The next court case, I had Daniel by my side, not Wozza. This one was held in the city. It was the assault charge against Gemma’s dad, John. I’d missed the first part because I was a witness and I wasn’t allowed in court until after I had given evidence as to what I saw that day. Two extraordinary things had happened. A popular podcast had made a chart-topping series on Gemma’s case. An up-and-coming young journalist called Tammy Millhouse had interviewed everyone involved and had shown Gemma’s case for the travesty of justice it was. The podcast was number one on charts around the country for weeks. As a result, there was a lot of sympathy for John when he went to trial. The episode on the courthouse punch was called ‘What Would You Do?’, and the debate around that very question trended on social media. I had followed it with great interest.

One commenter asked: When the courts don’t do their job, what then?

What, indeed.

The second extraordinary occurrence was that Daniel apologised. I know apology wasn’t the endgame, but it felt like a step towards him understanding what had happened, what it is like for women, and what predatory behaviour actually is. I knew how hard it was for him and men like him. It’s not just a change of heart; it’s a change of history. It’s like looking back at everything you believed and having to rethink all of it.

We were taking it slow, because if I’d learned anything in my thirty-four years, it was to align your heart with your head. Every time. Still, when he leaned over and squeezed my hand as John was found guilty of a lesser charge of assault and given a suspended sentence, it was like his warmth radiated through my whole body. Sometimes, my heart was a bloody traitor to the cause.

It took months for the serial rape charges to come to trial. Of the men we’d arrested at the garage on the day we found Mandy Buckley, the two principal offenders were Lachie Murtog and Jimbo Tuffin. Their names were on the lease along with Jack’s, and they were both present when we raided the place. In the months it took to prepare the brief of evidence, we had sifted through everything. Phone records, fingerprints, DNA samples. In the wake of the arrests, more women had come forward and we had identified an additional dozen from the polaroids. We had found Jack’s fingerprints on four of the bank notes in Merv’s wallet. Nathan Forester had identified Jimbo as the one he’d seen buying Meg a drink at the pub on the night of her birthday.