Ulrika Jonsson says she would not report her rape to the police if it happened today

Ulrika Jonsson has said she would not report her rape if it happened today because she feels “deeply uneasy” about the police.

The TV presenter – best known for Gladiators and Shooting Stars – criticised the standards of policing in the UK for having “an indifference about women and their safety”.

In her 2002 memoir, Jonsson, 55, divulged that she had been raped when she was 20 years old and beginning her career as a weather presenter.

Jonsson said that she did not report the assault at the time because she did not think she would be believed since she knew the rapist.

In her recent column for The Sun, she explained that there “was no such crime as date rape” at the time.

“Society had taught me that I – as a woman – was culpable for finding myself alone in a room with a man,” she wrote. “I lived with that guilt and felt it for decades.”

Jonsson went on to say that she still would not go to the police today over fears that she would not be taken seriously.

“I’ve thought many, many times over the years about what I would do if – God forbid - I was raped again. I’ve written in this column that I would like to think I would report it, regardless of the circumstances,” she said.

“But as I write for you today, I can’t say that I would.”

Jonsson went on to refer to the recent controversy over a police poster in Kent.

The Kent police attracted widespread criticism over a poster that was displayed in a station, which listed rape and sexual assault as non-emergency crime, alongside anti-social behaviour, fraud, and road traffic incidents.

The Metropolitan police have come under fire recently, with the Casey Review – commissioned in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder by police officer Wayne Couzens – laying bare a series of grave concerns about the police’s culture and standards.

The review found that Britain’s largest police force is institutionally racist, misogynist, and homophobic.

Despite the Met saying violence against women and girls is a priority, the review found that it is treated differently from “serious violence”.

You can read the key findings from the review here.

The Independent has contacted the Met Police for comment.

If you have been raped or sexually assaulted, you can contact your nearest Rape Crisis organisation for specialist, independent and confidential support. For more information, visit their website here.