Police abuse: : He turned to me and said, No one will believe you

A female officer describes an alleged attack by a colleague, who was never charged, and the aftermath of her ordeal.

Sue was a member of staff at a police force in the north of England when she says she was raped by a detective after a long night shift investigating an abduction.

After many hours on duty, Sue had returned home around 3am. Her next shift was due to begin at 7.30am, and there seemed little point in going to bed. So she had a bath, and made a cup of tea.

An hour later there was a knock at her door. "This officer turned up at my house," she said. "He was a detective, and I had worked with him, I viewed him as a friend. I just assumed he had come to ask me something about the inquiry because he was working on it too."

Sue offered the officer a coffee and got on with some ironing in the back bedroom while she chatted to him. But his talk very quickly turned personal.

"He had tried it on a bit with me in the past," said Sue. "But I made clear I wasn't interested. I'd given him a smack and laughed it off and thought nothing of it. I was seeing someone at the time, and as he was talking he said: 'What you need is a good man.'"

Sue's return quip brought to an abrupt end any sense that this was just mutual banter between friends and colleagues. "I just replied: 'If I need a good man it won't be you.'"

The next thing she knew she was on the floor. "He smacked me in the face," she said. "It just came out of nowhere, and I ended up on the floor. Then he started saying 'Don't insult me,' and he picked up the iron.

"I had my arms up in front of my face, and my arms got burned as he thrust it at me. Then he beat the shit out of me, and then he raped me."

It is only now, more than 10 years on, that Sue, who is in her 40s, is able to talk openly about the attack that devastated her life. "He left as if he hadn't got a care in the world and he turned to me and said: 'No one will believe you.'"

Sue failed to turn up for her shift the next morning, or the following day – telling her superiors she had a stomach bug. "To be honest, I couldn't tell you what I did for the next week or two, I wasn't with it: I took painkillers, I was covered in burns and bruises, I had a massive black eye which I covered with makeup when I went back in to work.

"I was trying to be natural, but the officers who worked with me were aware something had gone on. The detective involved kept turning up at my station when he had no reason to. My colleagues were watching me, because they were worried, so they were watching my reaction to people in the station. When he came in, they put two and two together."

The first complaint was sent to the anti-corruption unit anonymously, saying Sue had been attacked and they needed to look into it. When asked why she did not make a complaint immediately after the attack, Sue said: "What he did to me was so unnatural, I felt embarrassed and ashamed, I couldn't talk about it."

But alerted by concerned colleagues from her team, a male superintendent from the unit visited her. "I didn't feel comfortable talking to him, I couldn't do it," she said. "So he went away and said: 'If you change your mind let us know.'"

Over the next few weeks, her attacker repeatedly visited her station, until another colleague turned to her and said: "It's him, isn't it?'

"I almost broke down, because I was terrified that he was coming to do it again," she said.

Her colleague rang the anti-corruption unit and 10 days later, two male officers visited her again, this time at her home. They spent an hour taking a statement and, she says, did not remove anything evidential from her home.

Her alleged attacker was suspended two weeks later. Sue claims she had her telephone bugged and a surveillance camera focused on her home. When she asked why, she was told it was for her own safety.

But her identity quickly spread through the force, Sue said.

"In the canteen, the Police Federation rep was sitting there discussing details openly. When people from my station came in, he was shouting across to them: 'Have you fucked her too?'"

The Crown Prosecution Service never charged the officer involved. While the officer involved is still in the force, Sue has been made redundant.

Its a boy's club so of course this would happen, but honestly as bad a person as it makes me - I have my eyebrow halfway up my hairline as well. I mean - why would you have this guy come in your house? And why would he suddenly do this? If he had these intentions they would have showed up sooner right? Further why would noone have noticed that she had burns or bruises or a black eye under her makeup?

If her incident happened, and it may have, then this was a serious miscarriage - but she ended up doing everything wrong if she wanted it to end differently. Again horrible thing to say, but rape is generally a charge that makes the victim the one on trial rather than the perpetrator. So she didn't immediately file a report, she never told anyone, she didn't go to the hospital and by the time it became an issue there was no way to do a rape kit, and she tried her best to hide all the signs/evidence. Also she went back to work. Why would you go back to a job that allowed access to the dude who raped you? It just seems... I don't know.