The woman police say was sexually assaulted by a taxi driver in Halifax is applauding the way police handled the situation.
“I don't think I could have handled it myself as well without them,” she says.
Verona Singer is with Halifax Regional Police Victim Services. She says the woman's experience is, in part, because of new training she helped design for officers.
“I read the file and I was very disturbed about what had happened, the sexual assault and when I saw the officer, I thought great. That's great. She had a great officer with her because I knew the officer had received the training,” says Singer.
The training is called Trauma Informed Response to Sexualized Violence.
The idea is to give officers a better understanding of how they can respond to the victim's needs.
“I know that this question may really bother you and may really concern you, it's not that I don't believe you, it's that I have to ask this question in order to find out more detail about what happened to you,” says Singer, as an example of the training.
Singer says sometimes, when officers are busy collecting evidence and worried about catching the bad guys, the victim is forgotten.
“So understanding that trauma impacts victims in a way that they may present as confused, agitated, hyper vigilant, that doesn't mean that they're not telling the truth,” says Singer.
The officer who responded to the alleged assault in the taxi is one of 36 Halifax police officers who have received this training so far. The plan is to train all 270 patrol officers.
“So that no victim walks away from Halifax Regional Police and says, 'damn, they treated me terribly,'” says Singer.
Twelve Mounties have also been trained and the RCMP plan to train as many frontline officers as possible.
At least one woman is already showing how important that training can be.
“I think part of what gets me through it, is the fact that it could have been so much worse than it was, and how incredibly lucky I was,” she says.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Kayla Hounsell
