Afrigather 
A lady Ella Janneh has revealed her pleasure in being awarded £217,000 after sexual assault was not prosecuted and two appeals to CPS had been dismissed.
After an 8-year battle she mentioned at occasions broke her down, Janneh gained damages in a civil case in opposition to TV intercourse therapist Michael Lousada who she accused of raping her.
“I don’t assume anyone chooses to take advantage of humiliating expertise of their life one thing to be publicly identified for,” she mentioned in an interview with the Guardian.
“However this disgrace just isn’t ours, and I wish to make this simpler for the following individual to talk out.”
Regardless of going to the police the day after the alleged rape, her case was not prosecuted. Two appeals to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) had been dismissed and she or he was denied felony accidents compensation as a result of police informed the awarding physique she was “not a reputable witness”.
“At the beginning I wished justice,” mentioned Janneh, now 37. “I wished to have the ability to share this story with the world.”
Janneh began seeing the therapist, Michael Lousada, in 2011. She had been sexually abused as a toddler and had not obtained correct assist to course of this.
It left her depressed, in addition to having panic assaults throughout sexual exercise together with her boyfriends.
“As a result of I actually didn’t perceive what was taking place to me and it was actually overwhelming, and I skilled numerous disgrace and embarrassment about it, I felt like I wanted to get assist,” she mentioned.
Someday she picked up a replica of the Metro newspaper and skim an article about Lousada, by which he mentioned he wished to deliver the providers he supplied to the NHS.
Within the years earlier than she noticed Lousada once more, she had extra conventional speaking remedy and talked in regards to the constructive results
“I used to be in a very good place psychologically and emotionally,” she mentioned. “I felt very enthusiastic about my future. I felt very, excellent in regards to the progress I had made.”
Nevertheless, she nonetheless skilled panic signs throughout sexual exercise.
“[As] a girl in my 20s [I] didn’t wish to be coping with having a lot of these conversations with sexual companions about my sexual abuse,” she mentioned.
And so she started checking web sites for survivors of sexual abuse, and examine “bodywork”, described as “an rising area that survivors had been discovering therapeutic in”.
She says she remembered that she had seen Lousada prior to now and booked one other appointment.
Having seen Lousada’s social media posts, she believed he was “this pre-eminent professional in trauma” and paid £750 for the three-hour session in London.
She defined to him how her panic manifested: her fingers would shut up, she would hyperventilate and wrestle to talk. She mentioned Lousada didn’t clarify what she ought to anticipate from the session.
“There was nothing, there was no communication on his finish,” she mentioned.
She didn’t imagine that the session “would contain something sexual” and thought “he can be treating me in the way in which a health care provider or a therapist would”, she mentioned.
After half-hour of speaking, Janneh went to a room with a mattress, the place the alleged rape happened.
In paperwork filed with the excessive court docket, Janneh mentioned Lousada informed her his penis was “like a laser beam” that would “expend trauma” and “take up the trauma”.
The court docket heard that Lousada didn’t put on a condom. After listening to the proof, the decide discovered that Lousada had instructed Ella to regress into her childhood self.
Janneh claimed the incident brought on her to endure a panic assault, leaving her unable to speak and “incapable of offering legitimate and knowledgeable consent”.
In his defence, Lousada admitted penetration occurred however mentioned he repeatedly obtained “clear verbal consent” from Janneh, though the decide determined that was not the case.
The decide mentioned he had “little question” Janneh had suffered a “full-blown dissociative panic assault” and that she had “completely lacked capability” to consent to what occurred.
After she left Lousada’s workplace, Janneh mentioned she phoned her pal whereas she was on the prepare, however realised she couldn’t speak about what had occurred and hung up.
“As soon as I bought to the station it had began to filter via what had occurred, and I referred to as her and began screaming, at Dalston Kingsland station [in east London], on the high of the platform.
“I simply began screaming after which I hung up the telephone, and went straight throughout the street and purchased a bottle, and went residence and simply turned off my telephone as a result of I couldn’t discuss to anybody.”
She added: “I felt completely and completely humiliated, extra humiliated than after I was a toddler, as a result of that abuse had been used in opposition to me.”
The subsequent morning, she switched her telephone again on, and after hardly sleeping, referred to as a sexual assault service as quickly because it opened. “I simply began screaming once more,” she mentioned.
The identical day, she reported Lousada to the Metropolitan police, who started a rape investigation.
Following the police investigation, the case was referred to the CPS, however she was informed that Lousada wouldn’t be prosecuted.
“I completely didn’t really feel like justice was finished,” she mentioned.
“I simply couldn’t perceive how this was allowed to proceed, and I simply couldn’t sit with the truth that this was allowed to proceed.
“I had wished to die. That’s how dangerous I felt, that’s how destroyed I used to be, I virtually misplaced my thoughts. I’ve gone in an area that’s presupposed to be therapeutic and the entire thing was turned on its head.”
