Tracie Aldridge was 19 and at a party in her home town of Stirling in Scotland.
Like so many of us at parties when we were 19, she was drinking. Maybe she’d been dancing. She had people around her, friends. They might have been drinking out of red plastic cups and listening to music too loudly.
She fell asleep on the couch. We all know: drinking will do that to you.
While Aldridge was sleeping, 22-year-old Jordan Binnie approached her with a sweeping brush he’d found in the apartment.
He pulled her shorts to one side and assaulted her.
Aldridge didn’t wake up. She had no idea what had happened. She only found out she’d been raped with a broomstick when she saw the video on Snapchat the following morning.
Binnie’s friend, Fraser Anderson, 22, had filmed the whole thing and shared it with his friends.
We didn’t know Aldridge’s name until today. What we knew was bad enough: she was the 19-year-old who woke up to discover her whole world had watched as she’d been sexually assaulted.
But, today, she’s waived her anonymity.
Why?
Because Anderson and Binnie have received their sentences and Aldridge feels she’s been “betrayed by the system”.
On Thursday, Binnie stood in front of the Falkirk Sheriff Court and admitted to sexual assault. He has a record of violence and psychological assessments suggest he’s likely to commit future acts of violence.
For penetrating Aldridge with a foreign object while she was sleeping, Binnie received 12 months in prison and he’s been placed on the sex offenders’ register for 10 years.
The other man involved? The one who could have stopped the act, but instead chose to film it?
Anderson received an order of 225 hours of community service. He will not serve jail time and his name won’t be listed on the sex offenders’ register.