Words Can Describe

"I woke with a start. The duvet was gone and there was a man on top of me. I shut my eyes. It took several peeks before I realised: this is happening."

Only five per cent of reported rapes in the UK result in a conviction. Only twenty per cent of rapes perpetrated in the UK are even reported.

Twelve years ago writer Abi Grant was raped – in her flat – by an intruder. She did report it but her attacker was not known to the police and that was that. Six violent minutes had changed her life. She lost everything: home, relationship, agent, money, career – even her dog. For eight years she floundered, unable to work and sinking further and further into depression and addiction. Gradually, she picked up the threads and began to rebuild her life. And 12 years after the attack, the Cold Case Unit came calling...

This is her story – complete with dysfunctional family background, teen trauma and a blow-by-blow account of what going to court to try to get a rape conviction in 21st-century Britain really means and how very easy it is for any one of us simply to slip through society's cracks. But Abi is a survivor; her unique voice – angry, hurt and often, amazingly, very, very funny – gives lie to the old saw that words cannot describe terrible experiences. They can – and she does, honestly, wittily and passionately.