“We never spent a moment apart when we were younger, we were so close, we had a real bond,” Maya, 24, told the Guardian. “There was a spirituality to Gaia. Her name means “Mother Earth” and she felt a connection with the trees, the sky, the animals. She was altruistic and loving, a great listener.” Clara, 25, said: “Gaia ordered a room. She was so energetic and bright and full of laughter, a whirlwind of goodness.” The girls grew up on the Isle of Purbeck and loved exploring the cliffs, beaches and forests of the Dorset peninsula as children. “We were in our own little world,” Clara said. But terrible memories also fade. In the two years before Gaia died in November 2017 aged 19 after disappearing from the seaside town of Swanage, her family believe she did not receive the care and support she deserved as a survivor of sexual violence whose complex needs intersected with neurology, mental health and social support. They blame institutional misogyny and the catastrophic damage to services caused by austerity. “We’ve always dug our heels in trying to do something,” Maya said. “We felt helpless. she felt she was not being heard. I was worried about how much longer I would have with her. It often crossed my mind that we would lose her.” Clara said: “There should be systems in place to provide long-term mental health support to victims. She should have been made to feel safe and protected. Long-term trauma-informed support is needed. He was constantly living in fear.” When she disappeared in November 2017 without her phone or the necessary epilepsy medication, Dorset Police, by their own admission, made a series of mistakes before finding her body 11 days later. Maya thinks she could have been alive for days, a terrible thought for the family. “I felt like she was alive for a while,” Maya said. “I felt like I had a spiritual experience where I felt like Gaia was dying days later. It is hard to come to terms with the idea that he suffered. He was disappointed so many times.” Her sisters said Gaia’s epilepsy was noticed when she was 13 or 14, but her condition became much more serious after she was allegedly drugged and raped in 2014 when she was 16 by a man in his 20s, Connor Hayes. Gaia and Maya as children. Maya said that as a twin she saw Gaia change after being raped at 16, becoming “scared and depressed”. She didn’t tell anyone for months and ended up in hospital in December 2015 having a major mental health crisis. “They were coming with memories of dark things,” Clara said. He finally managed to explain what had happened. Hayes was arrested, but officers told Gaia that he would not be prosecuted and advised her that going to court would be traumatic. “I don’t think the police believed her, quite simply,” said Clara. “Very few people believe women who report sexual assault. Here was a young woman with mental health issues. The attitude was: “He’s not in a hurry, he’s imagining things.” This is how they treated her. She didn’t feel heard. “She left the bright, bubbly Gaia she thought would help her to: ‘What’s the point?’ She was looking for justice and felt broken and insecure.” As a twin, Maya saw the change first hand. “She was scared and depressed. Her seizures started getting worse. He was hallucinating, going into fits and turning blue.’ In April 2017, Hayes was jailed for downloading an indecent animation of a child, possessing indecent images of a child and paying for the sexual services of a child. Gaia’s family told the inquest that a Facebook post about his imprisonment had prompted hundreds of comments from people saying he had molested them or their children. I don’t think the police believed her, simple as that. Very few people believe the women who report sexual assault to Clara Pope-Sutherland His conviction didn’t make it any easier. She feared that once released, Hayes would harm her or her family for reporting him. He was diagnosed with PTSD. The missed opportunities to help Gaia were many. A range of professionals who appeared at her 12-week inquiry in Bournemouth highlighted gaps in services, failures to communicate, lack of resources. To take just one episode, in February 2017, when Gaia was in St Ann’s Hospital in Poole, a male patient on a mixed psychiatric ward sexually assaulted her, but no safeguarding referral was made – which a consultant psychiatrist admits should have been had been done. Gaia’s family believes this is just one example of professionals failing to protect survivors of sexual violence. The counselor decided to refer her to a community treatment service called Steps2Wellbeing – but failed to send the referral letter. He couldn’t say why. He also failed to talk to neurologists who were working with Gaia about her epilepsy. Matthew Walker, professor of neurology at University College London, said there had been a “failure to communicate” in the NHS. During the latter part of 2017, Gaia became increasingly distressed at the prospect of Hayes being released from prison. “He was constantly living in fear. He didn’t really want to leave the house,” Clara said. Maya contacted social services about her twin three weeks before she disappeared, but by the time she died a full assessment had not been carried out. Shortly before she disappeared, Gaia was sent indecent images by another man, which caused her PTSD and she desperately tried to see the police to officially report the indecent images. The response of one of the officers seemed to crystallize the police’s attitude towards the family. She told a call handler that the family “took the piss.” Clara said, “He really didn’t care.” Gaia disappeared a few hours later. The research referred to the concept of the ‘golden hour’ – how an investigation is conducted in the early stages is crucial. The mistakes were many and fundamental. Officers admitted it took too long to treat Gaia as missing and it was wrong to have initially only rated her as medium risk. The hunt was confused, chaotic. At one point they searched barns after a message from a psychic. But Gaia’s family feels he didn’t listen to them. Maya said: “I was not involved in the investigation. They told me to stay inside. If I went out, people might call me thinking it was Gaia because we were identical sisters. That was strange – I wanted to participate but I wasn’t allowed.’ The family told police that the Dancing Ledge beauty spot, a few miles from the center of Swanage, was a key place to search. It was a location where the family used to walk, and Gaia connected with her late, beloved grandfather. Gaia’s body was eventually found in a bush near Dancing Ledge. He is believed to have died of hypothermia either after being stabbed in the undergrowth or after falling and may have had a seizure or mental health episode. “I knew that’s where he’d be,” Clara said. “The relationship with my family, my grandparents, that sense of security. there was no doubt in my mind that he was trying to get there. I really don’t know where else it would be. They actively ignored us.” It was horrifying for the family to learn that on the night Gaia was lost a thermal imager from a police helicopter detected a faint source of heat at the location where her body was discovered. And to hear from a canine search specialist who was eventually brought in that, had he been assigned earlier, he believed he would have found her. The three-month investigation was a test. “I’ve been having strange nightmares,” Maya said. “Last night [in a dream] A bomb the size of Hiroshima went off and we all ran from it. It seemed like a big metaphor for everything. I spend a lot of time in the fetal position and lying down.” The family believes the police tried to cover up the mistakes. The recordings of phone calls made on the day Gaia disappeared emerged late that day after a whistleblower disclosed their existence. During the investigation, a police officer involved in the investigation admitted to altering the search logs. “They were trying to save their asses when they modified these logs,” Maya said. Clara added: “They have a lot to hide. I don’t think the police were open. I strongly believe that there is systemic misogyny in the police force.” “I don’t know a woman who hasn’t been sexually assaulted or harassed to varying degrees,” she said. “Very few of us feel we can go to the police and very few have good experiences when they go to the police. Victims are not persistently believed.” The family will continue to fight for justice. Clara said: “Gaia is constantly in the back of my mind. He doesn’t want us to give up. He wants us to be justified. I remember a dream in which she and I were chasing her rapist. He was guiding me to chase him.” Maya said: “What we heard is the tip of the iceberg. Justice for Gaia will come. Research is only the first part of the journey. We will continue to campaign, we will continue to speak out. We’re not done yet.”
