I had to sit across from my rapist in a police station in France. That was the procedure there, a little over a decade ago. The idea of being in the same room as the man who had committed an unspeakable violation against me less than 24 hours earlier was nightmarish.
ut it wasn't the worst part. Answering police questions, I unthinkingly touched the detective's forearm while trying to articulate myself. He recoiled from me as though I was radioactive. I was not to be trusted. I burned with shame.
To be clear: I didn't want the investigator to automatically take my side - instant belief is as bad as instant disbelief, in that it renders truth meaningless. But I could have done without the display. All the complainant asks for is decency, impartiality and a fair hearing.
This moment came back to me when the O'Malley report was published on Wednesday, which reviewed how vulnerable witnesses are treated during sexual offence prosecutions and trials.
Chaired by barrister and legal academic Tom O'Malley, it recommended a raft of changes in sex crime policy all across the criminal justice system, from the Garda station to the court.
I thought of how the detective's behaviour is my abiding memory of the experience, and how it illustrates the importance of respect and dignity for victims in what are complex and sensitive cases.
But it must be acknowledged that victims come in different guises. In criminal cases - particularly in sex crimes - we can't know who the victim is until the entire process is completed, the truth out.
In a way, there is a mutualism between the accused and the accuser. How one is treated affects the other, and vice versa, with knock-on effects. So the system must afford protections to both.
To me, this policy is at the core of Tom O'Malley's review into the investigation and prosecution of sexual offences. He knows that fair treatment is essential, yet it must be balanced against the paramount function of justice: getting to the truth, returning the right verdict.
He heralded this guiding principle at a recent legal conference, when he quoted 18th century philosopher Jeremy Bentham: "The sole purpose of any legal proceedings should be to discover the truth of what happened, with accuracy of outcome the objective in the process."
O'Malley's new report - commissioned in 2018 after the sick circus of the Belfast rape trial - was hailed last week as "the perfect opportunity to help victims, vulnerable witnesses and innocent accused". It is just that.
He has covered all involved in his recommendations - and rightly so. He has reset the pendulum to a position of equilibrium.
I believe it should kick-start two changes, which are cause and effect. The O'Malley report should act as a turning point away from the unhelpful narrative that the legal system is loaded against victims, and mark the end of the hysterical and backfiring #MeToo movement.
O'Malley has returned to the spotlight the issue of the rights of the accused, jettisoned by social media and in danger of being dismissed by larger society - at great cost to us all.
The key recommendation in the report is not one that will necessarily please the #MeToo pitchfork mob: those accused of sexual assault should be granted anonymity in court. Yet it needs to be the case to protect a different kind of victim: those on the receiving end of ruinous false accusations, or who may not be guilty of the crime of which they are accused.
It concluded there is "no logical reason" why this protection should be afforded to rape accused and not those accused of sex assault, acknowledging the "heavy stigma" of an accusation.
An additional recommendation is that the public should not be permitted to attend such assault cases. Laws which prosecute revealing identities in the media should be extended to social media, it advises.
It should go some way to preventing the ruination of lives at the pointing of a finger. It is too late, of course, for comedians Sil Fox and Al Porter; both of whom had their names, reputations, careers and lives destroyed by sex assault charges, before Fox's case was dismissed and Porter's was dropped. Fox (87), is now suing the State for damages.
It will have no consequence for Paddy Jackson, the Ireland and Ulster rugby player who was acquitted of rape in one of the most high-profile trials ever seen on this island. The verdict sparked outrage among those who believed they knew better than a judge and jury who sat through nine weeks of evidence. The law is different in Northern Ireland - the public can attend rape cases, and the rape accused is named.
It is vital that the justice system here holds firm in what is the new Salem, where the online mob threatens to overturn its authority. It aims to do away with the courts of justice and replace it with the court of public opinion. Radicals reject verdicts that don't align with their ideology, and create life sentences in social jail for those they decide should be punished.
O'Malley's report puts an end to the normalisation of this culture. It treats both parties as deserving of equal protection in the eyes of the law. Anything else is anti-human rights.
Supporters of #MeToo will often cite how the legal system is useless and so they had to take complaints online. This is an illusory truth, but one that is widespread. Campaigners know social norms are more effective than the law when it comes to culture shifts.
Promoting this message - that the system is actually against them - has the effect of putting women off reporting sex crimes. A British survey in 2012 found that more than two-thirds of women said the "low" conviction rate would put them off reporting a rape.
The received wisdom that the conviction rate is at a "tiny percentage" is wrong. What is mostly referred to is the attrition rate, which is the number of convictions resulting from reports of a crime. And even that figure is higher than normally stated.
In fact, the conviction rate for rape and sexual assault - the percentage of convictions once the case is before the courts - stands at 83pc, according to the DPP's most recent figure. The Rape Crisis Centre's Noeline Blackwell cited the overall sex offence conviction rate of 92pc on RTÉ recently - a figure so high, it went over the heads of many. It's strong evidence that victims should be supported and helped to take their cases to the gardaí and the courts.
Despite much progress, there is room for improvement in the system, and O'Malley addressed that with a number of measures that emphasise the experience of complainants throughout the process, bolstering some aspects of legal representation for victims and increasing Garda facilities and training. The key recommendation is a pre-trial procedure, an idea championed by the DPP Claire Loftus, as it will reduce trial delays.
This is a reset for the handling of sex crimes in Ireland. Let's hope it is a move away from the harmful, ultimately pointless #MeToo movement and towards a restoration of public confidence in the criminal justice system - the loss of which is fatal to any democracy.
