From Injustice to Impact

five years on

By Jade Blue

20th October 2020.
The day my life turned upside down.

I remember sitting in a meeting room at the police station, waiting for an update I had been anticipating for years. After nearly three and a half years of waiting, I thought I was finally about to go to court. Instead, I heard a word I had never come across before: sexsomnia.

That was the first time I heard it - in that room, from the Crown Prosecution Service. I can still recall the way the air seemed to drain out of the space around me. A “sleep specialist,” who had never met me, never spoken to me, and never clinically assessed me, had concluded that I might have experienced an episode of sexsomnia and the perpetrator would have had a reasonable belief that I was consenting to sexual intercourse. On that basis, the CPS had decided to drop the case.

I sat there in disbelief as they explained their reasoning. Shock gave way to confusion, then anger, and finally a deep, hollow sadness. After years of waiting for justice, it was gone - just like that.

I felt it to my core: this was wrong. Unjust. Impossible to accept.

Sexsomnia.
A word so rare, so unheard of at the time, that I didn’t even know it existed. Yet somehow, it was being used to explain - or rather, erase - what had happened to me.

It didn’t make sense then, and it still doesn’t now. How could a stranger’s hypothetical diagnosis outweigh my reality? How could the CPS accept it so readily? I remember thinking, if this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone.

That thought - that fear - became the spark that kept me going.

Challenging the decision

I refused to accept the CPS’s decision. I used the Victims’ Right to Review (VRR) process - a mechanism that allows victims to request a review of a CPS decision to drop or not charge a case.

From the start, I was told it wouldn’t change anything. “It won’t make a difference,” they said. But I couldn’t let this stand. I didn’t want sexsomnia to become the new “rough sex defence.” I didn’t want another woman to be told her rape didn’t count because of a theory that sounded more like fiction than science.

So I challenged it. I wrote letters, chased calls, and demanded answers. And months later, the review came back.

They got it wrong.

An independent Deputy Crown Prosecutor found that my case should have gone to trial - and that a jury would have been “more likely than not” to convict. Those words cut deep. They confirmed what I had known all along: I was right to fight. But they also crushed me. Because by then, it was too late.

The CPS had already offered no evidence in court, meaning the defendant had been formally acquitted. Under the double jeopardy law, the case could never be reopened.

All I received was a letter of apology - described as being “of little consolation.” And it truly was.

The aftermath

What came next was harder than I could have imagined.
Worse, in many ways, than the rape itself.

The injustice, the betrayal, the collapse of faith in a system that was supposed to protect me - it broke something inside me. I spiralled. I used alcohol and drugs to numb the pain. I couldn’t make sense of how the CPS could get it so catastrophically wrong, how they could believe something so absurd.

The apology didn’t bring closure; it brought torment. Knowing they had admitted fault but that nothing could be done - that there would be no trial, no accountability - sent me to the darkest place I’ve ever been.

There was a moment on a bridge in central London when I no longer wanted to be here. That’s how deep the failure can cut.

Eventually, I stepped away from work, took a demotion, and spent six months trying to rebuild. The financial loss was one thing; the emotional fallout was another entirely. Healing was slow, uneven, and painful. But somewhere in that chaos, a determination began to grow.

Turning pain into purpose

By 2022, the BBC had reported on my case, exposing how the CPS had wrongfully dropped dozens of others, too - at least 60 cases where victims had successfully challenged CPS decisions, but where the cases could never be reopened.

Labour MP Jess Phillips called for an urgent review of the VRR system, writing to the Attorney General to demand reform. She was right: a letter of sorrow is not justice. It’s a system protecting itself.

I had already begun legal action against the CPS - not out of vengeance, but for accountability. In 2024, we won. The CPS admitted they were wrong. I received a settlement for the damage done.

But the most important part wasn’t the money. It was the acknowledgment. The recognition that what happened to me wasn’t acceptable - and that it couldn’t keep happening to others.

Five years later

Now, five years on from that day in October 2020, I can look back and see how far we’ve come.

The CPS has started taking the sexsomnia defence more seriously, recognising how easily it can be misused. A new Victims’ Right to Review pilot is underway - a six-month scheme designed to make the process stronger, fairer, and more transparent for victims.

And I’ve channelled everything I learned, everything I lost, into something bigger: a campaign called Right to Be Reviewed, under my movement Make Yourself Heard (M.Y.H).

Our aim is simple but vital - to make the VRR pilot permanent and nationwide, and to ensure victims truly have the right to challenge decisions before cases are closed. Because it should never take suing a public body to be heard.

When I think back to that younger version of me - sitting in that police station meeting room, bewildered and broken - I wish I could tell her what we’ve achieved. That her voice mattered. That her fight would change things.

We held the CPS to account.
We showed that when you make yourself heard, change can follow.
Because when one voice speaks up, others join - and that’s how reform begins.

The road ahead

There’s still a long way to go. Survivors are still waiting years for cases to reach court. Too many are silenced by fear, disbelief, or procedural failure. And too often, the system feels designed to protect itself rather than those it’s meant to serve.

But every time I see a survivor speak out, every time I hear a policymaker talk about improving victims’ rights, I feel hope. Because change doesn’t happen overnight - it happens through persistence, courage, and the collective power of those who refuse to be silent.

It’s taken me five years to reach a point where I can reflect on that day without breaking.
I still feel the weight of it - the loss, the disbelief, the cruelty of it all. But I also feel pride. Because I didn’t let it end there.

This anniversary isn’t just about what was taken from me; it’s about what we’ve built since.

A movement grounded in truth and resilience.
A call for accountability and reform.
A reminder that even in the darkest moments, there is strength in speaking up.

To anyone who has ever been dismissed, disbelieved, or defeated by the justice system: your voice matters. What feels like an ending can, in time, become the beginning of something bigger.

Because five years ago, I was silenced.
Today, I am heard.
And I’m not done yet.