back because I'd gone through something traumatic. I mean, thank God I didn't lose my life because I was. I was left for dead. I was just left in a heap, unconscious on the floor, you know. So yeah, sorry, I've gone a bit.
Speaker 1:No, what is, what is, I guess, what's the long-term impact that an event like that can have on on you as an individual? What's we talk about? Trauma you talk about some of the things that you're experiencing. Um, you know the abusive relationships that they don't just go away. I think you've said it yourself. You know some of the things you've experienced are going to be with you now for the rest of your life. You know, in terms of your behavior and your character, what is the long-term psychological impact of of rape?
Speaker 2:it'll never. It'll never go away, um like, ever, like If I don't do this daily work on myself and affirm myself and whatever I am, that dirty, disgusting person, unconscious, right, who's just tricked like that. And I've been tricked like that a lot and I'll never forget. When it had happened, my ex used to say to me you're gonna get that out your head, you're just gonna get raped. So it was confirmed, it was my fault.
Speaker 2:So when it happened, it was all my fault, because I shouldn't have I shouldn't have gone out and I shouldn't have drank and I shouldn't have like there was, it was in the paper what had happened to me, and there was only one negative comment. But this one negative comment said I mean, nobody knew it was me because I was anonymised. But this one negative comment said what was she doing drunk down there at that time? And it just absolutely, and it's that whole thing again. Why is a woman out when it's dark? Why is a? Woman out when it's dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why is a woman out when it's dark? Because we fucking want to be.
Speaker 1:That's why why should I have imposed restrictions on me based on my gender?
Speaker 1:yeah, I mean, yeah, I think we touched on this briefly before we talk, but rape happens because of rape and I've, you know, yes, you said you was in a, you know, scared down to to your knees. You had your jeremy corbin t-shirt all irrelevant really, because there was an exhibit on in hull and I think we've talked about this in the past and it was, um, the clothes of victims, uh, of rape and what they was wearing at the time. And it isn't all short skirts and, you know, crop tops. There's people that was fully clothed jumpers and jeans. Yeah, you know, it isn't about. Rape happens because of rapists, not because of what women wear. Yeah, and I guess that's my frustration when I see comments like that. It's like no women should be able to go out anytime they want. How about you know rapists just don't rape? Maybe that's the answer here. Instead, I shouldn't have to say to you know, like my niece or my female friends, like, oh, oh be, careful how much you drink, because you know there are bastards out there.
Speaker 1:I shouldn't have to have that conversation with people?
Speaker 2:no, absolutely not. And you know, going going back to like you know about him and you you know you were saying about like finding him and and stuff like that. When they did eventually find him, they found him because he tried getting out of the country. So they didn't find him till the october this happened the same night as grenfell, but they didn't find him till the october.
Speaker 2:Um, and they brought him in and I remember I was teaching somewhere in in hull, teaching people drama, teaching kids drama and the school holidays, and I remember the police ringing me and saying to me we've got him, blah, blah, blah. So I was like right, okay. And then they rang me later on. They didn't ask me where I was, what I was doing, no, nothing. And they just turned around to me and went right, so we've got him in custody, blah, blah, blah. But he's saying that you were soliciting that evening, so we need to ask you where you were soliciting. And in that moment I thought why does it matter whether I was soliciting or not, even though I wasn't? Why does that matter? Because I'm a sex worker. That doesn't mean I can't be raped. And two, why on this earth hadn't you asked me. Why hadn't ask me where? I am what I'm doing.
Speaker 2:I was teaching kids, yeah. So after they'd asked me that I had to call on my colleague, she came through and she went sarah, you're gonna have to go home to look after yourself. But this was the constant treatment that I got, so not all that throughout my life what just happened to me.
Speaker 1:Still, even now, it's almost been perceived as your fault.
Speaker 2:You're being investigated.
Speaker 1:You're being investigated.
Speaker 2:You're being investigated, so yeah, and like, after that, it took him a year to charge him. So throughout that year I was like having constant phone calls with the police. Well, no, that's a lie. They very rarely got in touch with me, but when they did, it was always so traumatising because something had happened, maybe two weeks ago it felt constant, I suppose yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, two weeks ago something had happened and they'd not told me. My friend ended up taking the phone off me because she'd heard the way I was being spoken to. They'd rang me one night and they'd said, um, they'd said something. And I said I'm a bit upset, like I don't feel like I'm being kept up to date. I said I've never seen an officer face to face once since I reported it and she went I will tell you when you I will come and see you and speaking to me like this. And I was just horrified and so I started kind of sticking up for myself and she went can you stop shouting? I've just got a loud voice.
Speaker 2:There was no way in this world I was shouting, no way in this world I was shouting, and my friend just grabbed the phone off me and went upstairs. She went, went I'm dealing with this and she made a complaint on my behalf. But it was just like that, all the way through, the family charged him. It was over a year after they'd found him that they'd charged him, even though they had CCTV evidence, his DNA and thinking I was injured and I was found unconscious, um, and he was just, he was just bailed out, weren't remanded or anything like that, and it wasn't until he was caught with a blade around vulnerable women that he was remanded quite, quite a controversial question to ask, but you don't remember the event when it happened. No.
Speaker 1:Is there part of you that it's really hard to say because it doesn't make any of it any better, but is there part of you that's thankful that you don't remember it? Like to be a victim of rape is horrendous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it absolutely is. I think sometimes I wanted to remember it, to make it real. Yeah. Because I was feeling all these things.
Speaker 1:But feel so detached from an actual event because you don't remember the event.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because my drinking it escalated when I lost my dad and it got worse and worse and worse throughout the domestic abuse. But then when that happened, that's when my using got completely out of control, and I mean completely out of control. My mum used to have to come and sleep at my house and stay over with me and I'd still be running trying to find alcohol around the house and I was uncontrollable. And it was 2018 that I went into recovery. And then after that because even though I couldn't remember it, I knew what had happened to me, so it just I wanted to forget, so it just sent me on a spiral and then I thought, if I stopped drinking, you know, will it come to me then? And stuff like that.
Speaker 1:So you're almost pre-empting, like sort of you know, I guess, drinking just in case, isn't it really? Because if you're drunk you might not remember, yeah, but if you're sober you might remember it, sort of thing. Is that kind of what you're saying?
Speaker 2:The weird thing was I hadn't had a lot to drink that night. But when I was found, I was found unconscious and it was as though I'd had a lot to drink. But I've clearly, by the CCTV, got into a car that I thought was a taxi and.
Speaker 2:I've ended up in a car with them. And then that where I was in the car and I was feeling like I needed to get out was when I'd got out and then he's seen stalking me. I'm falling all over on Beverley Road. So when I'm first on the camera, first getting into the car, I'm absolutely fine, yeah, like nothing wrong with me whatsoever. And then I'm out the car, I'm falling into bushes, I'm falling into the railings, I'm trying to get away from him and he's stalking me. And he's stalking me and he's stalking me. I think you know it is a blessing I don't remember it. But then there was that doubt because I've always been told everything was my fault yeah.
Speaker 2:Is it been my fault?
Speaker 1:Have I done something wrong, whereas if you remembered it, you'd know it wasn't your fault.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So, but then like kind of when it like, so I had to like I didn't know it was on remand. Nobody even told me it was on remand when we went to court because I stuck it through. If I knew how hard it was going to be, would I do it again? I don't know, I don't know, I can't say I wouldn't because the thing is with me. I needed that person off the streets. That was my main aim was to get this person off the streets, away, away from people. Yeah, and when it, when it went to court and like obviously I didn't know it was on remand and stuff, I faced him in court because I wanted it to be real.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that would have been the first time you faced him. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I wanted. I needed to see him for it to be real.
Speaker 1:How did he look at you? Did he acknowledge you?
Speaker 2:Oh, he tried intimidating me. Oh really, oh yeah, yeah, stared at me constantly. Yeah, yeah, did he admit it Did. Yeah, yeah, stared at me constantly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, did he admit it? Did he deny it? Oh, no, no, complete denial, complete denial.
Speaker 2:Okay, when they say because when I went for a tour around the court they said to me it'll be nothing like you see on TV, you won't be interrogated, it's not your fault. Oh, I was. I was accused of all sorts the stuff I was accused of, and I had my mum and my stepdad, because my mum met somebody after she lost my dad and he's like, he's like a dad to me really.
Speaker 2:They had to sit and listen to all of that and one of my best friends had to sit and listen to and I was accused of and, you know, you said I can't, I couldn't remember. This is the one time I wish I could remember, because when they were saying things about oh and then you asked him to do this to you and you asked him to do that to you, when he did this to you, when you, you know, I had to say I couldn't remember, I couldn't say no yeah, because I couldn't remember it.
Speaker 1:I can't lie yeah, and if your story up all the way up until that point was that you couldn't remember it, I can't lie, yeah, and if your story up all the way up until that point was that you couldn't remember it, but then you start denying things, it puts holes in your story, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah, that would have been hard to say. Well, I can't remember that. I can't remember that.
Speaker 2:And I just remember tears streaming down my face and obviously I faced him One because, like I say, I wanted it. I needed it to be real, because it didn't feel real and I know that might sound weird to some people, but I'd been through something and my body and my brain's reacting to it, but I don't know what. I can't remember it. It's bizarre. And as well I wanted to face him because I am that person.
Speaker 2:I might feel weak for a long time and this has come back to to bite me sometimes because I've shown strength in the end and I've shown resilience. Oh, that can't have been that bad are you sure that happened to you yeah well, you seem real feisty. You seem like you wouldn't let something like that happen to you.
Speaker 1:I get that all the time so since achieving recovery in 2018, you said, wasn't it? Yeah you've done some work with the violence against women and girls group. Is that correct? Yeah, talk to me about how that came to be in your experiences and why it was so important to for you to get involved in that, because I know there's things that you've talked about the attitude from police officers, the idea of you being sat in that reception. These are things that you're now proactively trying to change yeah for other victims of sexual assault yeah why was it so?
Speaker 1:I say, why was it so important? Naturally, I understand why it was so important, but I guess what so many people are victims of sexual assault will not go to the lengths that you've gone to now to make changes in this system. Why have you done that?
Speaker 2:I think I think, because I'm a fighter and I think when you see things, you can't unsee them. Yeah, and I'm just that person because I'm codependent and I feel that level of responsibility, I think I do feel that I've got a responsibility to fight against this and I see people who I've alluded to before, who constantly fight for what's right and campaign for what's right, and they inspire me for what's right and they inspire me.
Speaker 2:And facing him in court and the way he tried to intimidate me and me pushing through and him being found guilty, you know, by the jury, you know the judge giving him 14 years and me still being, right up until the sentencing, gaslit by the police. They didn't tell me that I could read out my victim impact statement. Why.
Speaker 2:I don't know. No, I don't know, because I did two victim impact statements. The first one, I was saying how bad the police had tricked me. The second one, I didn't. But when it came to so my years fair, bless her, my independent sexual violence advocate from Blue Door she said to me at the sentencing she realised I hadn't been asked and she went are you reading out your victim impact statement, sarah? And I went what's that? And the officer went. I did tell you, you know, before Christmas, because it was the day before Christmas Eve that he got found guilty, and this was the February the following year and I thought you've never said anything. It's a big thing to get prepared. I had to stand in front of the court and read this victim impact statement out and what they did was the CPS, who I thought were on my side, tried to get me to read the second statement out and not the first one, and the judge picked up on it. I actually wrote the judge a letter after the trial and sentencing and said thank you.
Speaker 2:And he said where's the other victim impact statement? So they went oh, we've only printed the second one out. Sarah did a new one and he went I want the first one. So they went. Well, we haven't got a print out, give her your laptop. So I had, I got to read both of them out and the judge just commented and I think, and he said to me in that courtroom and I just had tears streaming down my eyes he went now do you finally feel believed? And in that moment I felt believed and it gave me that drive and that passion, as well as the inspirations in my life, to think I can't just stay with this. But I'd just gone into recovery, the person who I was with at the time. They ended up attacking me in lockdown and that ended not long after that and I had to build my strength back up and I was still a mum throughout all of this.
Speaker 1:You know, I was always a mum doing my best For all the things we've talked about here, we've barely talked about the impact that all of this would have had on your daughter as well, and the thing is, I can only interpret, I guess, some of what she would have felt and gone through throughout this entire process.
Speaker 2:That hasn't been great the past year. She's got to be an adult and that residency order's gone.
Speaker 1:She's making her own decisions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've got my beliefs about why, she's coming to these decisions because me and her were like that. And I've got my beliefs about why she's coming to these decisions Because me and her were like that, so close, like you wouldn't even believe. That's been difficult. That's been one of the. I felt like I wanted to take my own life just before Christmas Throughout all of that. But yeah, the more I built myself up and the stronger I got. I was in hospital. I'd just started a job with the NHS and I was in hospital because there was something wrong with my bowel and stuff. And I remember the story about Sarah Everard coming out and I think it was just a bit before no, I think it was just a bit after the story about Sabine and Essa. And I was just thinking these are isolated incidents of these women being attacked by strangers, you know, being raped and neglect from authorities and things like that, because it isn't just the police. The police are a big part, but this is a system thing.
Speaker 2:This is a system wide thing, and the more it went on, the more I was feeling I needed to do something. And a friend, we were talking about it and I was already protesting things that I've protested against racism for a long time um, since about 2016 and this was 2021 and I just thought I need I need to do something about this. So, me and my friend, amy, we put on a protest in town and it was massive. We had the BBC come, itv, there were about 500 people there. It was huge and the amount of people that came and shared their stories and I thought this is not I am not an isolated incident.
Speaker 2:There isn't. You know, I'd seen it, I'd heard it and you know I've had people who've inspired me before, who've been through things, you know, with the police and with authorities and fought, you know, for what was right. And I just thought I need to do something and I was called by certain like services in Hull that dealt with children to go along and speak to them and be like right, we saw you at this protest.
Speaker 2:We have these, you know, we have these experiences here and I was thinking, god you know, something needs to be done. And then I found out that Humberside Police was putting on an independent advisory group dedicated to violence against women and girls. So I turned up to it and when I first started going I was angry. I was really really, really angry and I was quite hostile at times. I remember the CPS coming on by teams one time and I kind of challenged them and it wasn't long after that that they went off screen. I was angry because I felt like I'd been lied to. Oh, this is an isolated incident. Blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:This was and it wasn't, and I think my drive and my passion kind of came from that. And, yeah, in a way I'm kind of saving myself but I cannot ever, ever, ever not do anything because I don't want women to experience what I experienced. And that work has been ongoing, ongoing and, to be honest, I've built relationships up with these people who've upset me in the past, such as the police, you know, such as all these people, and I now co-chair the Violence Against Women and Girls independent advisory group for the police and I also chair the Serious Violence Duty for Violence Against Women and Girls in Hull as well, and I'm always that true, authentic voice.
Speaker 2:But instead of being angry, I try to be work with.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That's really, really important to me, absolutely, because I can shout, I can scream till the cows come home. I want to see that change. I want to see that fundamental system change and that's why, as well, I do what I do in my job role today. So I started doing my job role five months ago and I'm a lived experience coordinator, so basically I am there to get that lived experience voice involved within co-production and co-production is, you know, the experience, the frontline workers and the decision makers and the commissioners you know getting together to develop services, create services, evaluate services.
Speaker 2:I am so passionate about getting that lived experience voice involved because nobody knows better than they do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think for so long it's kind of been almost like a bit of a dictatorship, I would say, in the way that services like um, I guess even like substance misuse where I work, it's you know, it's almost like we know best, where the professionals and I feel like we're only really seeing that change in the last sort of five years or so, where we are flipping that upside down and we are making sure that it's.
Speaker 1:It's you know. Service user voice comes first. Yeah, and that's how it should be, because they're the ones that know best, because they're on the receiving end of the treatment every day absolutely like through me being heard and me being listened to.
Speaker 2:That has changed my life and that has given me the confidence to do what I do today and I'm hopefully going to be able to facilitate that for other people. I mean, there's some amazing people in the city who are already doing this lived experience work, who I get the pleasure of you know working alongside today, but it is a brand new role and it is the only role in actual Hull. But yeah, it's so. I'll never forget so. When I first went to the independent advisory group, there was a deputy chief constable at the time. Now he's retired now and I had a meeting with him a few months ago to talk about the lived experience stuff, talk about what he's doing, and he said to me he still has flashbacks. It's the first time he's ever said it to me. He said I still have flashbacks about what you said to me when you first told us your story in that independent advisory group, because it was at MKM Stadium. It was in a massive conference room and I just stood up and told it because I was angry. And he said I still have flashbacks about it now and it changed. He said it changed my whole perception. He said I thought shit, we're doing a really bad job here. You know what are we doing.
Speaker 2:And he sat down he went through the case with me around somebody I'd reported before and it not going through to the. You know the charging stage, the mistake, you know the mistakes they'd made there. I got an apology. I got an apology about you know the way they tricked me through the rape case and he's now reviewing domestic homicide reviews. He's reviewing domestic homicide. So they're finding out more and more that people are taking their own lives, predominantly women, through domestic abuse. Because they're being domestically abused. They're ending their own lives and he reviews them. He's on the criminology and policing degree at the university and he tries to do more to improve kind of how domestic abuse is dealt with in the arenas and I just think that proves and loads of people will have loads of other stories it's not just me who's?
Speaker 2:you know, had that effect on somebody. That's what the lived experience voice does. That that is. It changes everything, you know. I think we need to come together more, and it can't always be us against them, and that's what I want to dispel I want, I want to get rid of that. I want to get rid of that us.
Speaker 2:I want to get rid of that, us and them. I want it to be collective and the work that we've already done us and the lived experience collective have already done since I've been in post is just absolutely phenomenal. You know we've been part of putting together the dual diagnosis policy with East Riding Partnership and the NHS. You know we've been part of putting together the dual diagnosis policy with East Riding Partnership and the NHS. You know we've been approached, we're part of loads of different projects at the minute. We've got a community, a practicing hall, so that's like a co-production setting decision makers, learned experience, lived experience all together, you know, looking at key themes and issues that we need to tackle and talk about and debate about, to create that system change. Because that is what it's about.
Speaker 2:If things would have been different within the system, I wouldn't have been that woman that day in that reception area thinking what the fuck's going on. I am just a complete bag of shit because I didn't want to tell my family. I was chaotic enough, you know, I'd upset everybody enough. I didn't want to tell them this, you know. So I was on the phone with my mum pretending I was, because I was an actor at the time I was on in an acting gig.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've been called back yeah I've been called back for another scene. Yeah, you know like I am so, so passionate about it. Um, you know, working, you know, with changing futures, people with multiple unmet needs, because that was me. I was that person with multiple unmet needs addiction issues, domestic abuse, mental health issues. I've never been street homeless but I've had to stay at friends' houses and surf a surf and stuff with my daughter because I've lost my home or I've been kicked out.
Speaker 1:And you said earlier about the 75-minute conversation that you had with a friend and how that changed. You know how changed your entire life. I think the important thing to come back to is now knowing what you know, going through the experiences that you've gone through, being part of these. You know, uh, advisory groups. You can give that 75 minute conversation now to so many people yeah, to help them, and I always hate this idea that you know, oh well, I went through what I went through so I could help others, because what a horrible thing to go through just to be able to help others. But if there's anything that you could take away from the horrendous experiences that you've had, is that you are now in a very, very suitable position to help other people who are in similar experiences to what you've been through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just, you know, I never knew codependency. I can't even say the word codependency existed. I had no idea.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And so many people don't. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, If I would have known, oh, oh, that's me, oh, that's me. You know, like I did with the addiction stuff. Eventually my friend went into recovery and then she said, well, I'm never drinking again. And I was like what the fuck are you talking about? That's all we've ever done with each other since we were 10.
Speaker 1:What do we do now? What?
Speaker 2:do we do now? And then she was saying bits to me and I took her to a meeting when she was in a really bad way and I remember hearing stuff in that meeting and this guy talked about the angel and the devil on your shoulder. No, I shouldn't. Guy, talked about the angel and the devil on your shoulder. No, I shouldn't. Oh, but you've been all right and you know you can give yourself that little treat, oh, no, but you know where it ends and you know that constant internal battle. I think it's hearing that stuff you can relate to. You know, which is really, really, really important. Um, because, like I say, I wouldn't, I wouldn't have ever known, and when I started to learn more about codependency and it was actually a good friend of mine who pointed it out to me, you know, but again, she knew when the time was right to speak to me. Oh, have you ever thought about looking at?
Speaker 2:this and then the more I looked into it, isn't it yeah? And I think doing the work around my codependency over them like that nearly a year and I only finished it a few months ago it's completely changed me as a person like I would. I was never like I went from being absolutely needing somebody to absolutely avoiding relationships. There was never no balance, you know, um, because sometimes I could be the other way, I'd be like no, yeah you know kind of thing um, and just had away from all that.
Speaker 2:But I think you know it's really helped me and it's, as I was coming to kind of the end of that, like I'd started being friends with who was now my partner and we were friends for about a good six months at first and we were just friends, like there was no ulterior motive. I've done that before where I've classed myself. Oh, it was just friends first.
Speaker 3:But there was always that ulterior motive from the beginning, you know.
Speaker 2:but we were genuinely friends and I feel like I've been able since doing the work on myself and feeling whole not that I always feel whole, that's why.
Speaker 3:I have to do everything every day to give me that you know.
Speaker 2:But doing the things that I do, the campaigning that I do, you know, the work that I do is just so. It's important to my recovery as well, and all this stuff makes me realise I am a person and I have a really healthy relationship. Today, I don't go into oh, I've spoke to him once. Today. I can't speak to him again because, I'd overanalyze absolutely everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know how long has it been since we last communicated? Yeah, what did that message mean, do you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, don't overthink it absolutely and I think, like I said earlier on, about like the 12 step stuff and you being blamed for everything, I was in a relationship where, you know, there wasn't much communication and all that stuff, and I'd think, oh well, that's my fault, because everything was my fault, because that's what it told me, you know. But what I've learned is it's trauma. It's not my fault, it's not me, it's. It's been my trauma and the way I've I said it earlier the way I've learned to adapt and survive, that is what has happened to me. It's happened to me.
Speaker 2:I didn't wake up when I was a child and go right, my dream in my life is to be absolutely battered down to the ground, told I'm disgusting, told I've got big ears as a child, you know told I'm skinny, that I look like Skeletor, that I look like a boy. You know all this stuff, all this stuff throughout my life. I didn't wake up and think, ah, I want, I want to be you know, this is what I want to be you know this is what I want to be.
Speaker 2:Do you know what? I mean yeah, absolutely, yeah. And it's yeah, and I think you know it's. I just didn't realise that, like I had wants and needs, you know, within the relationship. So because certain kind of things within the 12-step programme had told me it was my fault, it was my fault, oh, it's me.
Speaker 1:I'm being so needy oh it's me, I'm being this, oh it's me, I'm being that.
Speaker 2:I think we've got to separate it from being us to being what's happened. What's happened to you, not what have you done what's happened to you, and then people feel understood, you know, and there's that hope for that person to realise that they aren't this dirty, disgusting thing, that you know what's always happened to them and you know what's caused them to want to do the things that they've wanted to do yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, I'm just I'm really passionate and I'm just really grateful that I'm doing the role that I am now with Changing Futures, with Forum, to be able to have somebody have that voice to enable to boost their confidence and realise it's what's happened to them. You know, it's not them.
Speaker 1:No, thank you, thank you. There's a lot we could continue to talk about, sarah, but again, we've been talking for a long time as well I still feel like we're only just scratching the surface. Really, do you know what, especially after? I like to end all my podcasts with a series of 10 questions and the idea is that we just end on not necessarily a positive note, but a different note. What's your favorite word?
Speaker 2:my favorite, oh, my favorite word. Oh, what is my favorite word?
Speaker 1:say the first thing that comes to mind I'd probably say fuck nice what's? What's your least favorite word?
Speaker 2:my least favorite word capitalism.
Speaker 1:Tell me something that excites you um campaigning, yeah, campaigning tell me something that doesn't excite you um violence against women and girls what sound or noise do you love?
Speaker 2:sound and noise that I love David Bowie sound or noise do you hate? Anything to do with capitalism what's your favourite curse word? My favourite curse word fuck, fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
Speaker 2:I've already been it, but I'd like to be it again, and that's an actor what profession would you not like to do?
Speaker 1:be a Tory and lastly, if heaven exists, what would you like, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Speaker 2:here's your dad oh, that's cute.
Speaker 1:Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the Believe in People podcast. You have been wonderful. Thank you, and if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, we'd love for you to share it with others who might find it meaningful. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode, and leaving a review will help us reach more people and continue challenging stigma stigma around addiction and recovery For additional resources, insights and updates. Explore the links in this episode description and to learn more about our mission and hear.
