Singer-songwriter reveals historic abuse while Queenstown guide

A Christchurch musician and business woman has spoken publicly for the first time about a sexual assault that occurred while she was an outdoor adventure guide in Queenstown during her late teens.

Flip Grater has raised the issue of a culture of abuse in an opinion piece published in The Press, with further details of the attack she suffered in Queenstown almost two and a half decades ago published in an accompanying news story written by Stuff journalist Liz McDonald.

Now 43 years old, Ms Grater trained as a guide upon leaving school, before moving to Queenstown.

She tells Ms McDonald of the night she was drugged and raped by a group of older men who were industry colleagues.

The “four or five” men, aged in their late 30s and early 40s, included two who had previously been her bosses.

“They said come over and have a drink, let’s hang out. Their house was near the pub. It didn’t occur to me not to trust them.

“What I remember is having a drink. Just one drink. Then there was a really awkward moment and the men started being weird. There was a shift in energy, they stopped being fun and social. Everybody was looking at me expectantly, waiting or something.”

Ms Grater tells Ms McDonald it was the last thing she remembers clearly.

“But I knew what had happened as soon as I woke up the next morning. I remember blaming myself…I had worked with these men and knew them.”

She says she felt a sense of shame and guilt, and it did not occur to her to report the incident.

“I felt it was my fault...I put it in a vault, and left it there."

She stayed in Queenstown and continued to work in the industry, but admits it was a small town and it was impossible to avoid her attackers.

Ms Grater tells Ms McDonald she thinks there is a "cultural issue" that communities as a whole need to take responsibility for, but it was still a hard decision to speak up now on her personal experience.

“You don’t want this to define who you are. You want your contributions to define who you are.

“Perhaps people will feel less alone hearing about this, if they've gone through this themselves.

“But I hope men read this and wonder what they and their friends do or have done to ignore or enable this type of stuff, and what they could say and do in the future to change the prevalence of this in our country."

Opinion - We are all accountable for enabling abuse culture