Standing outside his house, chatting about his daughter’s school fete, Philip – fortysomething, friendly and keen to fit in – seemed the perfect new neighbour.
He had a quiet courtesy about him and there was an ease to our conversation that belied our 20-year age gap.
So I still struggle to reconcile that charming man with the violent predator who, little more than an hour later, ripped off my dress and raped me.
Nor can I believe that, after a lifetime of being treated with respect by the opposite sex, this happened to me at the age of 62.
Like most of us, if only on a subconscious level, I thought sexual assault was something that happened to younger women – those who’d had their drink spiked, perhaps.
Or those who found themselves alone on the street after a night out with friends, or powerless to escape an abusive relationship. These stereotypes were so far removed from my own safe existence that I simply never dreamed that I, a grandmother of five who doesn’t drink and is in bed by 10.30pm most evenings, could be a victim.
Before she was sexually assaulted, Tabitha believed this was something that only happened to younger women, who had their drink spiked, for example
Widowed ten years earlier, I’d been in a loving relationship with a new partner for seven years.
I took pride in my appearance but was long past seeing myself as an object of male desire. Of course, I now realise the rape wasn’t about sex at all, but power, control and the kind of cruelty that no amount of life experience could protect me from.
If my age has had any bearing on my ability to recover from the trauma, it is, perhaps, that I am more aware of my vulnerability and less hopeful that I can start anew.
Certainly a year on, the scars still feel fresh. My relationship broke down three months after the rape when I realised I’d contracted a sexually transmittted infection (STI) – something that felt almost as shameful as the rape itself.
I won’t go out alone in the evening or invite a man I don’t know into my home. Above all, I’m left with the overarching question: how on earth could this have happened to me?
It was a stifling hot evening last July and my partner Ian, 60, an engineer who lived with me, was away overnight with his adult son.
Desperate for fresh air, I went out to deliver leaflets for a fundraising concert I was helping organise.
I was enjoying feeling the breeze on my skin when Philip stepped out of his van on a quiet cul-de-sac a five-minute walk from my home.
Ours is a friendly estate in a West Midlands town, where I’d lived for nine years, and I realised as he made his way towards his house, virtually identical to my own, that he must be the man who’d moved in a few months previously.
A couple of male friends had started playing golf with him, and said he was recently divorced and a plumber.
So I didn’t hesitate to stop and introduce myself.
‘You must be Philip,’ I said, handing him a leaflet. ‘I’ve heard all about you.’
He said he’d love to come to the concert and asked if he could help with our fundraising.
‘Of course – the more the merrier,’ I said gratefully, giving him my number and telling him that either myself or Ian would be in touch.
He explained he was just back from setting up stalls for his daughter’s school fete. It transpired she’d joined the same school as one of my granddaughters, and we discussed their favourite teachers.
He said he lived alone, aside from weekends when his daughter stayed.
I knew his house had been empty for months before he moved in and when I asked if he’d done a lot of work to it, he asked, casually: ‘Do you want to come in and have a look?’
Curious, and missing this sort of spontaneous casual conversation since I’d retired from my accountancy job the year before, I had no misgivings about accepting his invitation.
Handing me a glass of water once inside, he showed me the pictures of his footballing heroes that he said his ex would have hated, self-consciously explaining they symbolised his new start.
I felt my own barriers come down and told him how, after my husband died of a heart attack, I’d found love again.
Looking back, his comments that he wasn’t surprised, that I was obviously a catch, could be construed differently. At the time, I simply – naively – took them as someone being kind. Before I knew it, it was nearly 10pm and I was telling him I had to go home.
He said he’d like to see me again, fixing his eyes on me with an intensity that suddenly suggested he didn’t mean as friends.
I laughed – my grandchildren were older than his daughter and the prospect of a date was ridiculous – but I also felt uncomfortable. The conversation had lurched so suddenly from kids and Coronation Street.
‘I’m in a relationship,’ I reminded him, standing up to collect the shoes I’d left on the doormat.
He got up, too and took my arm in his hands. For a split second I thought he was going to kiss my hand. Instead, he wrenched it behind my back and pushed me to the floor.
I can only remember flickers of what happened next. The smell of his aftershave. The sound of his living-room blinds wafting in the breeze. Fear as he ripped the straps of my dress and pinned me to the floor.
Shock somehow heightened my manners.
‘Please stop, this is terrible,’ I begged. When I tried to push him off, he pulled my hair.
The more I pushed, the harder he pulled, tearing my underwear and yanking my leg back so hard I thought he’d dislocate my hip.
Her relationship broke down three months after the rape, when she realised she had contracted a sexually transmitted infection from her neighbour
For months afterwards, I would blame myself for not fighting harder.
I’m strong for my age – I go to the gym twice a week – but he was nearly twice my size.
Realising I was trapped, I went into survival mode. It felt as if I were watching it happening to someone else.
When he’d finished, he left me on the floor and asked if I wanted another cup of tea, as if nothing had happened.
I couldn’t speak.
Picking up my underwear, I tripped on the step of the door in my rush to get away.
He laughed.
Locking my front door behind me after I’d run home, my heart still pounding, my initial reaction was guilt. What had I done to encourage Philip? Why had I gone into his house in the first place?
I was convinced that if I told Ian he would be furious with me, and knew he’d be able to tell by the tone of my voice that something was wrong.
So I texted him to say I’d fallen asleep watching television and was too tired to talk, before standing in front of my bathroom mirror, barely recognising myself.
My bobbed hair, usually neatly blow dried, was bedraggled, and everything hurt. In the shower, I scrubbed myself under scalding water, as if washing away the evidence would somehow obliterate the memories.
In the immediate aftermath, the thought of reporting Philip to the police seemed preposterous, much as I wish I had. In shock, I didn’t see myself as the victim of a crime, thinking I must have somehow ‘asked for it’.
While I knew older people could be raped, I couldn’t process that it had actually happened to me – although perhaps subconsciously I knew one day I might want to report it, stuffing my dress and underwear unwashed under the bed.
I spent a fitful night checking the doors and windows, all too aware he was only round the corner and knew where I lived.
It wasn’t until I texted my closest friend the next day and told her what had happened, and received her compassionate but unequivocal response – ‘You’ve been raped’ – that the reality started to sink in.
Still, however, there seemed a surreal disconnect between the minutiae of my humdrum life – Neighbourhood Watch member, gardener, rambler – and sexual assault, that stopped me telling anyone.
I knew my two adult daughters, both married, would sympathise, but I didn’t want them to worry, or secretly judge me.
The irony that I’d spent much of their younger lives telling them to be safe, picking them up after parties rather than letting them make their own way home, was not lost on me. Surely, I could hear them thinking, at her age she should have known better.
My body still aching, I went to stay with the friend I’d confided in at her home in Yorkshire for a week – a visit that, by luck, we’d already arranged and which provided an excuse for putting off seeing my partner Ian.
Within days of my return, however, he realised something was wrong. I didn’t want to leave the house. I was defensive and irritable. If he said I looked nice, I said I looked horrible.
We’d always had a healthy sex life, and turning down his advances would make him suspicious. So I went through the motions, pretending I enjoyed it when I wanted to recoil in horror, until, after a fortnight, the facade cracked.
When Ian asked one evening, for the dozenth time, if I was OK, I said: ‘No. Something terrible’s happened,’ and burst into tears.
My relief at confiding in him was matched by his fury. He said I should report Philip to the police and asked a female relative who works for the Force to come round and explain what that would entail.
Reluctantly, I agreed to see her, but when her colleague from the government-funded Sexual Assault Referral Centre came to talk to me two days later, and said I’d need to give a formal statement, I knew I couldn’t go through with it.
‘You’d be helping other women,’ the officer said gently.
‘But he’d know I’d reported him and would still be living nearby. I went into his house willingly. It would be his word against mine,’ I said.
She didn’t push more. I felt bad, nonetheless, but I thought the process would be more traumatic than I could handle; that I’d be branded a liar in court and, if he were cleared, I’d spend the rest of my life living in fear.
She took the clothes I’d been wearing when I was raped, in case I changed my mind, and referred me for counselling. Sent for a sexual health screening, I kept my head down, humiliated, as I walked into a clinic full of awkward young men. Of course I was too old to get pregnant, and the first set of tests were clear.
But as weeks passed, I grew aware of an increasing ache in my groin and pain urinating. Three months later a second set of tests revealed I had gonorrhoea.
I’d only had a couple of sexual partners before marrying in my mid-20s. This was my first STI – and the mental effects were far worse than the physical.
My shame was mirrored back to me in Ian, who also had to take antibiotics. Our relationship fractured after that.
Ian’s anger at Philip, whom he felt powerless to confront – we both knew going to his house to punch him, as he longed to, would likely end in Ian being arrested –seemingly manifested in resentment towards me.
I still dreaded sex and was distressed he still expected it, especially one evening that October, when I walked into our bedroom naked after having a shower and he told me I looked like I was ‘up for it’.
His words sent me back to the night of the rape, and my fears I’d done something to encourage Philip. This time, however, I knew I hadn’t.
Shaking with hurt and humiliation, I told him it was over.
The event we’d only ever referred to as ‘the incident’ was too damaging for either of us to deal with.
After we separated, I hoped only having to worry about my own wellbeing would help. Instead, fear crept in. I changed the locks, met friends during the day rather than at night, and went to the gym as much as possible, because alone at home, on the same estate as Philip, I felt permanently on edge.
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My marriage looks perfect. But the truth is my husband hasn't had sex with me for a decade.
In fact, I’ve only seen him twice since, both times outside his house as I drove back to mine.
I felt his gaze on me and looked down, heart pounding. Not that I think he feels any remorse – or even believes he’s done anything wrong at all.
As I was cooking dinner one evening this January, six months after the assault, my phone buzzed. ‘Fancy a coffee?’ the message read, from a number not in my contacts. Not wanting to be rude, I asked who it was.
‘It’s me. Philip,’ was the reply. I blocked his number, shocked and sickened.
I’m still having counselling, which has alleviated much of the blame, but still haven’t found the strength to report him.
I have told the wives of the men who played golf with Philip what he did, worried they might end up alone with him.
They said they were sorry, and one couple doesn’t see him any more. But the other still socialises with Philip, which hurts, and makes me wonder if they don’t believe me.
I begged them not to say anything to him, although the couple who don’t see him any more say he has shied away from them too, and suspect Philip knows that they know.
However, some things have improved now.
This spring, Ian apologised – he’s had counselling to deal with his anger and he moved back in last month.
Having him here is a comfort and I’m pleased we’re back together. In bed, I try to play the part of a passionate lover.
But I can’t imagine enjoying sex ever again, nor have counsellors given me any encouragement that I might. Talking about it helps, although I have yet to find a support group for female victims my age.
Nor do I want to be alone with a man I don’t know. When I needed an electrician recently and Ian was away, I asked a friend to be here.
Unexpected physical contact makes me startle; when on the rowing machine at the gym recently a man put his hand on my back and asked how my workout went, I jumped out of my skin.
I’m tempted to move house to get away from Philip – I’ve had an estate agent here to value it twice. But I love my garden, my friends and the life I’ve built here. Why should I be the one to give all that up?
And as the months pass, I become more confident that, provided I don’t report him, Philip will leave me alone – my silence the heavy price I have decided to pay for a safe retirement.
- Names and some details have been changed. As told to Antonia Hoyle.