I was very upset to read in the national newspapers how a court permitted an accused man to interrogate the victim.

When I was 17, I was followed home from a dance hall in Glasgow by a man. He tried to pay my fare on a bus but I objected.

When I got off, the conductor warned me he was following and urged me to run. I did but he was too fast for me. He caught me and raped me at knifepoint.

I am now 69 years of age and it saddens me to see the legal attitude is no better than it was then. I had the sense to tell no one - not even my mother who might well have suggested I encouraged him.

I shut the door and lived with it, until my marriage broke down. When I told my husband, he said: "If you had told me you had been raped, I would never have married you."

No wonder rape victims commit suicide. Women get so little support with regard to this crime. I do hope things improve before I die. I'd like to see justice done.

A rapist destroys part of a woman. She is never the same.

-Name and address supplied