Reuben Williams

I call up one of the middle order batsmen from the 4th 11 who also happens to be a pretty handy barrister.

So it was more the barrister rather than the middle order.

Yeah, exactly.

He made a duck that day and dropped a catch.

But yeah, in a court of law, he doesn't let much slip.

So I called him up and I'm like, mate, what am I in for?

And he goes, look, Ruben, it's not a comfortable experience getting up there and having a lawyer who's getting paid $10,000 a day to try and discredit you and explain that you're a liar.

But I think you could handle it.

And so I was like, okay, that's good to know.

And then I asked Emily, I was like, what do you think I should do?

And we started weighing up things like, what does this mean for your career?

Because this is a senior guy in the sports industry.

I'm 18 months into my first job.

Is he going to try and cut that out from beneath me?

But also, what is the process of going through the legal system going to do to me psychologically as well?

And in this situation, when you're considering what to do next, the proper response is do what's best for you because every situation is so circumstantial.

You should never really pressure a survivor into going one way or the other.

But even despite this, my friend Emily...

knew the gravity of sexual violence as an issue in society and how underreported it is and potentially how impactful it could be if I went through with this.

And so she was brave enough to basically suggest to me that, like, you know, you should put yourself through the legal system to report this, which, like, I don't have many friends who would say that to me.