Bridgewater woman regrets reporting sexual assault

A Nova Scotia woman says she regrets reporting a sexual assault to the police after the man she accused of raping her was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, then later released from custody pending appeal.

Shannon Graham, a 22-year-old woman from Bridgewater, told police her common-law spouse, Jared Beck-Wentzell, sexually assaulted her in their home in July 2014.

Graham says she feels like she has little to show for her two-year journey through the legal process while she waits for the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal to hear Beck-Wentzell’s case.

Beck-Wentzell was released from prison in June while his lawyer appeals the provincial court’s verdict on the grounds that a defence of “honest but mistaken belief in consent” was not considered, and that the judge misunderstood a portion of his testimony.

Graham believes the criminal justice system has routinely given Beck-Wentzell the benefit of the doubt, while she says she was treated “like a piece of evidence” and less than “an actual human being.”

She wants victims of sexual violence to know how the criminal justice system works, because she says if she had, she would have sought the help she needed rather than getting the authorities involved.

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