The Fight for Any Future Jane Doe

Content warning: the following discusses sexual assault and the justice system.

When I look at the photo above, I see transformation in progress.

My partner recently texted me the picture. It’s from from six years ago, before we met. In it, 27-year-old me has a megaphone in hand and my two-year-old daughter is strapped to my back, her winter boots peeking out on either side of me. I’m standing on the steps opposite the Royal Newfoundland Constabulary building on Parade Street in St. John’s, shouting: “Fire his ass!”

I remember the blinding rage I felt about Const. Doug Snelgrove’s first trial for sexual assault, which resulted in an acquittal. And how that, and the seemingly interminable appeals and missteps of the justice system that followed, changed everything for me.

The rage that rose up

I am a survivor of sexual assault. Saying that should not make me “brave,” because I am far from alone in that experience, and there should be no shame in that. The shame is not mine, nor any survivor’s, to bear. 

The statistics are often repeated, so I won’t do that here. But suffice it to say: if you know women, it’s likely you know sexual assault survivors. If you know sexual assault survivors, it’s likely they did not report their assault. If they reported their assault, it’s likely the case didn’t make it to trial. If the case made it to trial, it’s likely the trial did not result in a conviction.

Like so many, my experience of sexual assault mirrors aspects of the Snelgrove case: alcohol, power imbalance, trusting someone who then harms you. These experiences are infuriatingly common, and I have seen stories like mine play out over and over in the media in the 17 years since my assault. 

For a long time, I would turn off the news and curl up in a ball until those stories went away, usually with verdicts like the first Snelgrove trial. I would let the grief, the sadness, and the shame wash over me. 

But something was different, this time. When our local daily newspaper’s front-page headline proclaimed, “Too Drunk to Remember,” I called the editor and laced into him. He interrupted my rage over and over to explain, “It was the most important thing said in court that day,” as if there could have been no other way to report the information. 

When the verdict came down, instead of the familiar crushing sadness and grief, the rage rose up again. I don’t remember how we all ended up on the courthouse steps that night. It felt automatic, like the only possible response to something so deeply, painfully wrong was to come together in our collective anguish. We gathered. We screamed. We yelled. We cried. We created a space for our anger to flourish. And the next day, we organized. A few days later, we were on the steps across from the RNC building, demanding better. Demanding that this not be the end.

Back then, it would have been difficult to predict just how much this was not the end. Just how long the case would drag on. And how Jane Doe would have to wait nearly a decade for closure, to see the perpetrator sentenced to less than half the time it took for Snelgrove’s conviction.

Jane Doe’s tenacity and courage in the face of a legal system that repeatedly fails survivors is incredible. I can’t describe the depth of gratitude I feel to her, a person I’ve never met, for the strength she helped me discover, and for helping me find the healing power of anger translated into action. Nothing I’ve done since 2017 would have been possible if not for the transformation her courage inspired in me. So the news of Snelgrove’s final appeal being dismissed brought me a sense of relief, and hope, that Jane Doe can now move on to the rest of her life feeling free. 

The fight is not over

But the anger is still there, simmering underneath, because goddamnit, nine years of a woman’s life should not need to be exchanged for a tiny modicum of justice. A police officer should not simply be placed “on leave” after stating in open court that he did what he did that night. There is little that speaks as clearly to the incompatibility of carceral systems and real community safety as this. 

In a world where victories like this are so few, and where the fight feels interminable, it is important to mark steps toward a better world as they come. Snelgrove’s sentencing means something, and it is right to make note of it, to celebrate it, even.

Meanwhile, as we look back on the story of this trial, we can continue to harness our collective anger to demand better options for survivors, and for the justice system to find ways to protect others from having to live through what Jane Doe has endured. We must continue to demand better, for every Jane Doe that comes after, and for ourselves, too.