A 26-year-old woman has told the agonising story of being raped by her best friend’s now-husband and how still, to this day, her best friend doesn’t even believe her.
The would-be bridesmaid was forced to pull out of her best friend April’s wedding ceremony, which went ahead three weeks before the groom, Daniel Howard, was sentenced to seven years in jail for his crime.
She told The Mirror: ‘I couldn’t have stood in church on her wedding day knowing what had happened and that it would most probably happen again.’
The woman was raped after a night out with April and her Royal Army Medical Corps officer fiancé, Howard. They’d all been on a night out in Darlington, County Durham, before heading back to April and Howard’s home. Howard had left the room he shared with April and went to the next door room to rape her friend.
After the attack, the victim tried to call her boyfriend, but his phone was turned off. So she made her way to the hospital alone, where nurses got in touch with the police.
The boyfriend blamed himself for the attack, as his phone had been off: ‘He never forgave himself for that. He always worried every time I went somewhere and wouldn’t sleep if I went out, it put a strain on us.’
Their relationship soon broke down and he committed suicide a few months after they broke up.
‘Even though there were multiple things contributing to this, [my rape] had quite an effect on him. He was always my rock and supported me through everything. I feel this is partly my fault.
‘The rape made me a nightmare girlfriend. He shouldn’t have had to deal with anything like this,’ she says.
Well, neither should she, the victim, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. ‘I blamed myself until I had counselling. I thought the playsuit I wore was too provocative, but any 24-year-old would have worn it. Then I thought maybe I looked too similar to April,’ she says.
Howard, meanwhile, told police that the reason his DNA was found on intimate swabs taken from the victim, was because she had found a sex toy that he’d used and then used it on herself to leave the evidence. He alleged she did this because she was jealous and wanted to disrupt her best friend’s wedding.
The court threw this argument out as ‘ludicrous, cold-blooded and insulting’.
Recorder QC Andrew Sutcliffe told Howard at Teesside crown court: ‘In the face of overwhelming DNA evidence to the contrary, you continued to deny this ever happened. This attempt to humiliate your victim severely exacerbated the wrong you had already done to her.’
The victim told the court in a statement: ‘I’m really upset my friendship with April no longer exists. April was my best friend from uni. I can’t actually believe she doesn’t believe me. A person I really cared for and who cared for me has been turned against me.’
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.