Losing three years of your life to litigation abuse isn’t funny

This is a newsletter sent out by the UK Anti-SLAPP Coalition, which Index co-founded, from the SLAPP target, survivor and coalition member Nina Cresswell. This was due to be read at the Houses of Parliament at the launch event for a new report. Nina explains why she was unable to attend in person

I’m not supposed to be writing this. Last night I was supposed to be in Parliament with Index on Censorship, helping present its new report – From Survivor to Defendant: How the law is being weaponised to silence victims of sexual violence – and sharing my own story of being sued by the man who sexually assaulted me. 

The trains were booked. The hotel was sorted. Plans penned in. 

But I couldn’t do it. 

Last week, my family noticed I wasn’t myself. I was jittery, easily overwhelmed, and having unexplained flare-ups. It wasn’t until they pointed it out that I realised: the closer we approached the Parliament date, the worse my mood and health became. I knew I had to start planning my talk – and to do that, I was slowly and reluctantly prising open the file in my brain marked “The Time You Nearly Died.” 

In 2023, after publicly sharing my story at a SLAPPs event, I developed shingles from the stress. I spent weeks alone, feeling as though scalding electricity was running down one side of my face. It left physical scars for life. 

So I took almost two years away from public campaigning to heal – to stop reopening my wounds for others to see. But the painful truth is that people need to see the ugly reality to understand why stronger protections are so urgent. They need to see what happens when people with power and money use the law to intimidate survivors into silence.

Now I’m talking about it again. I can reach into that file, but I can’t stay there for long. Each time I tell my story, I catch myself sanding down the rough edges – making it easier to hear, and maybe, for me, easier to bear. More often than not, I’ll throw in a Carry On Courtroom anecdote. I’ll try to make it funny.

Only, it really wasn’t funny. None of it was funny. 

Losing almost three years of your life to litigation abuse isn’t funny. Being publicly called a liar for telling the truth isn’t funny. Watching your business collapse so you can act as your own lawyer isn’t funny. Moving house because your abuser found out where you live isn’t funny. Desperately filming pleas for legal funding, mid-trauma, isn’t funny. Having your personal journals read out in a public courtroom isn’t funny. Four hours of cross-examination isn’t funny. Panic attacks in court aren’t funny. Seeing your mother have a panic attack in court isn’t funny. And that night in 2010 – being violently assaulted by the man who would later sue me for naming what he did – that definitely wasn’t funny.

The most shocking part of all this? I’m considered a ‘winner’. I successfully defended the truth and public interest nature of speaking out to protect others. I set a legal precedent for survivors of sexual abuse. But sometimes it doesn’t feel like a victory as most survivors who are sued can’t make it that far. Public judgments are rare because most SLAPP cases settle before trial. For many, silence is the only way to survive.

Across the UK and Ireland, laws against sexual violence remain inconsistent, insufficient, and poorly enforced. When justice fails and harm is buried, it can burn you from the inside – allowing cycles of abuse, shame, and stigma to continue. If we can’t speak about it without facing legal bullying, the violence will never end.

This is what the law is allowing to happen to those failed by the system who dare to speak out. 

My story could have happened to anyone. It could happen to you. 

If the Government continues to lean on limited anti-SLAPP protections in the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act, it won’t protect people in the position I was in. Without a universal anti-SLAPP law, what happened to me will happen again. And next time, the target might not make it out alive. 

That’s why I keep going. It’s why I’m so grateful to our coalition members – especially Lucy and Verity Nevitt – for this urgently needed report, and for their tireless work to end the use of civil lawsuits by abusers to silence survivors.