Nina Funnell

you know, process that in a way which is about trying to get to a point of acceptance and moving on with the rest of my life.

And so for that six months, I was like seesawing between am I meant to be moving on with my life or am I meant to be preserving every detail and sort of mentally preparing for court?

And they're two very different emotional states.

Yeah, they are.

So that was, and that's why when it got to the six month mark and the DNA still hadn't been tested, I was in an absolute frenzy and was like, I just need this answer so that I can plan the rest of my life.

After I got that answer that they had male DNA, but they didn't have a match, it at least gave me some resolution, which meant that I could sort of park it a little bit and focus on, well, what are the things that I do have control over in my life?

And obviously the nature of sexual violence is that it robs you of power and control.

And so within therapy, one of the things that, you know, we plotted out was, well, what do I have agency and control over and how can I put my energy into those things?

In a way, that's become my therapy of, well...

You know, I'm not going to get justice in the traditional sense, you know, through the criminal justice system, but justice comes in many forms.

And for some of us, telling our story is justice or, you know, working in solidarity with other survivors is a form of healing and justice.

Changing the system.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah, so I did want to be a journalist.

I hadn't thought about what area I would specialise in.

Interestingly, I had actually, I was very interested in human rights and I had done some gender studies subjects at university and

But it was a bit of a baptism by fire in the sense that my first experience of journalism other than as a consumer was not me reporting the news.

It was me being the subject of news.

And at the time, like back in 2007, when my story broke, there were very few public survivors.