I’d glared at sex offenders as they sat hunched in the dock, flanked by guards. I’d stared down serial killer Levi Bellfield, sat close to black cab rapist John Worboys. Unruffled, unfazed, though the harrowing things they’d done chilled me.
I was a journalist – a court reporter – and I did my job, showing justice in action. Proving these predators, despite being capable of evil, were cowards when caught, and (most) would pay for their savagery with their freedom.
So why couldn’t I face this one? Why, during this particular rape trial in August 2011, was a screen erected to shield me from the man in the dock?
It was because I was afraid. The tables had turned, and now it was my own monster sitting back there.