Groomed

Orchard, Sonia2025

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Summary

'The first thing I need to know,' I said to the detective, 'is has a crime been committed?' Sonia Orchard was in her forties when she told a therapist about the boyfriend she had when she was fifteen. Sure, he had been a decade older than her, but it was consensual ... wasn't it? To her surprise, Sonia broke down in tears, then began to shake uncontrollably – an unmistakable expression of trauma that lasted for days. She was clearly not okay, but could the relationship she'd thought was loving really have been abuse? Had she been groomed? Years later, her own daughters now teenagers and the March4Justice changing the conversation about sexual assault, Sonia tentatively called the police. As she began the gruelling journey through the legal system, she saw how allegations of child abuse and sexual assault were routinely minimised, justified and rarely brought to light. Facing her own court case, she couldn't shake bigger questions: how had we allowed this to happen, and what would it take to fix it? In Groomed, Orchard shifts between memoir and research in an attempt to answer these questions. She delves into culture, neuroscience and evolution, unpicking the enduring narratives that fuel these issues. As she navigates her way through a legal system stacked against victims of sexual assault, the obstacles to justice become clearer and more confronting than ever.