The #MeToo movement had exploded and women who like her had tattoos were using the #TattooMeToo hashtag to share stories of sexual assault. “I felt like every time I went on Instagram, I saw another predator in the tattoo industry being named,” she says. “It just felt overwhelming. I felt like: I’ve got to say it, how can I still stay quiet about this?”
So on 4 June, at about midday, Cresswell wrote about her own experience. In a blog post she said that a decade earlier she had been “violently sexually assaulted” by tattoo artist Billy Hay after a night out in Sunderland.
Cresswell had gone to the police soon after the incident in 2010. Officers, who spoke to her before she had slept and while still under the influence of alcohol, said her account was inconsistent. She made the report at 6.33am – a few hours later, it had been recorded as “no crime”.
Deciding she would be quiet no longer, Cresswell messaged Hay’s partner, who worked alongside him. She posted her story on Instagram and on Facebook.
Then, on 27 July she received a letter from Hay’s lawyers, threatening legal action. It stated: “As you are very well aware your whole account of the events said to justify the allegations is completely false and a work of fiction. Our client has met you once in his life. You danced and chatted in groups but that was all that happened between you.”
Eventually, almost three years after Cresswell wrote her first post, a landmark ruling at the high court this week found “that the defendant has proved on the balance of probabilities that she was violently sexually assaulted”.
The judgment by Mrs Justice Heather Williams could have far-reaching consequences for other alleged victims of sexual violence who speak about their experience, according to the The Good Law Project, which supported Cresswell.