The patriarchy is not the fault of the boys born in this century, or the men at the end of the last one.

It’s been this way for millennia. Now they, and their female counterparts, must filter hundreds of mixed messages daily. What pains me as the mother of one lad is to see our society assuming that they would all always like to perpetrate against women, or worse: that they believe they have the right to do so.

I never believed Ali thought she was here to please. I never believed Zach would ever just try to ‘help himself’. I tried to teach them well.

The phone call came about 9.30 p.m.

PC Okoye.

I answered with the thought that she was going to say it was all over.

But she wasn’t. She was calling to say it was just beginning.

Melissa

While we’d waited for the police to arrive, I asked a sniffly Cecilia if she was sure about making this statement.

‘Did something happen today?’ I murmured, when Rex went upstairs to change into his ‘house trousers’. ‘At school, to make you change your mind?’

‘No.’ But her tone was so angry and defiant, I felt suspicious.

PC Okoye arrived around 8 p.m.

She was polite: she didn’t want tea; she just wanted Cecilia’s words. I didn’t want tea either; I wanted a stiff drink, but there was no alcohol in the house. Rex had poured it all away on Sunday morning.

If the officer was hoping for a quick getaway, she was disappointed. The statement process was truly laborious, Cecilia stopping and starting so many times, I’d thought she’d never finish.

The details were still unclear to me.

They’d kissed, she’d definitely agreed to that, Cecilia said; as she had said yesterday, she’d been willing. Then – gargantuan pause – ‘Zach had got over-friendly.’ Those were her words.

Every now and then I felt her shoot me a frantic, if rather furtive, look, and I’d prompt her as I felt I had to, coaxing her like a nervous horse.

Eventually PC Okoye stood up and thanked her.

‘I appreciate this is difficult, Cecilia. Well done. Next stage, you’ll probably have to come in and make a formal statement with the Youth Offending Team present.’

‘Come in?’ she whispered.

‘To the station. And expect social services to be in touch soon.’

Tactfully, she placed some leaflets about victim support on the table, a leaflet about rape services, and left.

When the policewoman had driven off, Rex took Cecilia back to her mother’s – at her request.

‘I just want to see Mum,’ she’d sniffed piteously, and, although I knew it was understandable, it still cut me to the quick.

Not the first cut though. Maybe the final.

And maybe – secretly – there was some reassurance in her desire to be with her mother.

Maybe I knew then, Cecilia could manage well enough without me.

But it was the eruption in the lounge after Rex returned from dropping Cecilia off that sent the evening from bad to worse.