Manifesto

The Justice for Gaia manifesto, which puts forwards demands around policing, mental health and social support, was created because lives like Gaia’s are still being risked and lost because of outdated policies, devastating funding cuts and a toxic culture of misogyny within many of our public services.

The manifesto emerged from what we learned during the inquest into Gaia’s death, as well as talks with leading womens’ rights organisations, mental health experts and disability rights campaigners about what needs to change to save lives like Gaia’s. We are demanding that survivors get the support they deserve and that their voices are heard so we can all live in safer and fairer communities.

February 8, 2022 1

Our statement outside court 🌹⚖️🌹 (Sep 2020)

At Gaia’s pre-inquest review hearing on 15 September 2020 we took two more important steps towards #JusticeForGaia and it’s the most we’ve been able to say so far about what happened to her. Here, Gaia’s twin sister Maya speaks alongside her cousin Marienna.

“We are determined to do all in our power to make sure your family never has to stand where we stand today, fighting for justice for someone who’s been taken from you and who can never be replaced.”

Huge thanks to our amazing legal team for all their hard work, also INQUEST, Rape Crisis and Centre for Women’s Justice as well as all the friends who came today or found a way to show support online. (Please keep it coming, it keeps us going…)

September 22, 2020 0

A story of death, trauma and austerity

The day Gaia went missing, the world turned upside down. That was almost two years ago and it’s still not close to right side up. Gaia was the light of our lives. She was also a survivor of sexual violence, denied justice and ultimately killed by the very system that is meant to protect and care for us.

In November 2017, Gaia Pope, a teenager who had been failed by the justice and mental health systems, went missing. Her body was found after 11 days. In an essay commissioned by the Wellcome Trust, her cousin Marienna proposes compassionate systems that listen to those in mental distress. Content warning: Sexual violence, mental distress, loss.

Dorset Police failed to prosecute her rapist – a known child sex offender – and convinced her not to appeal. Like so many, she was also let down by the mental health system, which detained and then abandoned her. On 7 November 2017, Gaia disappeared. After 11 relentless days, she was found dead on a coastal path near our home. She was 19 years old. The coroner ruled the cause of death as hypothermia; we call it a death by indifference.

Gaia’s story captured national attention because it speaks to a whole generation who know the horror of being denied justice after abuse; the pain of finding the courage to ask for help and then being ignored; the humiliation of being interrogated and stripped of the financial support we depend on.

I write this from the perspective of someone with five years’ experience caring and advocating for loved ones enduring extreme mental distress and as someone with my own lived experience. These two perspectives aren’t separate for me, or for countless others: both are rooted in the realities of poverty and oppression.

The Nightmare

I often have nightmares. There’s one that repeats a lot, something between a nightmare, a memory and a fear for the future. The life of someone I love is in imminent danger. I am in a softly lit room, phone in hand. All I have to do is call a number, a very important number, and the system will spring into action and take care of us.

I call. It rings. No answer. I call again. “I’m sorry, we’re unable to get to the phone right now,” says the voicemail. “We are only open between blah and blah o’clock.” But it is between the hours of blah and blah. I call again, and again. The light starts to flicker.

Icy panic flushes through my limbs and pulls down on my organs, like when you crest the summit of a rollercoaster. I start calling other numbers; I’ve got at least 25 of them in my phone, different doctors and nurses and teams, because this person that I love has been passed from one acronym to another for a long time and the numbers have really stacked up by this point, but not one of them will answer me. The room darkens.

Finally, a human voice greets me with a surreal neutrality.

I take a deep breath, push down all my desperation and anger over broken promises, knowing that if I show any emotion I’ll just be told to calm down. I try not to focus on the irony of the fact that I’ve learned not to show any signs of mental distress when dealing with professionals whose job it is to support those experiencing mental distress because I know they will dismiss me. I tell them we’re in crisis, we need those plans and promises fulfilled.

“An approach that values lived experience is vital not just for those using the system, but for fixing the system itself.”

I use all the right acronyms, all the right words, like “safeguarding” and “imminent risk”. You have to use their language. It’s like talking to a really primitive version of Alexa. The voice tells me they won’t be sending anyone to help. It tells me it has no record of any promises made and not to call again because I’m making a nuisance of myself. Now I’m in total darkness.

All dignity evaporates and I start to beg – not for the first time. Please. Someone is going to die. Please do something, please. Help us. The voice says something about a week next Tuesday. I tell them that’s too late. The voice asks me how I dare tell it how to do its job. It tells me that if I ring again, the police will be called, then hangs up.

I wake with incalculable rage heaving in my chest. I summon the energy to sob, just to get out some of the adrenaline.

I know the dream will follow me all day like a dark cloud. I know I’ll jump at loud noises, stare into space, compulsively pore over some records for no particular reason other than to remind myself that all these things actually happened.

Bad things happened, no one came, and Gaia died; and those of us left behind, stumbling under the weight of our grief, must still depend on the system that let her die; that has let many people die.

Sharing Stories

It is extremely difficult for carers to speak out. We too are dependent on mental health services. When you’re starving, you don’t bite the hand that feeds you, even if it’s only tossing you crumbs.

Five years engaging with community and residential mental health services has taught me that ‘family engagement’ is usually an outsourcing programme. There are rare exceptions – shining lights in the darkness – but they are bound and gagged by the system they work in and often burn out. The rest talk to you like they know everything and you know nothing, not even about your own pain, your own family.

It’s taken me a long time to grapple with the reality that I might need support myself. In my mind I was the advocate. I hid away in that role, trapped in the same soundproof box I built for myself when Gaia was missing, and I spent every hour of the day organising searches and giving interviews so I wouldn’t have to stop and hear the screaming silence of the absence of her voice.

Part of what gave me the courage to acknowledge my own pain, my own story, was the stories shared by others.

They started coming through a couple of months after the Find Gaia Facebook group became Justice for Gaia, highlighting the intersectional links between austerity, inequality and sexual and domestic violence. I was speaking and reaching out because I wanted Gaia to be heard, and soon people started talking back.

“My dad tried to throw himself off our balcony, and two years later he’s still on the waiting list. I’m afraid to leave him alone.”

“I was raped by a colleague and my boss has threatened me with disciplinary action if I speak out or access counselling.”

“I’m fighting for an inquest for my teenage daughter who died a preventable death in a secure mental health unit, but I can’t afford a lawyer.”

“My grandchildren are being beaten at home. I’ve got stacks of evidence here, but I’m being ignored by social services and threatened by the police.”

That was when I realised how many of us are trapped in this nightmare together. I’ve been involved in anti-austerity campaigns for almost a decade, so I thought I knew how bad things were, but I was wrong.

Since 2010, several billion pounds’ worth of cuts to essential health and social services have been linked to over 120,000 deaths in the UK; I thought funding was the issue, but I was wrong about that too. Austerity only explains why the capacity of mental health services to help has been crippled, especially for marginalised communities, young people and rural dwellers. What it does not explain is why these services so often do active harm. This is an issue with roots far deeper than Tory austerity.

An Unjust Reality

Evidence for the central role of trauma in mental health problems is overwhelming. There is a reason we are seeing a Black mental health crisis, with people of colour more likely to be sectioned, overmedicated and assaulted by those meant to care for them. There is a reason why almost half of women who have endured severe mental distress are survivors of sexual violence. There is a reason why almost half of those in need of benefits and half of those in financial debt are struggling with their mental health.

The common thread is trauma, the impact of which is magnified not just by austerity, but also by a mental health system, which, while essential, is as unequal as the rest of society.

Last year, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Gaia suffered from severe PTSD, so I recognised the escalating cycle of insomnia, sleep disturbances, panic attacks and flashbacks that had already pushed me out of two jobs, my relationship and my home.

PTSD means the brain is more sensitive to certain trauma-related stimuli. There’s no doubt that my brain works differently from the way it did before Gaia was taken from us. I metamorphosed from a confident, fearless and idealistic young professional to an insular, nervous wreck, unemployed and too exhausted to even apply for the benefits I was entitled to. I couldn’t bear to be told by one more person that my pain wasn’t worth anything, as have 125,000 others with mental health conditions who’ve had their benefits slashed.

Did I suffer these symptoms because my brain is dysfunctional, as the medical model says? Was I broken by what happened? Or, after the trauma, did my brain adapt to a learned reality that we are living in an unjust world where the unthinkable can happen?

It might not seem an important distinction, but knowing, loving and losing Gaia – whose trauma was incalculably greater than my own – has taught me just how important that question is.

If my brain is to blame, I am what is broken here. The medical model justifies medicating people so they live and work obediently in an unjust world. It is the psychological equivalent of smashing square pegs into round holes until they fit – even if you break them in the process. There’s a strong financial incentive for this because drugs are cheaper than talking therapy. That’s where austerity comes in.

The oppressors and the oppressed

Like the murky inquest system we will have to navigate for the investigation into Gaia’s death, the medical model of mental health shifts accountability onto the oppressed and away from those oppressing them, whether that’s a family member or policymakers in government.

But if we take a trauma-informed approach, then the perpetrators of the trauma itself are to blame. They, and the systems that enabled their actions, can be held accountable. Whether that trauma is related to childhood or sexual abuse, hate crime and prejudice, structural racism, domestic violence, poverty or something else, suddenly your lived experience matters. An approach that values lived experience is vital not just for those using the system, but for fixing the system itself.

We are wired for connection. Little is more central to our wellbeing than a sense that we belong, that our experiences are valued, our stories heard. By pathologising symptoms that are most often caused by trauma, the medical model obscures our view of oppression, upholds the status quo and silences precisely the people we should be turning to for leadership: those with lived experience.

Some psychologists and users of mental health services are pushing for change. Mental distress – and the sharp learning curve that comes from any sustained engagement with the mental health system – can be a great teacher. Trauma can be a great teacher. But every day there are more deaths by indifference – another sibling, child or parent who has died waiting for someone to listen to their story. Dying along with them is the invaluable wisdom they’ve accumulated.

That I am slowly getting back on my feet is only thanks to the love and support of friends and family, and the inspiration Gaia gives me every day to keep speaking out. For me and many others the only thing standing between us and the void is the prospect of finally being heard, the possibility of change.

September 13, 2019 0

Press Release: family appeal for information on anniversary of Gaia’s disappearance

Released 7th November via the INQUEST website

On the anniversary of her disappearance, Gaia’s family appeals to members of the public to come forward with any relevant information. The family is also convening an art project in her memory and to highlight the crisis in service provision for rape survivors and young people with mental ill health.

The inquest into Gaia’s death has been postponed until March 2018 while the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) probe Dorset Police’s response, both to her disappearance in November 2017 and her prior rape case. The family welcomed both investigations and look forward to the outcome.

Natasha Pope, Gaia’s mother, says: “This year has been more painful than words can say. Sometimes I can’t believe I have survived it, but with my every breath I love and demand justice for my daughter. Since the Me Too, we have seen a rising movement for the rights of women and girls. Change is coming.”

Marienna Pope-Weidemann, Gaia’s cousin, says: “When she was missing, it was the support and dedication from the public that kept us going. You gave us hope that we would find Gaia. A year after her death, we must call on you again to help us find justice for her. We can’t do this without you. If you know anything that might aid the investigation into Gaia’s rape case or the missing persons investigation and help us learn the truth, please come forward; not just for Gaia’s sake, but for the sake of anyone else who might be at risk.”

Harriet Wistrich, award-winning civil rights lawyer and co-founder of the Centre for Women’s Justice who is representing the family, says: “Nothing will dull the pain for those who loved her on the first anniversary of Gaia’s death, but the Justice for Gaia campaign represents their hope that something good can come from this, shining a light on failures by the police and demanding better from the police in the investigation of crimes of sexual violence.”

Deborah Coles, director of INQUEST, says: “Already one year on from Gaia’s disappearance, it is important that her family see a prompt and robust investigation. There has never been greater disquiet about victims of sexual violence being failed by statutory agencies. There is a clear link between the trauma of rape and mental ill health. The longer the delay in identifying any systemic failings, the greater the risk of more young women like Gaia dying.”

Emily Fields of Sisters Uncut says: “Gaia’s story shows the devastating impact that being poorly treated by the criminal justice system can have after sexual violence. Survivors need support not suspicion. That’s why we’re fighting data gathering policies that further traumatise those reporting abuse.”

Gaia’s family have organised #ArtForGaia, a creative project in Gaia’s memory, which is being followed by BBC News. With the inquest postponed, they say the project is a chance to show that Gaia won’t be forgotten – however long it takes – and create a forum for others affected by sexual violence and mental health issues to share their experiences through creative work. In addition, the family are appealing for artwork from Gaia’s friends and anyone who was involved in the search for her as well as the wider public.

People are being invited to photograph their work, submit it via the website and share it on twitter with the hashtag #ArtForGaia. Find out more at www.justiceforgaia.com/artforgaia

November 12, 2018 0

Gaia deserved a chance to see the world, to fall in love. That was taken from her – and we want justice, writes Gaia’s cousin Marienna for the Guardian.

Today is the 365th day I’ve woken up with a hole in my chest where my heart used to be. The 11 days my cousin Gaia Pope was missing before her body was found felt like an out-of-body experience. We somehow lost the need to eat and sleep; nothing in the world mattered except bringing her home safe.

The community-led effort to find her was a grassroots miracle, filled with enough love and power to obscure that cold feeling in my gut and the whisper that said what we all already knew: she would never have left us.

The press often call her “tragic Gaia Pope”, which I hate not just because it does her no justice but also because her death was not tragedy; it was travesty.

Gaia was my cousin, but I loved her like a sister from the moment I first held her as a baby in my arms when I was seven years old. As a woman, she was let down by the services we all trust will be there for us in our hour of need. She fell through the cracks in the system and she died there.

First, she was let down by Dorset police when they chose not to prosecute for an alleged rape that took place when she was just 16. She is not alone in this: the prosecution and conviction rates for rape are worse now than they were 40 years ago.

The stigma and indignities she was subjected to as a survivor, along with the failure of the police to make her feel safe, drove her deep into post-traumatic stress. She received only a few weeks of crisis counselling from local mental health services, even though we, her family, felt that she needed a lot more. Meanwhile, her mother was being forced to leave her to work every night, just to keep a roof over their heads.

She is not alone in this, either: contrary to government rhetoric, mental health services have been decimated by austerity, none more than youth services. They receive just 7% of mental health funding even though 75% of mental health issues start young, and provision in Dorset, where my family is from, is particularly poor.

Eventually, her declining mental and physical health drove her first out of college and then work. Now it was the turn of the welfare system to relentlessly interrogate her trauma and undermine her sense of self-respect. She was forced to fight a lengthy battle for the personal independence payments (PIP) to which she was entitled.

Again, this isn’t just Gaia’s story: the PIP system has since been ruled “blatantly discriminatory” towards people with mental health issues and a great many people have died waiting for, fighting for or having given up on the support they deserve.

On 7 November last year, triggered, we believe, by an incident of sexual harassment online, Gaia passed the point of her endurance. With no phone, no cash, no coat and daylight fading, she simply disappeared. This was the last opportunity for the state to intervene and save her life. We begged them from the first moment to search for her along the coastal paths we had walked since childhood. “If she was out there, we’d have found her,” one police officer told me. It took 11 days for them to find her body there. By then it was too late.

One year on we know very little more than that. The postmortem said she was killed by hypothermia. I say it was a death by indifference. Gaia was a child soldier in a war that has cost more than 120,000 lives in Britain alone since 2010. She was fighting to survive and growing up poor in the age of austerity and that is a bloody, hard fight. She battled bravely for her rights but also for those around her; she never once let go of her humanity, her creativity, her determination to see the best in others. I am so profoundly proud of her for that.

Gaia deserved better. All of us do. She deserved the chance to fulfil her potential and give back to her community all the courage and compassion she had to offer. It’s not just her loved ones who have been robbed of someone precious, and our local community knows that.

Gaia deserved a chance to see the world, to fall in love, to have a family of her own. All that was taken from her – from us – and I want justice for that. But I also want justice for those left behind: the one in five women and girls who have endured sexual violence in this country; the 70% of young people with mental health challenges not receiving proper support; the countless families up and down the country who have been sacrificed on the altar of austerity; the lives not yet lost, precious, worth fighting for.

The world is a darker place without Gaia, but she still lights our way. We honour her memory when we fight for justice for her and for the better world that she believed in. In that sense, with support from and as part of a much wider movement for social justice, she will triumph yet.

November 12, 2018 0