CONTENT WARNING: The following story contains descriptions of sexual assault, descriptions of injuries sustained during a sexual assault and adult language. Some identifying details have been omitted to preserve the integrity of an ongoing criminal investigation and court case.
At the end of September, a 34-year-old Simcoe-Grey woman was raped.
As she has tried to put the shattered pieces of her life back together, she has discovered a jumble of services that, in some cases, have the opposite intended effect of making victims of sexual assault feel supported and safe.
Cassie, who asked that her name and municipality not be included in this story, has spent the past month navigating the various services provided to victims of sexual assault.
“I have unanswered questions that leave me enraged,” Cassie said. “I thought if I spoke with the press, it would make other people as shocked, horrified and angry as I am.
“We pay for government services that are meant to protect us. This could happen to anybody," she said during an interview in her bedroom in her parents’ home, surrounded by papers, receipts and pill bottles strewn over her bed. A cup of tea is at her bedside. On her bedroom walls hang medals and other records of accomplishments.
She said it can be hard to talk about her emotional state post-assault.
“I feel like I’ve been cycling through the same emotions. At the beginning, it was confusion. Why me? Why did he do this? As if I could have prevented this,” she said. “Then agony. Then numbness. There are many horrors about being raped. One of the unspoken horrors is it initially takes away your ability to trust yourself and your own judgment.”
Cassie was so badly injured during her assault that one month later, she still cannot leave her bed to go to the washroom, shower or do anything for herself without assistance. She is living with her mother and father who assist her day-to-day.
In September, Cassie was preparing to start a new job internationally in October, ironically, helping victims of sexual assault. Cassie met her attacker on Bumble in June, eventually moving the conversation to Instagram, and in September, she met with him for dinner after talking to him online for four months.
Cassie brought groceries for him to make dinner at their meeting place.
Though they agreed to some intimacy, Cassie said it became very rough and non-consensual. Cassie remembered the man punched her in the stomach over her uterus, to the point of bruising. She remembers at one point, he grabbed her foot and she kicked back, but he was stronger, and that’s when she heard and felt a pop in her hip.
“I said, ‘You’re hurting me.’ I grabbed his arm and I clawed him, and it continued,” she said. “There was a certain point when I stopped talking.”
Once it was over, Cassie quietly left, stunned. Her attacker had left her $100 for the groceries.
“I felt like I was floating. I was driving home, and I just needed to get home,” Cassie remembers.
When she walked through her parents’ door at about 3:30 a.m., her mother, who was up late preparing for a catering event, was shocked at Cassie's appearance.
“I had blood all over my dress,” she said.
Cassie went to her local hospital, where she was referred to Orillia Soldiers' Memorial Hospital (OSMH) — the only place in Simcoe County and one of 37 centres across Ontario to have a sexual assault examination and rape kit done. It is advised those be completed within 10 days of a sexual assault.
Cassie and her mother went to OSMH the next morning. There is proof of what happened in the forensic evidence file that was taken at the hospital, and on Cassie’s body today. Her full examination at OSMH took seven hours.
Representatives from OSMH’s regional sexual and domestic assault treatment centre declined an interview request for this story. According to its website, the centre receives about 400 calls from assault victims and provides care and treatment to more than 200 victims of sexual and domestic assault each year.
“I sat there, in shock. (They started asking), was it consensual or non-consensual? I struggled with understanding what had just happened,” said Cassie.
According to the forensic evidence log prepared by the hospital, when Cassie attended the hospital, she was bleeding from her vagina. Pressure had been applied to her neck. She had bite marks on her chin, left foot, neck, left thigh, and left and right ear lobes. Her abdomen is noted as being puffy and distended and bruising is noted on her left wrist. Her hamstring and hip flexors were injured.
Not identified as part of this examination was a tear on her left labia, a wound on the right side of her vaginal canal and a lump on the back of her head, which were discovered later through follow-ups.
“You’re sitting in this souped-up OB-GYN chair. There’s a sexual assault nurse there, and an assistant, and they’re running around you,” said Cassie. “The victim is expected to tell the nurse — in this intense time of shock and confusion — where their injuries are.”
Cassie said the nurses brought out an l-shaped ruler and measured all the injuries on her body.
An ultrasound was done at the hospital, which was read by the radiologist at 3:30 p.m. Throughout her stay at OSMH, Cassie describes a simmering awareness that increased as the hours ticked by about just how severely she was hurt.
“I was in extreme pain and they gave me morphine. I felt the sound of my heartbeat in my ears,” she said. “I decided I wanted to do the police report that day so I could get all this done in one day, and recover starting tomorrow.”
Orillia OPP officials met Cassie at the hospital at 5 p.m. As Cassie didn’t feel comfortable speaking with a male detective, she said two female officers attended her room – one a constable, and the other a detective.
It took until 12:30 a.m. for the police to finish their report with Cassie at the hospital — 16 hours after she first arrived.
Representatives from Orillia OPP did not return multiple interview requests.
Cassie is forced to pause her story because she’s getting too hot. She asks her dad for new ice packs for her pelvis, and when she removes the blankets to hand him the melted packs for the exchange, faint, bruised bite marks on her leg and thighs are visible one month after the assault.
“For the first week, most people would look at me and start crying,” she said. “That was difficult for me. I was like, how bad is this? I felt numb.”
After the gruelling 16 hours at OSMH, Cassie was handed a stack of pamphlets by hospital staff, including information on Athena’s Sexual Assault Counselling and Advocacy Centre, information on treatment and follow-up from the hospital, crisis lines and how to apply for independent legal advice through the Attorney General’s office.
One pamphlet, labelled a "safer sex guide," added insult to Cassie's injuries.
“It felt judgmental,” said Cassie.
Within a few days, Cassie’s attacker was formally charged with aggravated sexual assault by Orillia OPP. The case is currently working its way through the court system.
Cassie said she’s not allowed to speak directly with the Crown Attorney trying her case – she has to go through victim services.
Many of the forms she has to fill out to apply for various services require she print the form, fill out the form, and either mail it back or drive somewhere to submit the form. Still unable to walk without assistance, she said this is nearly impossible for her and would be impossible if she didn’t have her parents helping her.
She originally was referred to North Simcoe Victim Services, but since she lives in Simcoe-Grey, she was instead referred to Simcoe County Victim Services citing jurisdictional conflicts. A representative from that agency sent her more forms to fill out. Simcoe County Victim Services did not return a request for comment for this story by publication time.
“There’s something truly inhumane about having to fill out these types of forms, and them not being done for you,” she said.
She has been in regular contact with the Canadian Resource Centre for Victims of Crime. She’s called Simcoe County crisis lines most days over the past month. Sometimes they answer. Sometimes, she’s been referred to other crisis lines.
She tried calling the Victim Witness Assistance Program in Barrie, and she says the person who answered hung up on her.
“There was such a runaround. It was so confusing to me,” said Cassie. Her confusion is compounded as there are three different municipalities involved in her case: her town of residence, her attacker’s town of residence and the town in which the assault occurred.
She had a series of questions for victim services, such as whether her attacker was still detained, whether he had been let out on bail, whether there were conditions, and even what the case number was. Cassie said the detective assigned to her case provided her with those details, only after Victim Witness North Simcoe had not and Cassie followed up.
She has attended her local hospital for follow up and mental-health care, however she said her experiences there also ended in frustration.
“They told me I had already called all the services they were going to suggest,” said Cassie. “A lot of these services are redundant.”
There have been multiple specific issues with the medical system Cassie said she has experienced along the way as well, including being denied privacy when she asked for it to talk about the assault with doctors and doctors not sharing information with each other in a timely way (between OSMH, her local hospital and Mount Sinai in Toronto where she’s seen a gynecologist).
A month later, she’s still waiting to get an MRI done on her pelvis to assess the full extent of her internal injuries, which is scheduled for later this month. She has an MRI scheduled this week for her leg/hip. There have been times over the past month when she fainted while using the washroom, and has had to call 911 for assistance.
Cassie said she’s been asked multiple times by doctors, social workers and nurses if the pain she’s experiencing could be somatic.
“What could be more insulting? Even if it is, I’m still in pain,” she said.
‘So much has happened, and yet nothing has happened’
Following the assault, Cassie has had a lot of time to think while mostly confined to her bedroom.
She has kept detailed notes in a yellow journal every day since. In black pen, she has written every person she spoke with, form filled out or appointment attended that day.
In blue pen, she’s written about her emotions on that day. The blue-pen portions will help inform her victim impact statement down the road, should her attacker be convicted.
“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around how this could have happened. I kept thinking about what I said to alert him that I was not consenting to this,” said Cassie. “So much has happened, and yet nothing has happened.”
Cassie has done a lot of reading regarding victims' issues. She said many victims of rape don’t have the coping options of fight or flight available to them in the moment of an assault.
“How are you supposed to go through all these different steps – where are my car keys? Where is my cellphone? Can I get to my car?” she recalled.
Cassie said the entire experience has opened her eyes to barriers that currently exist in Ontario that may prevent victims of sexual assault from coming forward at all.
Victims Services Simcoe County gave her a $175 pre-paid Visa on Oct. 17 through the Victim Quick Response Program to help with costs.
The $175 gift card is the maximum benefit for which she is eligible under the program. It sits on her dresser untouched as she works through the disconnect between what has been paid out, and how much dealing with her sexual assault has actually cost.
She estimates that over the past month, she has spent roughly $2,000 on expenses related to her assault, including parking costs at the hospital and doctor appointments, the cost of therapy, physiotherapy, printing of forms, prescriptions for antibiotics and painkillers and having a health support worker come to her home to help her shower. She said her credit card is maxed out, and she’s uneasy about how she’ll pay for the continuing care she desperately needs.
At the end of October, she was informed she was approved for one one-hour visit per week from a personal support worker.
Since the assault, her mother stopped working to attend to her care. She is ineligible for Family Caregiver Benefits because she’s self-employed. A personal support worker has been helping without taking any payment.
As for her new job, she contacted the organization to let them know that due to an injury, she would not be able to make the Oct. 3 start date. They assured her they would hold the position for her.
‘The line just gets longer’
Kelly Redmond, program supervisor for Athena’s Sexual Assault Counselling and Advocacy Centre that serves Simcoe County, said that in 2023 alone, 464 women, girls and gender-diverse people received counselling through the centre. There were 196 people who attended group sessions, and the organization answered 1,498 crisis calls in that time frame.
She has had meetings with Cassie to discuss her personal experience.
“This is a horrendous experience. This should not happen,” Redmond said.
Redmond notes sexual assault has the lowest rate of reporting to police among all violent crimes, with only six per cent of incidents in 2019 even making it to the attention of police. She said Cassie’s difficulty navigating between the different jurisdictions for different services is, unfortunately, common.
“It's all very confusing. It's even confusing for service providers, I think,” said Redmond. “There are so many barriers in navigating this system.”
One of the barriers Redmond sees to providing better care in cases of sexual assault is dollars.
“The funding is stagnant,” she said. “We're running on the same amount of funding year after year as the population increases. The resources don't meet the demand at all.”
As an example, Redmond said Athena’s only receives enough funding to employ one legal advocate at the centre, who is responsible to do that work for all victims in Simcoe County. She said Athena’s had a year-long wait-list to access counselling, but was recently able to reduce the waitlist to two months. They had to make the tough choice to support victims for a shorter length of time post-assault to make that work.
Looking ahead, Cassie has turned to advocacy work from her bed.
"If I’m falling through the cracks, lots of other women are too," she said.
She said she’d like to get into a room with Attorney General Doug Downey, Simcoe-Grey MPP Brian Saunderson, whoever oversees the sexual assault and domestic violence centres in Ontario and whoever directs victim services to identify a map of the borders of victim services/jurisdictions and the sexual assault regional centres.
She’s written letters to and had correspondence with Saunderson’s office, and written a letter to Downey, Minister of Children, Community, and Social Services Michael Parsa and Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth Marci Ien, calling for change to the system.
“This is tragic, what has happened to her,” said Saunderson. He said this is the first time he’s personally been made aware of these jurisdictional issues that victims of sexual assault must navigate.
“It’s highlighting these issues. For my office, this has been an eye-opener,” he said.
According to figures provided by the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services, the province spent $55 million on eight community-based victim services programs delivered by 126 service providers across the province in 2024/25.
This includes over $15 million for the 37 sexual assault centres provincewide.
