'Women should be believed straight way. You wouldn't report something like that if it hadn't happened'

SOPHIE DOUGHTY talks to Wendy Forrester as she opens up about her own difficult experience with the police as a rape victim over 30 years ago. She had hoped things had changed, but has been horrified after hearing rape victims are still not believed

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Eric McKenna

HE had hoped that the appalling treatment she received from police when she reported being raped was a thing of the past.

But now victim Wendy Forrester is horrified at hearing of the vile misogynistic views held by some officers in the country’s biggest police force.

The 63-year-old had to wait more than 30 years for justice after she was dragged off the streets in Gateshead and raped by a stranger in 1983.

Eric McKenna was eventually found guilty of raping Wendy and another woman in Newcastle after cold case detectives were able to link their cases to the predator when he gave a DNA sample after he was arrested for urinating in a neighbour’s plant pot.

But as McKenna, from Arthur's Hill in Newcastle, stood trial in 2018, Newcastle Crown Court heard details of the shocking way officers spoke to Wendy when she reported the attack in the early 1980s, with one officer suggesting she “go home and forget about it.”

Wendy, who says she received brilliant help and support when Northumbria Police reopened the case and throughout McKenna’s trial, did believe things had changed.

However, an investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme has revealed a hidden culture of racism and misogyny within London's Metropolitan Police.