MP moves colleagues to tears with account of how she was raped at age 14

Speaker John Bercow could be seen with tears in his eyes

An MP has moved her colleagues to tears with an account of how she was raped at the age of 14.

Michelle Thomson, the independent MP for Edinburgh West, recounted the incident in a House of Commons debate on UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

She told MPs: “When I was 14 I was raped. As is common, it was by somebody who was known to me.

“He had offered to walk me home from a youth event and in those days everybody walked everywhere, it was quite common to do that.

“It was early evening, it wasn’t dark. I was wearing – I’m imagining, I’m guessing – jeans and a sweatshirt.”

She said she was led home in an unfamiliar direction, noting: “I didn’t think anything of it. He told me he wanted to show me something in a wooded area and at that point, I must admit, I was alarmed. I did have a warning bell – but I overrode that warning bell because I knew him and, therefore, there was a level of trust in place.

“To be honest, looking back, at that point I don’t think I knew what rape was. It was not something that was talked about.”

The MP was comforted by former SNP colleagues after giving her account. The Speaker John Bercow, in particular, appeared visibly moved to tears by the story.

Ms Thomson added: “It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn’t escape – because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd.”

She said her senses were “absolutely numbed” by the incident, telling MPs: “Thinking about it now, 37 years later, I cannot remember hearing anything when I replay it in my mind.

“Now, as somebody who is an ex-professional musician who is very, very auditory, I find that quite telling.”

Following the attack she walked home alone crying, cold and shivering – in shock.

“I didn’t tell my mother, I didn’t tell my father, I didn’t tell my friends and I didn’t tell the police. I bottled it all up inside me,” she said.

“I hoped, briefly and appallingly, that I might be pregnant so that would force a situation to help me control it.”

She said she felt ashamed at the attack and partly blamed herself: “I felt I was spoiled and impure and really felt revulsion towards myself.

“I, of course, then detached from the child up to then I had been.

“Although, in reality, at the age of 14 it was probably the start of my sexual awakening, at that time, remembering back, sex was something that men did to women and perhaps this incident reinforced that early belief.”