OBITUARY - Jill Saward: Campaigner 1965-2017

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Jill Saward

Jill Saward, who has died aged 51 after suffering from a stroke, was a formidable campaigner on behalf of survivors of sexual assault, who inspired changes to legislation, policy and attitudes on rape. In 1986, when Saward was 21, a gang of men in balaclavas armed with knives, broke into her father’s vicarage in Ealing, west London.

They beat Saward’s then boyfriend, David Kerr, and her father almost to death, while two of the gang dragged Saward upstairs and repeatedly raped her. A few days later, the front page of the Sun newspaper carried a full-length photo of Saward, taken while on her way to church, with her eyes covered by a thin line. Saward was identified as the woman who had been the victim of what became widely known in the media as the “Ealing vicarage rape attack”

The action of the newspaper provoked an outcry, with feminist and victim support groups calling for better protection for those who had been raped.

The trial of the three men 11 months later at the Old Bailey provoked significant media coverage, partly because much of the previous press reporting had been salacious and exploitative. Saward was presented as “the perfect victim”, and much was made of the fact that she was, as the trial prosecutor told the jury, “a virgin” and, of course, a vicar’s daughter.

There were public protestations when the defendant who did not take part in the rape received a substantially longer jail sentence for burglary than the two convicted of rape. The judge, Sir John Leonard, sought to justify this by claiming, in a comment he later regretted, that Saward’s trauma “had not been so great”. The case was one of a number that led to a change in the law, in 1988, to allow prosecutors to appeal for longer sentences.

A week after the trial, Saward approached her MP to ask him to “urge the House of Commons to accept the home secretary’s proposed new rules, which are framed with a view to protecting a victim’s identity from the moment of assault”. The law was changed in 1988, so that full anonymity was extended for rape victims, in that newspapers were prohibited from publishing photographs of complainants, and removed from defendants altogether. These changes came about as a result of the outcry following Saward’s trial and her subsequent lobbying of parliamentarians.

In 1990, on the publication of her book,Rape: My Story (written with Wendy Green), Saward became the first rape survivor to choose to waive her anonymity, and soon became a household name, appearing on TV and radio, and speaking at public events.

Jill, an identical twin with Sue, was born in Liverpool to the Rev Michael Saward and his wife, Jacqueline (nee Atkinson). The twins had two older siblings, Rachel and Joe. The family moved to London when Jill was two, when her father became radio and television officer to the Church of England, and lived in the Ealing vicarage from 1978 when Michael was appointed to the parish of St Mary’s. Jill and Sue went to Lady Margaret school in Fulham. When Jill was 12 years old, she became involved with the Scripture Union beach mission in Nefyn, north Wales, and remained a committed Christian all her life. In 1988 she married Gary Huxley, but they separated in 1992. She subsequently met and married Gavin Drake, a journalist, and they had three sons.

I first met Saward in a TV studio in 1991, during a debate about whether those accused of rape should be granted anonymity. Saward said, in her usual forthright but calm manner, that the accused should be named from arrest, because many rapists are multiple offenders and that releasing their names could result in other women coming forward.

Over the years, our paths crossed often. For example, we were both involved in the successful campaign in the 1990s to change the law that allowed men accused of rape to cross-examine the complainant in court.

Somewhat of a maverick, Saward could not be easily claimed by any political party or campaign group. In 1997 I heard Saward speak at a conference at which she argued that women who dress scantily should not be surprised if men think they are up for sex – not a popular view among feminists. But Saward always had the welfare of the women affected by rape at the heart of her endeavours. Also in 1997, she set up Hurt (Help Untwist Rape Trauma), which provided counselling and support for survivors of sex crime.

Not only was Saward a keen and able lobbyist, she also had a crack at becoming an MP herself. In 2008, she ran against David Davies in the Haltemprice and Howden byelection as an independent candidate. In an interview with Saward during the election campaign, I asked her why she wanted to be a politician. “One of the main things I would like to push for is proper support for specialised services that deal with those issues – groups like Rape Crisis – because they are being crushed.”

Contrary to popular belief, Saward was not primarily a “victims’ rights” campaigner, but spent much of her time campaigning for stronger deterrents for would-be perpetrators. She possessed a forensic understanding of the workings of the criminal justice system in relation to sex crimes.

In 2014, Saward co-founded, with Alison Boydell, Juries – Jurors Understanding Rape Is Essential Standard – with an aim of educating jurors on the harmful stereotypes that surround rape cases, such as that women are “asking for it” if they drink alcohol or agree to be alone with the perpetrator. “We can train judges until we’re blue in the face,” said Saward, “but jurors are members of the public who absorb the myths all the time.”

Saward enjoyed social media, and would post photographs of herself in slippers and pyjamas while giving radio interviews on serious topics. Her humour was dry and often self-deprecating. One of Saward’s many skills was her ability to make connections across political and social divides, and she was popular and well respected by politicians, faith-based organisations and other feminist campaigners.

Perhaps Saward’s most important legacy is that she removed the shame and stigma so often attached to women who experience rape, and transferred it to the rapists. Saward gave hope to those women, by showing that it is not just possible to survive after rape, but to thrive.

Her mother died in 2009, and her father in 2015. She is survived by Gavin and their sons, and her siblings.

• Jill Saward (Drake), campaigner, born 14 January 1965; died 5 January 2017

SOURCE - the Guardian.com