The day after Lindsay passed away, a reporter
from the Daily Record came to our door. We invited
her in and told her everything that had happened
to Lindsay. I vowed then to let everyone know
what horrors Lindsay went through in court. We
never knew the scale of what was to begin.
Lindsay’s funeral was on the 19th July 2002.
We were overwhelmed by the attendance at her funeral.
Several hundred people attended and the church
was packed.
We were interviewed by most newspapers, T.V stations,
radio stations and magazines. We appeared on Kilroy,
That’s Ester, Sky News, Channel 4 News,
STV News and BBC News. We were also asked to do
a couple of documentaries, but I was not up to
it at the time, so we didn’t do them.
A week later we were visited by the Chief Executive
of Victim Support. He suggested that we should
maybe try to get the legislation changed ourselves,
by campaigning. We did this by speaking to the
newspapers and to the radio and television stations
to highlight the mental state of victims of sex
attacks.
In the meantime we returned to court, 2 weeks
after Lindsay’s death, to see her rapist
sentenced. He was sentenced to 4 years in a detention
centre and a further 3 years under supervision.
He waved and smiled to his mother when he was
taken down, while we all sat dressed in black
grieving Lindsay’s death. Lindsay would
have been disgusted.
We decided then that we would do anything in our
power to prevent another case like Lindsay’s
so with a lot of backing form the Daily Record,
who kept highlighting Lindsay’s case we
began our campaign. The Daily Record arranged
a meeting with Jim Wallace, who was the Justice
Minister at the time, and we went to see him.
He listened to everything we said and was very
understanding. He took note of everything that
we said that we thought should be changed. Since
then things have changed with the newest legislation
coming out in April, that there will be one court
date and one court date only.
We then held public meetings and got together
a committee of 12 people to act on behalf of our
group. We decided to call the group The Lindsay
Armstrong Support Group. We decided to set up
a 24 hour helpline for victims of rape/sexual
assault and their families. We also decided to
set up a web based support network. We then drew
up our constitution and it was accepted by the
Inland Revenue. We were now a registered charity.
The Daily Record informed Brian May and Rodger
Taylor of Queen about Lindsay, as they were her
favourite band, and everything that we had been
doing since then.
Brian wrote us a lovely letter and invited us
down to London to go to a concert and to meet
them. They were very touched and have since agreed
to be Patrons of the Lindsay Armstrong Support
Group. We have been fundraising for 2 years now
to get together enough money to get us started.
We have tea bingo’s, memorial darts tournaments
for Lindsay, stalls at gala days, anything we
can think of to raise money.
We then received a grant of £5000.00 from
Awards for All which covered our rent for a year,
our utilities for a year and 2 computers.
It took us more than a year to find premises to
start up our help lines, but thankfully we now
have them. The premises we have has a spare room,
which we have decorated and turned into a charity
shop. We thought this would be a good way of keeping
some kind of income coming in. It has been open
since 7th March and is doing quiet well.
We have now volunteers to man the telephoned lines,
but still need more to keep a successful 24 hour
helpline running. We know from experience that
night times were the worst for Lindsay because
this was when she needed someone out with the
family to talk to.
If you would like to volunteer for a few hours
telephone Linda on 01290 338883 or contact us
by email at lindsayarmstrongsupportgroup@hotmail.co.uk.
Our family has been completely shattered by everything
that has happened and we don’t want to see
another family go through this hell. We don’t
want to see another Lindsay case and will do everything
in our power to prevent it.
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