EastEnders viewers were left in tears when the beloved Yolande Trueman, who returned to the show last year, was thrown into a heartbreaking sexual assault ordeal last week.
After tackling the difficult topic of rape and sexual assault through Linda Carter, Ben Mitchell, Little Mo Slater and even Kathy Beale, the long-running BBC One program revisited the issue as Yolande was assaulted by newcomer Pastor Gideon Clayton, portrayed by Howard Saddler, in an hour-long episode aired on April 17.
Fans of the London-based drama were dreading the storyline when it was first teased but the powerful instalment and fan favourite actress Angela Wynter's poignant performance won them over. Viewers flooded social media to praise the soap star and writer Lauren Klee, who is known to have contributed to impactful stories on the drama, from Linda's rape to Jean Slater's bipolar battle, with some highlighting Yolande's emotions as an accurate depiction of an abuse survivor's torment post-attack. Reminder: 1 in 5 UK women have experienced rape or sexual abuse, making it a devastatingly common act of violence against women.
'Frighteningly real'
Following her attack, which took place during a fundraiser she was organising at the local church, Yolande was considerably shaken up, unable to process the events that took place hours before.
After silencing her own tears, wallowing in her pain and wandering aimlessly around the Square, she found refuge in the launderette and, with Elaine Peacock's (Harriet Thorpe) support, managed to put her growing pain in a few words by describing how she felt and had dissociated during her assault - a feeling shared by multiple rape and sexual assault survivors off-screen.
"His hand was on me but the rest of me was in the ceiling looking down and seeing what was happening to me. I feel like I'm still there," she tearfully said, and her words rung a familiar tune to both women and men who have endured a similar assault.
One brave X user noted: "As a survivor of rape I applaud every single second of Angela Wynter's portrayal of Yolande in tonight's # EastEnders. The shame, fear, dissociation, disgust so very real, frighteningly real. Cracking writing." Another referred to their own trauma, writing: "Watching Yolande’s reaction this evening, is exactly the reaction I had in October 2017. Life carried on for everyone else, but again and again my buried secret would come up." For 'Wilma', whose name has been changed to protect her identity, seeing Yolande's mix of guilt, pain and anguish over not being believed was a painful reminder that the lingering effects of rape can last a lifetime.
Wilma, who refused to disclose the details of her own attack so as "not be defined by it," told Mirror Online: "I died that day. I was lucky enough to have the support I needed to overcome that pain but people don't realise sexual assault has long-lasting consequences."
She later described suffering from "panic attacks and night terrors" in the first few months following her attack, symptoms she still occasionally faces with the help of therapy. As a survivor myself, I have worked for a number of years with my own therapist, but still find reminders of my own attacks difficult to cope with - a common symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, which I was formally diagnosed with and will likely struggle with for the rest of my life.
Author Michelle Mays, a professional counsellor and expert in dealing with sexual trauma, described the effects of sexual assault on an individual in her book The Betrayal Bind, writing: "Survivors of sexual assault can experience freezing, avoidance, hyper-vigilance, and flashbacks or intrusive thoughts as well as other symptoms as a result of the assault."
These can, in turn, lead to more mental health issues such as depression, addiction, attachment issues and even fertility issues. Wilma recalled a "very scary time" in her life, which directly followed her rape: "I was pushing everyone away out of fear they'd hurt me and because I wasn't able to sleep, I turned to all the substances I could. I nearly lost my job."
Now engaged, Wilma owes her trauma recovery to her therapist and partner, Theo. "I was only able to rebuild myself when I accepted what happened to me. I had to admit I'd been a victim but I was surrounded by people who wouldn't have ever believed I was a victim, so I moved away and met Theo when I first settled into my new place, in Leeds." But the relationship was rocky in its early stages as Wilma still had a long way to go: "loving someone after being attacked by a man you thought you knew is difficult. You'll always be on your guard, I'm just thankful he remained patient."
To make matters worse, some victims much like Yolande blame themselves for their own attack and allowing their rapist to get close to them, which marks the beginning of an uphill battle for survivors who often struggle to wrap their heads around the fact they were never at fault.
The long-lasting burden of impunity
But Yolande's assault shone a light on another issue still plaguing our society, a reality the #MeToo movement desperately tried to highlight from 2017, after several activists, such as Tarana Burke who coined the hashtag a decade before Alyssa Milano, were left unheard. As she remembered Pastor Clayton's actions, his horrific pre-Albert Square history was revisited as several women were seen coming to terms with their own attacks.
One by one, from 2008 to 2024, their stories lifted the lid on Pastor Clayton's predatory behaviour - which was only comforted by those the survivors turned to. Sarah was for example left with her jaw dropped when she was urged to "keep her counsel" before learning the pastor was only due to be transferred to another church without a single consultation with any authority.
The final blow came when Sarah was indirectly accused of making the whole attack up when it was implied she was "open-minded." Yolande, who also described the grooming process used by predators to get closer to their victims before striking, was not only taken advantage of by a man she admired - which highlights even further the power imbalance between them - she was also silenced, much like the other women targeted by Pastor Clayton.
Once again, fiction honoured reality. From 2021 to 2022, according to London law firm Saunders Law, only 1,378 of the 70,330 rape complaints recorded by the police have led to a conviction, thus less than 2%. As of July 2023, a total of 8,741 sexual offence cases are waiting to go to court with 2,210 adult rape cases but only a small number of them end up in court, according to a chart from the charity Rape Crisis.
The statistics are so discouraging, some survivors have simply accepted they will never see justice. "I never reported my aggressor," Wilma told us, "not because I'm scared of him, but because I know he will never be behind bars. He's smart and he was always good at university. I dropped out after what he did to me - I wouldn't stand a chance."
Shining a light on the silent victims
Finally, one viewer remarked another issue no soap before EastEnders managed to tackle - "EastEnders is absolutely outstanding tonight. Angela Wynter's performance as Yolande is powerful beyond words. Rape and sexual assault against older women are never discussed. And they need to be," they praised.
Rape in fiction has, more often than not, depicted younger women and men being the targets of predators but the crime is ageless and destroys the lives of whoever it is inflicted upon, from children to senior individuals who are considered the most vulnerable.
In September 2023, Cheltenham carer Teo-Valentin Todorovits was jailed after raping, sexually abusing and filming grotesque videos of elderly women. Weeks later, in Manchester, another individual was charged with two rapes and attempted sexual assault after a man and a woman, 72, came forward to file a police report.
To top it all off, with only one study by Durham's school of Applied Social Sciences signed by Hannah Bows and Nicole Westmarland for The Oxford Academy, older women have been sorely neglected from developments around the issue of sexual assault and rape.
As of 2015, according to Hannah and Nicole, only three UK studies about the matter were published. In another article, Hannah argued this could be the result of the "age-crime curve," writing: "Violence has traditionally been viewed as a problem associated with youth.
"In criminology, studies in the 1980s reported that most offending was concentrated around the teenage and early adolescent years, and levels of offending dropped steeply with age."
But Yolande's ordeal is a bitter reminder that age never prevents tragedy from striking, with a younger Pastor Clayton clearly taking advantage of her trusting and kind-hearted nature. Instead, the soap points at a system in need of accountability, where impunity still remains despite desperate cries for change. Can EastEnders help set the scene?
If you've been the victim of sexual assault, you can access help and resources via www.rapecrisis.org.uk or calling the national telephone helpline on 0808 802 9999
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