‘A weight’s been lifted’: MP Charlotte Nichols on speaking up about her rape trial

After a 1,088-day wait, a jury acquitted the man Nichols accused. She describes her experience of the system as a complainant – and explains why she went public Warning: this article contains graphic testimony Charlotte Nichols on her rape trial ordeal – podcast Sitting in the House of Commons, waiting for the speaker to call her name last week, the MP Charlotte Nichols was doing breathing exercises to try to keep calm. “I was just trying to get myself into the headspace where I could say what I wanted to say without either completely garbling it or just crying or bottling it at the last minute.” She didn’t bottle it. She stood up, asked MPs to be gentle with her, and then went public with her biggest secret. “I care profoundly about rape victims facing intolerable delays for their day in court,” she said in a debate about scrapping jury trials. “I know only too well what that feels like because, after being raped at an event that I attended in my capacity as a member of parliament, I waited 1,088 days to go to court.” For almost five years, Nichols, 34, the Labour MP for Warrington North, had kept her silence in public about what she says happened to her in a hot