November 10, 2025 • 45 mins
A late-night call, a closed clinic, and a stack of unanswered emails set the stage for one of the most determined quests for justice you’ll hear this year. We walk through Kaitlin Hurley’s drug-facilitated rape in Antigua, the UK police officer who tried to outrun accountability, and the father who refused to let an international border or a slow bureaucracy be the end of the story.
We start with the numbers—why sexual violence remains vastly underreported and how rates in the UK and the Eastern Caribbean highlight a global crisis—then move into the granular realities of response: trauma-informed policing that helped, harmful missteps that nearly derailed the case, and the crucial role of preserved messages and medical evidence. From there, we open the black box of extradition. You’ll hear how errors stalled requests, why a UK judge first denied removal over prison conditions, and how coordinated diplomacy, detailed prison audits, and a high-level sign-off finally brought the perpetrator back to face trial and a 15-year sentence.
Beyond the courtroom, we tackle the cultural work that actually reduces harm. We discuss practical safety for online dating without shifting blame to survivors, and we press into prevention that starts with men—building respect, empathy, and consent as norms. Derrick Hurley shares how this case reshaped his life, from writing Antiguan Justice: A Father’s Fight to delivering trauma-informed training and supporting communities with high rates of missing and murdered Indigenous women.
Subscribe for more conversations that pair survivor-centered storytelling with actionable insight. If this resonated, share it with someone who needs to hear it, and leave a review to help others find the show.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_02 (00:00):
The subject matter of this podcast will address a
difficult topic about multipleforms of violence and
identity-based discriminationand harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape.
Every two to five minutes, thereis a sexual assault.
Out of every nine seconds inthis country, a woman is
assaulted by someone who toldher that he loved her, by
(00:41):
someone who told her it was herfault, by someone who tries to
tell the rest of us it's none ofour business.
And I'm proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_02 (00:54):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
According to the National SexualAssault Resource Center, one in
five women experienced acompleted or attempted rape
during their lifetime.
To bring that percentage intofocus, that is about 25 million
women who have undergone forcedpenetration, attempted forced
(01:14):
penetration, or alcohol drugfacilitated completed
penetration.
Additionally, 81% of womenreported experience some form of
sexual harassment and or assaultin their lifetime.
While the statistics for rape byan acquaintance is higher than
that by a stranger, 40.8% and15.1% respectively, rapes by
(01:37):
strangers still do happen, justas it did for Caitlin Hurley, an
American nursing studentstudying abroad in Antigua, who
was subsequently drugged andraped by a London police
officer.
The reasons why women don'treport rape abroad, but
primarily are linked to shame ofthe assault, fear of not being
believed, fear of retribution,distrust of the police and the
(01:59):
criminal justice system, and theintense trauma of the assault.
While Caitlin may have had manyof these same reasons, she still
found the courage to seekjustice and hold the offender
accountable for his actions,leading to his 15-year prison
sentence upheld by an Antiguacourt.
Today's conversation will bewith Caitlin's father, Derek
Hurley, who has tirelesslyfought for justice for his
(02:22):
daughter and who has redirectedhis career path into helping
sexual assault victims andsurvivors through his advocacy
and training.
Derek Hurley grew up in MountGilead, North Carolina.
He attended NC State Universityand graduated with honors in
1987 with a degree in business,beginning a successful 37-year
career as a systems engineer andexecutive.
(02:44):
In 2022, Derek published a booktitled Antiguan Justice, A
Father's Fight.
It tells the story of hisdaughter Caitlin's rape while
she was a nursing student inAntigua and his dedication to
the pursuit of justice.
The impact of this journey had aprofound effect on him, and at
the end of 2023, he walked awayfrom a successful career to get
(03:05):
involved in helping victims ofsexual assault, be it rape, sex
trafficking, or child sexualabuse.
He also volunteers for OperationLight Shine based in Nashville,
Tennessee, RAIN based inWashington, D.C., and the Impact
and Dialogue Foundation based inIndia.
Derek spends most of his timeadvocating for and supporting
victims, providingtrauma-informed training,
(03:27):
participating in webinars andspeaking engagements, and he is
working on projects with theLakota tribe in South Dakota
focused on the missing andmurdered indigenous women.
He has been a guest on severalpodcasts, including What They
Don't Say, Sexual AssaultSurvivor Stories with his
daughter Caitlin and the DearKatie podcast.
(03:47):
Derek, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you for having me.
Thank you for being here.
This is such an important story,and I want to get to every
detail that we possibly cantoday.
You are a father, husband, andtechnology professional whose
world was turned upside downwhen your daughter, Caitlin
Hurley, was drugged and rapedwhile out on a date.
(04:08):
And that incident happened in2015, and you have since
refocused on trauma-informedwork.
So tell us how you're doing nowas a champion against all forms
of sexual assault and sexualviolence.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, I decided, I think in 22, you
know, I put my book out.
This was really pulling at methat I I just felt I wanted to
get involved.
And so I decided 2023 would bemy last year of my career work.
And I just kind of jumped inwithout, I'll be honest, I'm a
planner, but I didn't have a bigplan here.
I just I know some of thenonprofits.
(04:42):
I started volunteering in 2023with one out of Nashville, and I
really didn't want to commit toomuch to one early because I
didn't know where I could addthe most value in this space
because I was really new to thespace.
And so what I've done the lastcouple of years is really try to
find the areas I can add themost value because I want to
(05:04):
help where I can help the most.
It's starting to narrow downthough.
There's certain things I'mreally focused on at the moment,
but it's been a journey to getto this point.
I'm definitely doing the thingthat I should be doing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
That's good to hear.
And you're, you know, you'rereally needed in the space.
We need all voices andperspectives in supporting
gender-based crimes.
So I'm glad you're here, and I'mreally interested to talk with
you today about what happened toCaitlin and the work that you're
doing because of that.
Now to set it up, the assault onCaitlin occurred in Antigua, a
(05:37):
Caribbean island east of theDominican Republic in Puerto
Rico that serves as adestination spot for many
travelers.
Uh but your daughter was thereas a nursing student in the hope
of becoming a missionary nurse.
Tell us what is the culture likein Antigua and maybe to a
further extent in London in theUK where the offender lived.
(05:57):
What is that culture liketowards victims of rape?
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
If I can just back up and just say Caitlin was in
nursing school in the U.S., buthad been on mission trips for a
really faithful family.
They went to Christian schoolgrowing up.
And honestly, she decided aftersome mission trips she wanted to
do go and help people in moreimpoverished areas.
I thought it was great, it fither personality.
I was really worried if shecould live outside the U.S.
(06:22):
And we started thinking, how canwe help her?
This is what she wants to do.
We found this school in Antigua,and what we thought it was a
U.S.
accredited program, so if itdidn't work out, she's just like
she went to school in the U.S.,which ended up happening.
But, you know, that's why shewas there, because it gave her
an opportunity to live wherethey have electric problems,
water problems, you know, allkinds of issues.
(06:45):
It's a different culture.
If you can thrive in that, Ifeel a little more comfortable
if you fly to South Africa oranywhere in Africa or South
America to do this type of work.
And that's kind of why she wasthere, just to just to if people
are curious.
It was not, I just want to beclear, this was not some fancy
American college in theCaribbean.
It was the opposite.
(07:05):
It was a local college, veryrough.
SPEAKER_02 (07:08):
So very authentic experience of life in the
islands, right?
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
That's right.
The culture, I mean, look, itmay not seem like it from the
outside, but I will tell you, welove Antigua.
Caitlin would tell you it's hersecond home.
It just happens that the worstthing in her life happened
there, but it wasn't even bysomebody that lived there,
right?
So the people are friendly.
It's like most of the you know,Caribbean islands.
(07:33):
It is English speaking, but it'spoor.
So Antigua was colonized by thethe UK in 1981, they became an
independent country.
Like many of the islands in thatsituation, they have incredible
ocean, you know, yeah, resortsand all that.
But if you go into the center,it's a poor island.
But people are nice and helpful.
(07:55):
I love going there, and I havefriends down there from all
this.
But anyway, from a culturalperspective, specifically around
rape, you know, our case is sodifferent than their normal case
because it was international,not just us, but the perpetrator
from the UK.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
I will say this.
I don't know if this was becausewe were foreigners, but you
know, they took on somethingthey had never done before,
which was an extradition.
In fact, we were told, we, mywife and Caitlin were told early
on nothing would come of itbecause they don't extradite.
And so now you're thinking, whatare you gonna do?
Because this was not gonna sitwell.
(08:30):
I happened to find out thatnight, I just we w I wasn't
really sleeping anyway, and Iresearched and found out they
had an extradition treaty inplace.
They just never exercised it.
So that gave me a little bit ofa fire to, okay, I know what I
need to do.
I need to make sure that theyuse this treaty and go for an
extradition.
There's a lot of story behindit, but the police commissioner,
(08:52):
Commissioner Robinson at thetime, he's no he's a lawyer now,
but he was tremendous.
He was tremendous in supportingus, but me specifically, because
after about two weeks in, I tookover as Caitlin's advocate, and
I worked with the government,the police, the UK police.
It was the second job for a longtime, actually.
But they were respectful, theywere empathetic.
(09:13):
The problem was it was, youknow, there's this saying in the
Caribbean, you're on Caribbeantime.
SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
That was fast compared to what we were dealing
with, and I I hate to say it.
And, you know, it just is whatit is, but they they were
supportive.
They do have issues, and the UKhas issues.
UK, of course, their culture ismuch like ours, but let me just
tell you two things on the onefor each country.
So, according to WorldPopulation Review, and this is a
2025 report, the date is from2022.
(09:41):
The UK was second after Granadawith 109 rates per 100,000
population, second highest ofall reporting countries.
A few countries don't report,some of the communist countries,
stuff like that.
Even India, they have such adifferent culture, they don't
they aren't included, but formost of the countries that do it
in a similar manner, that was aso UK has a massive problem.
(10:04):
Yeah, massive problem.
From the Eastern Caribbean, andI say it this way because the
National Institute of Health,and this is from 2019, it's the
most current I can find.
They list the top 20 worst raperates through their reporting.
Four of the top 20 were in theEastern Caribbean, and that's
Granada, St.
Kitts and Nevis, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, andBarbados.
(10:26):
There's a fifth, Jamaica, alsoon that top 20 list, but they're
in the Western Caribbean.
So there's issues through theCaribbean, and I've met a lot of
people through the Caribbean.
I have spoken to the justicegroups on a webinar about this
case because none of them in theEastern nobody in the Eastern
Caribbean had ever extraditedfrom a basically a westernized
country, for sure, not the UK.
(10:47):
So they were all interested inthe case.
I got on and did a couple ofhours with them.
But that's when I learned someof this of how bad it is in
their space.
So culturally, look, this is aproblem worldwide.
Australia has horribleeverybody's got a horrible
problem, much like ours, and theissues are similar.
A lot of people won't report.
If the case gets taken forward,it takes forever.
(11:07):
It's just it's not thatdifferent.
I mean, there'll be littlenuances, but in the end, if you
net it out, their problemsaren't that different than ours.
SPEAKER_02 (11:16):
Were they receptive to really investigating and
digging into this case in orderto get justice for Caitlin?
SPEAKER_00 (11:23):
So I have to just tell you a little bit of the
story to kind of make this makesense.
When Caitlin called us and toldus, we basically said, you need
to go to the hospital and get arape exam, and you need to call
the police.
And the head of the sexualassault unit met Caitlin at the
hospital, took her in a room,listened to her story.
Then he told her that shecouldn't get a rape exam at that
(11:45):
hospital.
So, and I'll explain because itneeds explanation, right?
Antiga is 19 miles north tosouth, 14 miles east to west.
Not that big.
Caitlin lived in the south,that's where the school was.
The hospital's more in the northin St.
John's, which is the capital.
It's a 20, 25-minute drive.
It's not that bad, right?
So she went there.
(12:06):
They have community help clinicsset up all around the island so
that people can just go to thelocal clinic.
And he basically said you haveto go to the clinic in Liberta,
which was where she lived, totheir clinic.
I don't know why this has notclicked before because Caitlin
wasn't the first victim of thiskind of crime.
But here's the problem with thatdate rate drugs don't stay in
your system long.
The clinics close at 4 p.m.
(12:27):
This was 10 30 in the evening.
Well, the other thing is Caitlinworked at that clinic as a
nursing student, so she was notabout to go where she knows
everybody there.
So for all those reasons, she'slike, I can't do that, I'm not
gonna do that.
And they did agree, this was aWednesday night, that they would
work something out for to do itelsewhere.
I will fast forward just to sayit was Monday, the following
(12:48):
Monday, my wife had flown downthere in the meantime, and she
was with Caitlin.
She had still not heard from thepolice officer about setting up
that from Wednesday night toMonday.
So they called, left avoicemail, and I'm gonna just
want to go ahead and tell youthese two things because this
was the second worst day of thewhole thing.
Okay.
So my wife calls the consulate.
So the embassy for the EasternCaribbeans in the Barbados, but
(13:11):
they have consulate on theisland.
So my wife calls and asks, look,here's what's happened.
Can you give us some advice?
The advice she got was don'tcall the embassy.
So my wife said, Did you saydon't call the embassy?
I mean, what what are we wedon't know anything about this
stuff down here?
We don't know the laws downhere.
She said, Look, if you call theembassy, they are going to come
(13:33):
in, try to take over, tell thelocal people what to do.
It's gonna upset them, andyou're not gonna get the help
you want.
She said, I've seen it before.
And you know what?
We did not call the embassyuntil way later on.
And that lady was right.
So, of course, then it's on us.
So then I hear that and I'mabout to lose my mind.
The second thing that day thathappened, as soon as she got
off, the police called back andhad them meet at a police
(13:54):
station about a mile fromCaitlin's apartment.
She had to tell the story again.
So the first time wasn't theofficial statement, the same
person, head of the unit, notthe official statement, as we
know, we don't want to have tokeep asking these people to tell
the story.
SPEAKER_02 (14:07):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (14:08):
Nevertheless, she told the story again.
And my wife, if I mention Jill,that's her name.
So I might say my wife, I mightsay Jill.
So Jill is a verynon-confrontational person, but
she was getting very agitatedbecause it was just slow moving
and just just it didn't seemlike there was any sense of
urgency to do anything.
And so she says, Look, mydaughter's been drugged and
(14:28):
raped, and I think we need tostart doing something about
this.
You know, something along thoselines.
And now I just want you to thinkabout this for a minute.
They had not done one bit ofinvestigation at this point.
Nothing.
And the guy says, Nothing'sgonna come of this because
Antigua doesn't extradite.
That's what they were just toldthere.
So just think, you're alreadynot thinking clear, you're
(14:51):
already worried, you've got allkinds of things going on.
Caitlin's dealing with so muchmentally, and this is what you
tell them.
I'ma just say, even if you knewthat you weren't gonna be able
to extradite, maybe you didn'thave a treaty.
You don't say that at that pointin time.
Do your investigation.
You need to do yourinvestigation.
Well, that guy, well, if heflies back into the country, you
can get him, right?
Before anything, that's whatthey're told.
(15:11):
And just to finish that part ofit, my wife calls me a couple
times every day while she's downthere to update me.
That call was rough.
So, and this was less than aweek from when we found out.
So we weren't sleeping reallyanyway, maybe two hours.
So it's about 11 o'clock atnight, and I just went to my
office, got on my laptop, andjust started researching.
And before three in the morning,I had found there is a treaty
(15:32):
with the UK.
It's valid.
I read everything about it threetimes.
It covers this crime.
I found the Sexual Offenses Actof 1995 from Antigua, read all
the things around rape, there'sdifferent classifications, and
it all fits.
So at least at that point, I hadhope that look, they can do it.
They just haven't done it.
This fits.
(15:52):
So my job is to convince themthey need to do this.
That's the way when I got off mycomputer, that was my thinking.
Okay, I know what I need to donext.
I will say about two weekslater, they'd finished all the
investigative stuff.
I called Officer Forbes.
So the guy that was the head,after that meeting, we didn't
see him again until the trial.
Thank goodness.
Because he was horrible.
And I hate to say it, nicegentleman, but for that job, he
(16:15):
was he's the wrong guy.
SPEAKER_02 (16:16):
Yeah, and it sounds as though this law enforcement
agency maybe was not properlytrained and had very little
experience in this type of case.
SPEAKER_00 (16:26):
Well, you know, they've had a lot of rape cases,
they just don't have the righttraining.
But the fortunate for us,Corporal, well, he's Corporal
Forbes now, Corporal Forbes tookover younger, and I did not know
this until last year, so wayafter.
But he's just a good man.
He's got a daughter.
He was doing all thosetrauma-informed things that you
should do with Caitlin.
(16:46):
It made a big difference forCaitlin.
He even checked on her from timeto time, just call her.
He ran into it at thesupermarket one time.
Hey, how's everything going?
Are you feeling better?
All that.
About two weeks in, I mean,there was only so much evidence
to collect, but there wasevidence.
So I called Officer Forbes and Isaid, Yeah, where are we?
What's next?
What where are we in theprocess?
It's pretty much one-waycommunications with very few
(17:06):
exceptions.
That means I'm calling downthere a lot and I'm emailing a
lot.
He said, It's all turned over toCommissioner Robinson.
Here's his number if you want tocall him.
Now I've never talked to him,never seen him, but I called him
and told him who I was.
Of course, right off he knew.
Just a fantastic person.
So we go from a horrible policeexperience to someone much
better that's the investigatorto just a very smart, empathetic
(17:29):
man, that's the commissioner.
So made it more tolerable.
I was thinking about how I wantto approach him because I know
they have a treaty.
So I'm like, what are youthinking?
I said, Officer Forbes said allof the evidence is to you now,
so what are you thinking?
He said, Well, I have everythingexcept for the medical report
for the rape exam, and I'mwaiting on it.
But one of the female officerswas in with Caitlin during the
(17:50):
exam, and he said, Look, shetold me she's 99% sure Caitlin
was raped, and she wouldn't say100% unless she saw it with her
own eyes.
So it's about as firm as you canget it.
I said, Well, let me just tellyou before we go any further
that I, you know, we were toldnothing's gonna come this, blah,
blah, blah.
But I know there's a treaty, andif you have a treaty and you
(18:11):
have a case this serious, ifyou're not gonna use it now, why
have it?
And he did not resist one bit.
He said, as soon as I get thatreport, if it backs up what I
think, I will recommend it tothe attorney general to do
extradition.
So that was a huge reliefbecause you know, thinking you
can't do anything makes youthink things you probably don't
want to be thinking because itwasn't gonna just stand with
(18:33):
nothing, in in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02 (18:35):
Right.
So I want to just give listenersa little piece of context here
because we did intro the showwith a brief explanation of what
happened to Caitlin.
Uh but for clarity, she was on adate who then drugged and raped
her, denied her claim that heraped her, and then I'm assuming
he left the country to go home.
(18:56):
He was a traveler, not a localfrom the UK, as well as a police
officer in the UK.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
Yeah.
They met on Tinder, which we maytalk about a little bit.
I will just tell you, Tinder,Caitlin didn't even have Tinder
until she was down there.
It is what everybody used forsocial messaging.
It's just how it was used.
I'm sure it was used for otherthings it's used for here too,
but it is how everybodycommunicated.
You want to go to the beach thisafternoon?
It's just what they use.
So she was she was on it.
So anyway, that is how they met.
(19:25):
They met in public.
This guy knew what he was doing.
This was a plan.
There's zero question about thatit was not a plan.
It was for sure a plan.
They met, they had very littleto drink, a little bit of wine
with dinner.
Antiga is kind of shuts downearly.
Once it's dark, it's not a bigisland, there's not a lot to do.
And Caitlin lived close by tothe downtown area, which they
(19:46):
were at a boat show.
It's a big boating island, andit's kind of nice down there.
She lives a mile away.
They said she has a greatbalcony.
You can see the harbor, it'sbeautiful.
You look down on it, it's verynice.
So they were just gonna go backand hang out a while and decide
what they might want to do.
And they did that.
His whole communications, andthere's I don't know, young
people, I don't know, thousandtexts, I'll say.
(20:07):
It's a lot of text back andforth.
Which always pulled forforensics for the trial.
But anyway, you know, they setout until mosquitoes started
biting and they were gonna goin.
They decided they'd watch amovie.
And Caitlin went to change, sheactually put sweatpants on and
stuff.
So anyway, when she left, sheleft her drink, and it was no
doubt it was spiting.
In fact, when she took her firstsip, she said something doesn't
(20:28):
taste right.
And he actually said, Oh, heCaitlin had some bog in her
freezer, and he said he put somebog in it, saying this is what
we do in the UK.
She didn't know any betteranyway, but she took one more
sip and said, No, this does nottaste right.
It only took two sips.
15 minutes later, she was out,and she had no memory of the
night.
So she wasn't exactly sure whathappened.
He's saying nothing happened.
He couldn't remember, he wasmaking up all this stuff, you
(20:50):
know, and basically, oh, I'msure we didn't have sex and all
this stuff, and it's all in textmessages.
And so, over the course of acouple of days, he's just
stalling.
He's buying time, he's got acouple of days left on that
island, and he needs to keep herat bay because if we could have
gotten him while he's on thatisland, he'd be in a horrible
prison system right now.
And so he delayed enough, butshe kept pushing him via tag.
(21:11):
She didn't see him again, butshe started having bruises show
up.
She started getting some pain inthe vaginal region, and so she
started really pushing.
But at this time, he's about toleave.
And so I wish she would havecaught us earlier, but I think
in her mind she probably wassuspicious but hoping this
didn't happen because she was avirgin.
So this became devastating forher.
But right before he gets on theplane to leave, he basically
(21:32):
said, Oh, yeah, well, we we hadsex.
After lying about it over andover, by the way, that's one of
the main things that put him injail.
All those texts were preserved,and you can see her saying, We
met on Tinder, but don't haveany expectations of sex, that's
not who I am, blah, blah, blah.
And he's like, sure, no problem.
And then you can just follow thetext just to see he lied until
he was about to get off theisland.
Then he didn't care.
(21:53):
He never thought he would bepursued, but he was wrong.
SPEAKER_02 (21:58):
So he just to understand, he actually left the
island, went back to the UK, andthen was extradited back to
Antigua.
SPEAKER_00 (22:06):
That's right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:06):
And we know that he was sentenced to 15 years in
prison.
Is he in prison on the island orsomewhere else?
SPEAKER_00 (22:12):
Yeah.
So the extradition was thebiggest obstacle we had because
it's you know, look, most peopleknow what extradition is for.
You get involved, you learn.
It is it's a little morecomplicated.
It's a very technical process.
Part of the problem, it ended uptaking us about three years to
get them extradited.
Part of it's because Antigua hadnever done this before, and I
(22:33):
really don't think they haddefined the roles and processes.
If we have to do it, they justhad the treaty.
So a lot of times, I don't thinkanybody thought it was their
piece to do the next thing.
There was definitely a lot ofthat.
Actually, the first request was,so this happened in late May in
2015.
They sent the first extraditionrequest in December.
Not horrible, not bad.
(22:55):
Somebody hadn't done it.
But there were errors in it, sothen it comes back.
Then you wait a couple monthsfor them to clean up and then
send it again.
When they send it the secondtime and they validated, they
sent it.
I couldn't find anybody tovalidate on the other side that
they received it.
And nobody's looking for it.
And I'll just tell you, monthsand months went by.
And I was talking to people inthe UK and the police, they were
checking, and it's finally wefound out that something did
(23:18):
come through.
They found an error immediately,told them what to do and sent it
back to Antigua.
And that got on somebody's deskand it got covered up and sat
for months.
This is the problem.
Nobody owned it, obviously.
I actually played a part inhelping find that, believe it or
not, from the U.S.
So it took some work because Icared about it.
It was my assignment, right?
(23:39):
Right.
So I couldn't let it just not doso.
I was calling all kinds ofpeople, and we found it under a
stack of papers.
Then it moved quick to get thesecond extradition request.
Something I'll tell you, mostpeople may not know this with
extradition.
So the country submits it.
They're representing Antigua,not Caitlin or our family.
So I couldn't talk to the CrownProsecution Service, even though
(24:00):
I did go to one of the hearings,I did meet them.
They did sit down because Iwanted they explained the
process, and I just needed toknow that.
Several hearings go on.
We lost the first extraditioncase only for one reason.
The conditions of the prisonwere horrible.
And the judge, basically, here'sthe net of it.
Judge Abernoff, who was the topmagistrate judge in the UK,
(24:20):
said, I can't approve thisrequest for one reason.
The prison conditions are sobad, and they were, that I can't
send a citizen of the UK to thatprison because it breaks our
hum, you know, human rightscode.
Yeah, exactly.
But so here's what I didn'tknow, because right off I'm
panicked when I get the news.
The UK police reach out to meright away just to update me.
(24:43):
And they said, Don't first ofall, don't panic.
They knew me by this time.
And they said, You have three,we have three years to reapply.
And he said, the judge told theLee Martin Kramps' name, told
him, Don't mistake this for methinking you're innocent.
Think of this as a stay ofexecution.
Because that's she said, BecauseI've read all the evidence.
So eventually Antigua stepped upagain.
(25:05):
They had two prison options, andI thought they were going along
with option A.
And this took a long time,another lengthy months and
months and months for nothing tohappen.
To the point where Caitlin wasgraduating in 2017.
And before we left the country,I hadn't met everybody, I had
talked to everybody.
I mean, the attorney general,the minister of foreign affairs,
all these people I've been onthe phone with, trying just to
(25:28):
get the support and keep itmoving.
And anyway, I calledCommissioner Robison and said,
I'm gonna be down for 10 days.
I go on Caitlin's graduate andI'm gonna help her move home.
I'd like to meet.
Can you help me set a meeting upwith the Attorney General and
the Minister of Foreign Affairs?
I got in Saturday, I met withhim on Sunday, he called on from
his cell phone and set themeetings up.
And so we got the times lockedin.
(25:48):
And I really did it because Iwanted Caitlin to hear from
their mouth in person thatthey're gonna make this happen.
And they did tell her that.
The thing is, when we leftthere, the to-do was for me to
call in two weeks because theythought they were close on the
prison.
And I'll just tell you this, Ididn't have an answer in two
weeks.
I tried two weeks more, noanswer.
They were getting perturbed withme, so I figured I better stop.
(26:09):
I called Commissioner Robinsonand I told him, Do you know
what's going on?
I can't really I hear they'reclose, but they won't really
tell me any details.
Do you know what's going on?
Because I just not getting agood feeling.
And he said, I could never gethim to call me Derek.
He calls me Mr.
Hurley.
He said, Mr.
Hurley, I think you've takenthis as and pushed this as far
as you can.
Now's the time to call theembassy.
So I call the embassy.
(26:30):
They call me back.
I tell them the story.
They say, Can you write it upand send it to me so I can
circulate it?
Which I did.
The next day, a high-levelperson in the embassy called me.
And I just want to tell you thisbecause this just puts this in
perspective.
He said, Told me who he was,super nice man.
He said, before we talk aboutit, he said, I have all the
information on the case.
I've already talked to Antigua.
But before we talk about it, youhave to tell me how you got the
(26:51):
case this far because we don'tget cases this far.
SPEAKER_02 (26:53):
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
I pause because I'm thinking, gosh, what do I say?
I need his help.
I don't want to antagonize.
I said, look, I don't want youto take this the wrong way.
I'm just going to be honestabout it.
I told him about theconversation with the consulate.
That's why we didn't call.
And you know, that's what I'mtelling you.
She told us correctly becausethey hadn't got a case to this
level.
And so the reality is we pushedit as much as we could.
(27:18):
And I said, Look, we can talkabout that all you want, but
right now I need your help.
Can you help?
And he says, We're gonna help.
And they got a lady from the UKembassy, also in Barbados, Sarah
Abraham, involved, and she spentweek after week flying back and
forth to Antigua measuring thejail.
So they have all these littlethings that have to be.
(27:38):
It has to be so big and all theall the she got all of that
sorted and went into theparliament meeting and also
negotiated with the defense onthis so that we would avoid an
appeal.
She did all that.
And then she went into theactive parliament meeting in
Antigua, stopped the meeting toget the prime minister to sign
off on the deal.
It was kind of a big thing.
(27:59):
But she was incredible.
And then they extradition thenwent quick because they started
where we stopped with theprison, and she had already
negotiated it all.
It happened very quick.
A month later he was in Antiguaand you know with no bond or
anything.
And they did put him in, it's aformer U.S.
naval base, and they have aprison sales in there.
So that's where he that's wherehe's still at.
(28:20):
He had the option after theappeal and the second appeal.
Once there was nothing else toexhaust, if he were still in
prison, he could basically I saypetition, because that's the
right word, but fill out a formand they will send him to the UK
to serve the rest of his thing.
But he has not done that.
Interesting.
Yeah, and he's the only one inthat, him and a guard every day.
SPEAKER_02 (28:40):
Very interesting.
That's a bit long, but thatthat's a kind of important
pieces to hear from No, I thinkthat really frames out this case
and gives the story the depththat it deserves.
Now we've talked a lot about thecase and about the governments
and embassies and extradition,but we haven't talked yet about
Caitlin.
She's was the victim, she's nowa survivor, and she chose not to
(29:03):
remain anonymous, which is herright, of course, either way,
throughout this whole process.
Why do you believe that uhCaitlin chose uh to identify
herself and why other victimsremain silent?
SPEAKER_00 (29:19):
You know, I've done a lot of these, and nobody's
asked me that before, but it ispretty easy for me to answer
because when we were at thetrial after it was over, the
local television wanted tointerview her and she did it,
but they had her blurred.
She had not given up anonymityat that point.
On our trip home from the trial,she just was talking to him and
said, You know, I think I'mgonna give up my anonymity
because I didn't do it, I didn'tdo anything wrong, and I'm not
(29:41):
carrying a shame around like Idid something wrong.
So she said, you know, these arekind of her words, not exactly.
You know, the Me Too movementhad a big impact, and we had a
lot of conversation about thistopic during that, but it's
faded a bit, and we need morestories out there, so I want to
get mine out there.
And I actually said, Well, whatdo you?
Thinking?
And she said, Do you think wecan get a major news network or
(30:05):
something to cover it?
And I said, Yeah, I mean, Ithink we can, because I know
some contacts in this space atthis point.
And I called a good friend ofours who was really critical for
our family, Annie Clark, who'sin this space.
She she started EROC in rape oncampus.
Anyway, she gave me a lot ofguidance throughout, but I said,
Do you know anybody?
(30:25):
And so she gave us people from anumber of networks.
Caitlin talked to all of them.
I ended up talking to most ofthem as well.
And she decided she was justgoing to go with CNN.
Well, six weeks after theverdict was the sentencing, we
were allowed to join via Skype,so we didn't have to travel.
And so CNN was at our houseduring that Skype.
So they sat through thesentencing and then did all
(30:46):
interviews and all this after.
And so she wanted the story out.
She just did not want to carrythat burden.
She didn't feel like she didanything wrong.
You can see from the textmessages clearly she wasn't
interested in this.
So, you know, she just didn'tthink it's fair to be people to
blame her or be critical of her.
I will say, as you would expect,a lot of trolls from the
article, but more good than bad.
(31:08):
It was it ended up being verypositive.
Over a million people read thaton their website the first two
days it was out.
She heard from people all overthe country.
SPEAKER_02 (31:14):
She's so brave and so strong.
I really applaud her decision,and I think she took a stand,
not just for herself, but forsurvivors everywhere.
I've interviewed many survivorsof rape and other gender-based
crimes who have all spoken aboutcarrying shame and you know,
carrying blame for the crimescommitted against them.
(31:35):
But she clearly understood thatthat does not have to be the
case because it wasn't herfault.
It's never your fault.
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
And I'll tell you the truth, I was a little
surprised she went that route.
I mean, whatever she wanted todo was fine.
But she had a tough time throughthis.
And so maybe winning the trialhelped, right?
For sure it helped, but it maybeit validated I didn't do
anything wrong, he's the bad guyhere.
I maybe that's a little bit ofit, but you know, she has
handled herself on in the trial,and she it was brutal.
(32:05):
It just as you hear is no joke,they just crucified the victim,
the defense, and it was justlike that.
But she came out and did that,and she was great on the stand,
she's done some podcasts, she'sreally good.
I'd love to have had her onthis, but she's married, she got
a six-year-old daughter, sheworks full-time, so she just
sets sometimes.
SPEAKER_02 (32:24):
She's a busy woman, I get it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:26):
She is, but she is, she's gonna get more and more
involved.
She wants to.
This is a big deal for her, too.
But as you ask about othervictims, I've learned a lot from
this myself, and that's why I'min this space.
I would love for everybody toreport.
I would love it, but Iunderstand why they don't, and I
do not blame them.
Once you go through the processof what they have to endure, it
(32:48):
sometimes I think it's an easydecision not to do anything.
Whether they tell people or notis another decision point.
And I get calls, I have hadcalls from people I do not know,
I'm not even sure how they gotmy contact, that they're victims
and have not talked to anybody.
The last one was in MiddleTennessee.
I live in Knoxville, Tennessee,and she told me what happened.
I said, You feel free to tell meas much or as little if you want
(33:10):
to tell me what happened.
And she told me everything, youknow, and I'm I'm very
empathetic because I've gonethrough all this stuff, but
she's like, What do I do?
And I'll just be honest, I willnever tell anybody what to do.
I said, Look, I can't tell youwhat to do, but what I can do is
tell you what the process isgonna be like, things you need
to consider.
Like in Tennessee, you have fromwhen it happened, you have five
(33:31):
days to get a rape exam.
So whether you want to take itforward now, or even if you
think you might in the future,at this point, you've got two
days left to get a rape exam.
You need to know that.
Here's what's gonna happen.
As a side note, I have threedaughters.
Caitlin's the oldest.
My middle daughter was a policeofficer in Nashville, Tennessee,
big city.
After just under three years,she became a sexual assault
(33:53):
detective.
She had been through this wholeprocess with her sister.
She was, as a patrol officer,great with victims because she
had the empathy because she'sbeen through this experience.
But also with her being in thatrole, I learned a lot because,
not that I knew who or any ofthat, but she would tell me case
situations and what happens.
And the fact is, you know, shewould take ten cases like this
(34:14):
to the prosecutor, people thatmove forward with it.
Most of the time we're lucky ifeight of them get taken.
So you can go through all thesethings, interviews, you know,
then they're going to talk tothe perpetrator if they know the
perpetrator.
In this case they did, you know,and then they will come back and
validate things.
And you go and you've done arape exam, you're putting
(34:34):
yourself through a lot.
And the sad part for me is mostof the time the cases aren't
taken for because they just sayhe said, she said, and they
don't feel they can win.
If they don't feel they can win,they won't take it.
And so you do that and you don'teven get your day in court.
And I've had victims tell me,even if I lose, I just want to
confront them and I just want toget it out there.
You know, but that you don'teven get that.
So we've got a lot of problemswith how we do these things, and
(34:57):
we're one of about every countrythat has these problems, but we
could do better.
SPEAKER_02 (35:01):
A thousand percent we can do better.
I want to talk about the trialfor a minute because I'm curious
about how it's different inAntigua versus the United States
and so on.
So, from what I understand,during the trial, there were
certain themes towardsvictimization that were on
display.
What were some of those themes?
How was Caitlin treated?
Was she victim blamed, and soon?
SPEAKER_00 (35:21):
Hundred percent.
I'll just say this they reallydidn't have a good defense.
He said it was consensual.
That that was it.
That was the only defense.
So there's got to be a bad guyhere.
We're in court, so they want tomake Caitlin the bad guy.
She wasn't having it.
I just tell you she w she wasnot having it.
But they questioned, of course,the things you hear, what she
was wearing, which is funny, shewas in a nice dress at the show,
(35:44):
then they came and she's gotsweatpants and long sleeves
short.
Ridiculous questions.
You know, were you drinking?
Here's the thing they want totalk about drinking all the
time.
Yeah, they had some wine.
It came out that neither one ofthem were remotely at all
intoxicated.
They didn't have that much overa long period of time.
It was just a little bit.
And the defense attorney surelyknew that was coming out because
it was the perpetrator that saidit.
SPEAKER_02 (36:06):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Yet he still badgered her about it.
They were going to watch amovie.
It ended up being, if youremember the movie called
American Pie, Caitlin didn'teven know what it was.
She'd never seen it.
We spent 20 minutes with thedefense trying to just browbeat
her into her admitting shepicked the movie.
She's like, I never even heardof the movie.
I didn't even know what it wasabout.
It was rough.
I mean, you just want to get outof your seat and go throw a
(36:28):
forearm to somebody's head.
That's how, I mean, it was itwas tough.
After that, when she said thatabout watching that, she says,
you know, growing up, we just Ihad two sisters, we played, we
didn't watch that much TV.
And the defense attorney said,Are you Amish or something?
I will say the judge called himout and kind of scolded him a
bit, and he needed it.
(36:49):
And in the end, they just didn'thave a defense because there's
too much indefensible stuff inthis case.
So, yeah, she went through allthat, but she kept her cool the
whole time.
So, as far as the victimizationpart, yeah, it was their whole
case.
The defense called nobody, butthey cross-examined and
basically Caitlin had the worstof it.
You know?
SPEAKER_02 (37:08):
Yeah, that's really shameful.
I'm sorry for that.
I want to also ask you aboutTinder.
Has Tinder had anything to sayin response to the attack, the
crime?
Any other thoughts from them?
SPEAKER_00 (37:18):
They haven't.
I mean, they probably don't evenknow about it.
We certainly hadn't reached out.
I mean, I'm sure there are a lotof unknown cases that aren't
that dissimilar, starting fromTinder.
I really feel like, you know,online dating is a big thing.
In fact, I will say this, thismight shock you.
I don't think I've ever toldanybody this on one of these
things.
Caitlin's husband now, she metonline, on an online app.
(37:39):
She met him on it and they dateda while.
Of course, she was a whole lotdifferent at this point.
Right.
But but, you know, they'remarried and they're good.
And but so, you know, it can befine.
I know a lot of people that havemet people through this.
But I would say this this is myadvice to people doing this.
Until you get to know thatperson fairly well, which means
multiple dates in public.
(38:00):
Stay in public.
I would also say there are somereally good tools out there.
I will mention two.
I don't have anything personallywith them, but I'm just telling
you because I research a lot ofthis stuff.
Okay.
There's an app called I'm Safe.
And you can put your friends init, your family, you can put who
you want in it.
And if you're going on a date,you can turn on geo tracking,
(38:20):
they can track you.
You can tell them where you'regoing, they can see where you're
going.
If you're getting a bad feeling,if you're going, hey, we're
supposed to turn left, we turnright, you can hit a help me
button or you know, basicallyemergency button or something.
And it will send those friends,it does not go to the police.
Because you might want to dothat when you get a bad feeling,
but nothing's happened, right?
And they know, so then they cancall, you know, they they can
see where you are.
(38:41):
If you don't call back orsomething, then they can call
the police.
So there's some good tools outthere that I would highly
recommend people look into.
And just because we talk aboutdrink spiking, which is a
horrible problem, and that'swhat you know happened to
Caitlin.
If you've never heard of NikeCap it, it's a simple cover for
your drink, you know, and Ithink that would help because
(39:02):
it's easy to put something insomebody's drink if it's just
wide open there.
And the last thing on that I'llsay is if you're out and you're
having a drink, even if you'renot on a date, you're out with
your friends, and this is men orwomen, obviously 90% of it's
women that get assaulted, butdon't leave your drink alone.
If you have go to the bathroom,either you have a close friend
eyeballing that thing the wholetime, or just get rid of it.
(39:22):
If you happen to walk away totalk to somebody, if you've
walked away from that drink, donot drink because the number of
these happening.
I know a lot about Nashville,it's a big party city.
Yeah.
And this happens constantly.
Every night, I'm sure thishappens.
SPEAKER_02 (39:37):
It's it's a huge problem internationally.
It is, and I value thoseresources for listeners who
might want to take measures tofurther protect themselves, but
I also understand that it is,again, always the woman, always
the potential victim or theactual victim who has to do all
of this work.
(39:58):
It's really, you know, we talk alot about ending sexual violence
on this podcast.
That's what we need to stayfocused on too, is making sure
that this is a problem iseradicated.
I'm curious if the verdict andthe conviction of this
perpetrator and even theextradition process changed
anything in the way that Antiguaviews sexual assault, sexual
(40:21):
violence, or prosecutes thesecases.
SPEAKER_00 (40:23):
You know, I'm still in touch with people there.
In fact, I was back there forthe first time since the trial
last December when I did atrauma-informed approach
training to first responders.
And I offered that and I did iton my own dime because it was
important.
But I honestly don't thinkanything's changed.
There are a lot of peoplecomplaining.
I follow news down there becauseI do have friends down there,
(40:45):
and I have seen comments fromthe public prosecution's office
and the attorney general'soffice, and they talk about
doing training.
The training I did, peoplethought we need to do this more,
we need more people trained onthis.
And I've offered to come and doit as much as they want, but
just nothing, nothing's come ofit.
And to be honest, you know, eventhough I've paid for everything
my first time down, my flight,everything, yeah, I will give my
(41:08):
time to do this stuff, but I'mnot in a position just to pay
for you know flights and allthat stuff.
But expenses aren't that much.
So I'm like, if you'll justcover my expenses, I'll do as
many classes as you want forfree.
And uh it's still budget, eventhen, it's budget.
These are poor countries.
There's another country I'mtalking to down there about
doing the same thing, andthey're gonna try to get the
budget pass because they're oneof those four that I mentioned
(41:29):
that I mean they're they have aproblem.
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
For sure.
And I I can't think of a betteropportunity than for law
enforcement and other firstresponders from those countries
to come to the conference oncrimes against women.
SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
Well, I've let a lot of people know about it.
Even, you know, I've talked tofolks there about potentially
going through our case.
So I've invited the attorneygeneral, the prosecutor, and
Sarah Abraham from the UKEmbassy.
Would they be interested to comebecause then you could get all
the different elements of thecase?
And it's just a but the budgetthing is tough.
It it's just tough.
They don't do a lot of thatbecause it costs them a bit of
(42:04):
money.
And I'm trying to convince themto do it.
We'll see.
Well, I appreciate youadvocating for the perfect for
your it would be perfect foryour May conference because you
have such an internationalgroup, and it is a unique case.
Never been an extradition in theEastern Caribbean before like
this.
And there's a lot of setbacksalong the way.
It's a long story.
We just touched on it really,but yeah, I'm with you.
(42:27):
I'm trying.
SPEAKER_02 (42:27):
Yeah, I'd love to see a group from those countries
come and learn with us at theconference and share their
experiences as well.
Now, you turned your pain intopurpose and started an Antiguan
justice campaign, and then laterwrote a book called Antiguan
Justice, a father's fight.
Can you tell us about theadvocacy you do through Antiguan
Justice and share some of themajor themes of the book?
SPEAKER_00 (42:50):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I knew that I needed to
get in this space.
I really felt it was important,and I was just fortunate to be
in a position, I've had a goodcareer and done fairly well
where I could walk away and beokay and not really knowing the
financial part.
I had no expectations on it.
And I started working my waythrough it.
Now, I wrote the book, notbecause I wanted to I I mean, I
(43:13):
would have never in the worldthought I'd write a book, but I
had notes from every phone call,from every all the emails, and I
had all the information.
I just needed to write the storyaround it.
So it's very much my story ofthe case because I spent the
four years grinding this thingwith the governments and police.
So it's an interesting story,and I thought it'd be
(43:33):
interesting.
But also to Caitlin's pointearlier, there's not enough
stories about this out there.
I couldn't find one that a manhad written, certainly not a
father, and so I thought it'sunique.
But I didn't write it so thatI've written a book.
I didn't write it for any money.
It wasn't about that for me.
It was about I need a tool.
I'm not in this space.
I come from a differentindustry, right?
But this might be a tool to helpme get in the space.
(43:55):
That was my primary reason, andit has helped because it
validates that I I'm just notsomebody just coming in here.
I've been through this process.
And so, yeah, it kind of didwhat I wanted it to do.
And, you know, right now, justyes about some of the things I'm
doing.
I do help.
I mean, I volunteer for rain.
I do projects with most of themso they're not long term.
(44:16):
Just did one with them a couplemonths ago.
I'm starting to do some thingswith I have a right to.
I have high hopes with thingsI'm gonna do there.
You said something earlier aboutprevention.
I will just tell you that thisis an important message.
I've spent a lot of time tryingto help people with tools and
how to keep themselves safe,which is always gonna be
important.
We'll never eradicate it, right?
(44:37):
So that's important.
But through some things and somefriends I've met through this
space, what we really need to dois the movement that's the
opposite of toxic masculinityand start talking about how to
be good men, how to beempathetic, you know, how to
respect people, consent.
That's what we've got to dobecause if we can change the
mindset of young men and men,they don't commit the crime.
(45:00):
And that's the biggest chance wehave.
Men are the problem, men arealso the solution, and I need
men to get involved to be thesolution.
SPEAKER_02 (45:09):
Excellent advice.
Derek, thank you so much fortalking with me today and being
on the show.
SPEAKER_00 (45:14):
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_02 (45:16):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The twenty first annualconference on crimes against
women will be held May 18ththrough the 21st, 2026, in
Dallas, Texas.
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details, as wellas the latest on the Institute
(45:37):
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, an annual conference
summit at Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women.
When you follow us on socialmedia at National C C AW.
The subject matter of this podcast will address a
difficult topic about multipleforms of violence and
identity-based discriminationand harassment.
We acknowledge that this contentmay be difficult and have listed
specific content warnings ineach episode description to help
create a positive, safeexperience for all listeners.
SPEAKER_01 (00:20):
In this country, 31 million crimes.
31 million crimes are reportedevery year.
That is one every second.
Out of that, every 24 minutes,there is a murder.
Every five minutes, there is arape.
Every two to five minutes, thereis a sexual assault.
Out of every nine seconds inthis country, a woman is
assaulted by someone who toldher that he loved her, by
(00:41):
someone who told her it was herfault, by someone who tries to
tell the rest of us it's none ofour business.
And I'm proud to stand heretoday with each of you to call
that perpetrator a liar.
SPEAKER_02 (00:54):
Welcome to the podcast on crimes against women.
According to the National SexualAssault Resource Center, one in
five women experienced acompleted or attempted rape
during their lifetime.
To bring that percentage intofocus, that is about 25 million
women who have undergone forcedpenetration, attempted forced
(01:14):
penetration, or alcohol drugfacilitated completed
penetration.
Additionally, 81% of womenreported experience some form of
sexual harassment and or assaultin their lifetime.
While the statistics for rape byan acquaintance is higher than
that by a stranger, 40.8% and15.1% respectively, rapes by
(01:37):
strangers still do happen, justas it did for Caitlin Hurley, an
American nursing studentstudying abroad in Antigua, who
was subsequently drugged andraped by a London police
officer.
The reasons why women don'treport rape abroad, but
primarily are linked to shame ofthe assault, fear of not being
believed, fear of retribution,distrust of the police and the
(01:59):
criminal justice system, and theintense trauma of the assault.
While Caitlin may have had manyof these same reasons, she still
found the courage to seekjustice and hold the offender
accountable for his actions,leading to his 15-year prison
sentence upheld by an Antiguacourt.
Today's conversation will bewith Caitlin's father, Derek
Hurley, who has tirelesslyfought for justice for his
(02:22):
daughter and who has redirectedhis career path into helping
sexual assault victims andsurvivors through his advocacy
and training.
Derek Hurley grew up in MountGilead, North Carolina.
He attended NC State Universityand graduated with honors in
1987 with a degree in business,beginning a successful 37-year
career as a systems engineer andexecutive.
(02:44):
In 2022, Derek published a booktitled Antiguan Justice, A
Father's Fight.
It tells the story of hisdaughter Caitlin's rape while
she was a nursing student inAntigua and his dedication to
the pursuit of justice.
The impact of this journey had aprofound effect on him, and at
the end of 2023, he walked awayfrom a successful career to get
(03:05):
involved in helping victims ofsexual assault, be it rape, sex
trafficking, or child sexualabuse.
He also volunteers for OperationLight Shine based in Nashville,
Tennessee, RAIN based inWashington, D.C., and the Impact
and Dialogue Foundation based inIndia.
Derek spends most of his timeadvocating for and supporting
victims, providingtrauma-informed training,
(03:27):
participating in webinars andspeaking engagements, and he is
working on projects with theLakota tribe in South Dakota
focused on the missing andmurdered indigenous women.
He has been a guest on severalpodcasts, including What They
Don't Say, Sexual AssaultSurvivor Stories with his
daughter Caitlin and the DearKatie podcast.
(03:47):
Derek, welcome to the show.
Well, thank you for having me.
Thank you for being here.
This is such an important story,and I want to get to every
detail that we possibly cantoday.
You are a father, husband, andtechnology professional whose
world was turned upside downwhen your daughter, Caitlin
Hurley, was drugged and rapedwhile out on a date.
(04:08):
And that incident happened in2015, and you have since
refocused on trauma-informedwork.
So tell us how you're doing nowas a champion against all forms
of sexual assault and sexualviolence.
SPEAKER_00 (04:20):
Yeah, you know, I decided, I think in 22, you
know, I put my book out.
This was really pulling at methat I I just felt I wanted to
get involved.
And so I decided 2023 would bemy last year of my career work.
And I just kind of jumped inwithout, I'll be honest, I'm a
planner, but I didn't have a bigplan here.
I just I know some of thenonprofits.
(04:42):
I started volunteering in 2023with one out of Nashville, and I
really didn't want to commit toomuch to one early because I
didn't know where I could addthe most value in this space
because I was really new to thespace.
And so what I've done the lastcouple of years is really try to
find the areas I can add themost value because I want to
(05:04):
help where I can help the most.
It's starting to narrow downthough.
There's certain things I'mreally focused on at the moment,
but it's been a journey to getto this point.
I'm definitely doing the thingthat I should be doing.
SPEAKER_02 (05:15):
That's good to hear.
And you're, you know, you'rereally needed in the space.
We need all voices andperspectives in supporting
gender-based crimes.
So I'm glad you're here, and I'mreally interested to talk with
you today about what happened toCaitlin and the work that you're
doing because of that.
Now to set it up, the assault onCaitlin occurred in Antigua, a
(05:37):
Caribbean island east of theDominican Republic in Puerto
Rico that serves as adestination spot for many
travelers.
Uh but your daughter was thereas a nursing student in the hope
of becoming a missionary nurse.
Tell us what is the culture likein Antigua and maybe to a
further extent in London in theUK where the offender lived.
(05:57):
What is that culture liketowards victims of rape?
SPEAKER_00 (06:01):
If I can just back up and just say Caitlin was in
nursing school in the U.S., buthad been on mission trips for a
really faithful family.
They went to Christian schoolgrowing up.
And honestly, she decided aftersome mission trips she wanted to
do go and help people in moreimpoverished areas.
I thought it was great, it fither personality.
I was really worried if shecould live outside the U.S.
(06:22):
And we started thinking, how canwe help her?
This is what she wants to do.
We found this school in Antigua,and what we thought it was a
U.S.
accredited program, so if itdidn't work out, she's just like
she went to school in the U.S.,which ended up happening.
But, you know, that's why shewas there, because it gave her
an opportunity to live wherethey have electric problems,
water problems, you know, allkinds of issues.
(06:45):
It's a different culture.
If you can thrive in that, Ifeel a little more comfortable
if you fly to South Africa oranywhere in Africa or South
America to do this type of work.
And that's kind of why she wasthere, just to just to if people
are curious.
It was not, I just want to beclear, this was not some fancy
American college in theCaribbean.
It was the opposite.
(07:05):
It was a local college, veryrough.
SPEAKER_02 (07:08):
So very authentic experience of life in the
islands, right?
SPEAKER_00 (07:12):
That's right.
The culture, I mean, look, itmay not seem like it from the
outside, but I will tell you, welove Antigua.
Caitlin would tell you it's hersecond home.
It just happens that the worstthing in her life happened
there, but it wasn't even bysomebody that lived there,
right?
So the people are friendly.
It's like most of the you know,Caribbean islands.
(07:33):
It is English speaking, but it'spoor.
So Antigua was colonized by thethe UK in 1981, they became an
independent country.
Like many of the islands in thatsituation, they have incredible
ocean, you know, yeah, resortsand all that.
But if you go into the center,it's a poor island.
But people are nice and helpful.
(07:55):
I love going there, and I havefriends down there from all
this.
But anyway, from a culturalperspective, specifically around
rape, you know, our case is sodifferent than their normal case
because it was international,not just us, but the perpetrator
from the UK.
SPEAKER_02 (08:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (08:10):
I will say this.
I don't know if this was becausewe were foreigners, but you
know, they took on somethingthey had never done before,
which was an extradition.
In fact, we were told, we, mywife and Caitlin were told early
on nothing would come of itbecause they don't extradite.
And so now you're thinking, whatare you gonna do?
Because this was not gonna sitwell.
(08:30):
I happened to find out thatnight, I just we w I wasn't
really sleeping anyway, and Iresearched and found out they
had an extradition treaty inplace.
They just never exercised it.
So that gave me a little bit ofa fire to, okay, I know what I
need to do.
I need to make sure that theyuse this treaty and go for an
extradition.
There's a lot of story behindit, but the police commissioner,
(08:52):
Commissioner Robinson at thetime, he's no he's a lawyer now,
but he was tremendous.
He was tremendous in supportingus, but me specifically, because
after about two weeks in, I tookover as Caitlin's advocate, and
I worked with the government,the police, the UK police.
It was the second job for a longtime, actually.
But they were respectful, theywere empathetic.
(09:13):
The problem was it was, youknow, there's this saying in the
Caribbean, you're on Caribbeantime.
SPEAKER_02 (09:18):
Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
That was fast compared to what we were dealing
with, and I I hate to say it.
And, you know, it just is whatit is, but they they were
supportive.
They do have issues, and the UKhas issues.
UK, of course, their culture ismuch like ours, but let me just
tell you two things on the onefor each country.
So, according to WorldPopulation Review, and this is a
2025 report, the date is from2022.
(09:41):
The UK was second after Granadawith 109 rates per 100,000
population, second highest ofall reporting countries.
A few countries don't report,some of the communist countries,
stuff like that.
Even India, they have such adifferent culture, they don't
they aren't included, but formost of the countries that do it
in a similar manner, that was aso UK has a massive problem.
(10:04):
Yeah, massive problem.
From the Eastern Caribbean, andI say it this way because the
National Institute of Health,and this is from 2019, it's the
most current I can find.
They list the top 20 worst raperates through their reporting.
Four of the top 20 were in theEastern Caribbean, and that's
Granada, St.
Kitts and Nevis, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines, andBarbados.
(10:26):
There's a fifth, Jamaica, alsoon that top 20 list, but they're
in the Western Caribbean.
So there's issues through theCaribbean, and I've met a lot of
people through the Caribbean.
I have spoken to the justicegroups on a webinar about this
case because none of them in theEastern nobody in the Eastern
Caribbean had ever extraditedfrom a basically a westernized
country, for sure, not the UK.
(10:47):
So they were all interested inthe case.
I got on and did a couple ofhours with them.
But that's when I learned someof this of how bad it is in
their space.
So culturally, look, this is aproblem worldwide.
Australia has horribleeverybody's got a horrible
problem, much like ours, and theissues are similar.
A lot of people won't report.
If the case gets taken forward,it takes forever.
(11:07):
It's just it's not thatdifferent.
I mean, there'll be littlenuances, but in the end, if you
net it out, their problemsaren't that different than ours.
SPEAKER_02 (11:16):
Were they receptive to really investigating and
digging into this case in orderto get justice for Caitlin?
SPEAKER_00 (11:23):
So I have to just tell you a little bit of the
story to kind of make this makesense.
When Caitlin called us and toldus, we basically said, you need
to go to the hospital and get arape exam, and you need to call
the police.
And the head of the sexualassault unit met Caitlin at the
hospital, took her in a room,listened to her story.
Then he told her that shecouldn't get a rape exam at that
(11:45):
hospital.
So, and I'll explain because itneeds explanation, right?
Antiga is 19 miles north tosouth, 14 miles east to west.
Not that big.
Caitlin lived in the south,that's where the school was.
The hospital's more in the northin St.
John's, which is the capital.
It's a 20, 25-minute drive.
It's not that bad, right?
So she went there.
(12:06):
They have community help clinicsset up all around the island so
that people can just go to thelocal clinic.
And he basically said you haveto go to the clinic in Liberta,
which was where she lived, totheir clinic.
I don't know why this has notclicked before because Caitlin
wasn't the first victim of thiskind of crime.
But here's the problem with thatdate rate drugs don't stay in
your system long.
The clinics close at 4 p.m.
(12:27):
This was 10 30 in the evening.
Well, the other thing is Caitlinworked at that clinic as a
nursing student, so she was notabout to go where she knows
everybody there.
So for all those reasons, she'slike, I can't do that, I'm not
gonna do that.
And they did agree, this was aWednesday night, that they would
work something out for to do itelsewhere.
I will fast forward just to sayit was Monday, the following
(12:48):
Monday, my wife had flown downthere in the meantime, and she
was with Caitlin.
She had still not heard from thepolice officer about setting up
that from Wednesday night toMonday.
So they called, left avoicemail, and I'm gonna just
want to go ahead and tell youthese two things because this
was the second worst day of thewhole thing.
Okay.
So my wife calls the consulate.
So the embassy for the EasternCaribbeans in the Barbados, but
(13:11):
they have consulate on theisland.
So my wife calls and asks, look,here's what's happened.
Can you give us some advice?
The advice she got was don'tcall the embassy.
So my wife said, Did you saydon't call the embassy?
I mean, what what are we wedon't know anything about this
stuff down here?
We don't know the laws downhere.
She said, Look, if you call theembassy, they are going to come
(13:33):
in, try to take over, tell thelocal people what to do.
It's gonna upset them, andyou're not gonna get the help
you want.
She said, I've seen it before.
And you know what?
We did not call the embassyuntil way later on.
And that lady was right.
So, of course, then it's on us.
So then I hear that and I'mabout to lose my mind.
The second thing that day thathappened, as soon as she got
off, the police called back andhad them meet at a police
(13:54):
station about a mile fromCaitlin's apartment.
She had to tell the story again.
So the first time wasn't theofficial statement, the same
person, head of the unit, notthe official statement, as we
know, we don't want to have tokeep asking these people to tell
the story.
SPEAKER_02 (14:07):
Right.
SPEAKER_00 (14:08):
Nevertheless, she told the story again.
And my wife, if I mention Jill,that's her name.
So I might say my wife, I mightsay Jill.
So Jill is a verynon-confrontational person, but
she was getting very agitatedbecause it was just slow moving
and just just it didn't seemlike there was any sense of
urgency to do anything.
And so she says, Look, mydaughter's been drugged and
(14:28):
raped, and I think we need tostart doing something about
this.
You know, something along thoselines.
And now I just want you to thinkabout this for a minute.
They had not done one bit ofinvestigation at this point.
Nothing.
And the guy says, Nothing'sgonna come of this because
Antigua doesn't extradite.
That's what they were just toldthere.
So just think, you're alreadynot thinking clear, you're
(14:51):
already worried, you've got allkinds of things going on.
Caitlin's dealing with so muchmentally, and this is what you
tell them.
I'ma just say, even if you knewthat you weren't gonna be able
to extradite, maybe you didn'thave a treaty.
You don't say that at that pointin time.
Do your investigation.
You need to do yourinvestigation.
Well, that guy, well, if heflies back into the country, you
can get him, right?
Before anything, that's whatthey're told.
(15:11):
And just to finish that part ofit, my wife calls me a couple
times every day while she's downthere to update me.
That call was rough.
So, and this was less than aweek from when we found out.
So we weren't sleeping reallyanyway, maybe two hours.
So it's about 11 o'clock atnight, and I just went to my
office, got on my laptop, andjust started researching.
And before three in the morning,I had found there is a treaty
(15:32):
with the UK.
It's valid.
I read everything about it threetimes.
It covers this crime.
I found the Sexual Offenses Actof 1995 from Antigua, read all
the things around rape, there'sdifferent classifications, and
it all fits.
So at least at that point, I hadhope that look, they can do it.
They just haven't done it.
This fits.
(15:52):
So my job is to convince themthey need to do this.
That's the way when I got off mycomputer, that was my thinking.
Okay, I know what I need to donext.
I will say about two weekslater, they'd finished all the
investigative stuff.
I called Officer Forbes.
So the guy that was the head,after that meeting, we didn't
see him again until the trial.
Thank goodness.
Because he was horrible.
And I hate to say it, nicegentleman, but for that job, he
(16:15):
was he's the wrong guy.
SPEAKER_02 (16:16):
Yeah, and it sounds as though this law enforcement
agency maybe was not properlytrained and had very little
experience in this type of case.
SPEAKER_00 (16:26):
Well, you know, they've had a lot of rape cases,
they just don't have the righttraining.
But the fortunate for us,Corporal, well, he's Corporal
Forbes now, Corporal Forbes tookover younger, and I did not know
this until last year, so wayafter.
But he's just a good man.
He's got a daughter.
He was doing all thosetrauma-informed things that you
should do with Caitlin.
(16:46):
It made a big difference forCaitlin.
He even checked on her from timeto time, just call her.
He ran into it at thesupermarket one time.
Hey, how's everything going?
Are you feeling better?
All that.
About two weeks in, I mean,there was only so much evidence
to collect, but there wasevidence.
So I called Officer Forbes and Isaid, Yeah, where are we?
What's next?
What where are we in theprocess?
It's pretty much one-waycommunications with very few
(17:06):
exceptions.
That means I'm calling downthere a lot and I'm emailing a
lot.
He said, It's all turned over toCommissioner Robinson.
Here's his number if you want tocall him.
Now I've never talked to him,never seen him, but I called him
and told him who I was.
Of course, right off he knew.
Just a fantastic person.
So we go from a horrible policeexperience to someone much
better that's the investigatorto just a very smart, empathetic
(17:29):
man, that's the commissioner.
So made it more tolerable.
I was thinking about how I wantto approach him because I know
they have a treaty.
So I'm like, what are youthinking?
I said, Officer Forbes said allof the evidence is to you now,
so what are you thinking?
He said, Well, I have everythingexcept for the medical report
for the rape exam, and I'mwaiting on it.
But one of the female officerswas in with Caitlin during the
(17:50):
exam, and he said, Look, shetold me she's 99% sure Caitlin
was raped, and she wouldn't say100% unless she saw it with her
own eyes.
So it's about as firm as you canget it.
I said, Well, let me just tellyou before we go any further
that I, you know, we were toldnothing's gonna come this, blah,
blah, blah.
But I know there's a treaty, andif you have a treaty and you
(18:11):
have a case this serious, ifyou're not gonna use it now, why
have it?
And he did not resist one bit.
He said, as soon as I get thatreport, if it backs up what I
think, I will recommend it tothe attorney general to do
extradition.
So that was a huge reliefbecause you know, thinking you
can't do anything makes youthink things you probably don't
want to be thinking because itwasn't gonna just stand with
(18:33):
nothing, in in my opinion.
SPEAKER_02 (18:35):
Right.
So I want to just give listenersa little piece of context here
because we did intro the showwith a brief explanation of what
happened to Caitlin.
Uh but for clarity, she was on adate who then drugged and raped
her, denied her claim that heraped her, and then I'm assuming
he left the country to go home.
(18:56):
He was a traveler, not a localfrom the UK, as well as a police
officer in the UK.
SPEAKER_00 (19:02):
Yeah.
They met on Tinder, which we maytalk about a little bit.
I will just tell you, Tinder,Caitlin didn't even have Tinder
until she was down there.
It is what everybody used forsocial messaging.
It's just how it was used.
I'm sure it was used for otherthings it's used for here too,
but it is how everybodycommunicated.
You want to go to the beach thisafternoon?
It's just what they use.
So she was she was on it.
So anyway, that is how they met.
(19:25):
They met in public.
This guy knew what he was doing.
This was a plan.
There's zero question about thatit was not a plan.
It was for sure a plan.
They met, they had very littleto drink, a little bit of wine
with dinner.
Antiga is kind of shuts downearly.
Once it's dark, it's not a bigisland, there's not a lot to do.
And Caitlin lived close by tothe downtown area, which they
(19:46):
were at a boat show.
It's a big boating island, andit's kind of nice down there.
She lives a mile away.
They said she has a greatbalcony.
You can see the harbor, it'sbeautiful.
You look down on it, it's verynice.
So they were just gonna go backand hang out a while and decide
what they might want to do.
And they did that.
His whole communications, andthere's I don't know, young
people, I don't know, thousandtexts, I'll say.
(20:07):
It's a lot of text back andforth.
Which always pulled forforensics for the trial.
But anyway, you know, they setout until mosquitoes started
biting and they were gonna goin.
They decided they'd watch amovie.
And Caitlin went to change, sheactually put sweatpants on and
stuff.
So anyway, when she left, sheleft her drink, and it was no
doubt it was spiting.
In fact, when she took her firstsip, she said something doesn't
(20:28):
taste right.
And he actually said, Oh, heCaitlin had some bog in her
freezer, and he said he put somebog in it, saying this is what
we do in the UK.
She didn't know any betteranyway, but she took one more
sip and said, No, this does nottaste right.
It only took two sips.
15 minutes later, she was out,and she had no memory of the
night.
So she wasn't exactly sure whathappened.
He's saying nothing happened.
He couldn't remember, he wasmaking up all this stuff, you
(20:50):
know, and basically, oh, I'msure we didn't have sex and all
this stuff, and it's all in textmessages.
And so, over the course of acouple of days, he's just
stalling.
He's buying time, he's got acouple of days left on that
island, and he needs to keep herat bay because if we could have
gotten him while he's on thatisland, he'd be in a horrible
prison system right now.
And so he delayed enough, butshe kept pushing him via tag.
(21:11):
She didn't see him again, butshe started having bruises show
up.
She started getting some pain inthe vaginal region, and so she
started really pushing.
But at this time, he's about toleave.
And so I wish she would havecaught us earlier, but I think
in her mind she probably wassuspicious but hoping this
didn't happen because she was avirgin.
So this became devastating forher.
But right before he gets on theplane to leave, he basically
(21:32):
said, Oh, yeah, well, we we hadsex.
After lying about it over andover, by the way, that's one of
the main things that put him injail.
All those texts were preserved,and you can see her saying, We
met on Tinder, but don't haveany expectations of sex, that's
not who I am, blah, blah, blah.
And he's like, sure, no problem.
And then you can just follow thetext just to see he lied until
he was about to get off theisland.
Then he didn't care.
(21:53):
He never thought he would bepursued, but he was wrong.
SPEAKER_02 (21:58):
So he just to understand, he actually left the
island, went back to the UK, andthen was extradited back to
Antigua.
SPEAKER_00 (22:06):
That's right.
SPEAKER_02 (22:06):
And we know that he was sentenced to 15 years in
prison.
Is he in prison on the island orsomewhere else?
SPEAKER_00 (22:12):
Yeah.
So the extradition was thebiggest obstacle we had because
it's you know, look, most peopleknow what extradition is for.
You get involved, you learn.
It is it's a little morecomplicated.
It's a very technical process.
Part of the problem, it ended uptaking us about three years to
get them extradited.
Part of it's because Antigua hadnever done this before, and I
(22:33):
really don't think they haddefined the roles and processes.
If we have to do it, they justhad the treaty.
So a lot of times, I don't thinkanybody thought it was their
piece to do the next thing.
There was definitely a lot ofthat.
Actually, the first request was,so this happened in late May in
2015.
They sent the first extraditionrequest in December.
Not horrible, not bad.
(22:55):
Somebody hadn't done it.
But there were errors in it, sothen it comes back.
Then you wait a couple monthsfor them to clean up and then
send it again.
When they send it the secondtime and they validated, they
sent it.
I couldn't find anybody tovalidate on the other side that
they received it.
And nobody's looking for it.
And I'll just tell you, monthsand months went by.
And I was talking to people inthe UK and the police, they were
checking, and it's finally wefound out that something did
(23:18):
come through.
They found an error immediately,told them what to do and sent it
back to Antigua.
And that got on somebody's deskand it got covered up and sat
for months.
This is the problem.
Nobody owned it, obviously.
I actually played a part inhelping find that, believe it or
not, from the U.S.
So it took some work because Icared about it.
It was my assignment, right?
(23:39):
Right.
So I couldn't let it just not doso.
I was calling all kinds ofpeople, and we found it under a
stack of papers.
Then it moved quick to get thesecond extradition request.
Something I'll tell you, mostpeople may not know this with
extradition.
So the country submits it.
They're representing Antigua,not Caitlin or our family.
So I couldn't talk to the CrownProsecution Service, even though
(24:00):
I did go to one of the hearings,I did meet them.
They did sit down because Iwanted they explained the
process, and I just needed toknow that.
Several hearings go on.
We lost the first extraditioncase only for one reason.
The conditions of the prisonwere horrible.
And the judge, basically, here'sthe net of it.
Judge Abernoff, who was the topmagistrate judge in the UK,
(24:20):
said, I can't approve thisrequest for one reason.
The prison conditions are sobad, and they were, that I can't
send a citizen of the UK to thatprison because it breaks our
hum, you know, human rightscode.
Yeah, exactly.
But so here's what I didn'tknow, because right off I'm
panicked when I get the news.
The UK police reach out to meright away just to update me.
(24:43):
And they said, Don't first ofall, don't panic.
They knew me by this time.
And they said, You have three,we have three years to reapply.
And he said, the judge told theLee Martin Kramps' name, told
him, Don't mistake this for methinking you're innocent.
Think of this as a stay ofexecution.
Because that's she said, BecauseI've read all the evidence.
So eventually Antigua stepped upagain.
(25:05):
They had two prison options, andI thought they were going along
with option A.
And this took a long time,another lengthy months and
months and months for nothing tohappen.
To the point where Caitlin wasgraduating in 2017.
And before we left the country,I hadn't met everybody, I had
talked to everybody.
I mean, the attorney general,the minister of foreign affairs,
all these people I've been onthe phone with, trying just to
(25:28):
get the support and keep itmoving.
And anyway, I calledCommissioner Robison and said,
I'm gonna be down for 10 days.
I go on Caitlin's graduate andI'm gonna help her move home.
I'd like to meet.
Can you help me set a meeting upwith the Attorney General and
the Minister of Foreign Affairs?
I got in Saturday, I met withhim on Sunday, he called on from
his cell phone and set themeetings up.
And so we got the times lockedin.
(25:48):
And I really did it because Iwanted Caitlin to hear from
their mouth in person thatthey're gonna make this happen.
And they did tell her that.
The thing is, when we leftthere, the to-do was for me to
call in two weeks because theythought they were close on the
prison.
And I'll just tell you this, Ididn't have an answer in two
weeks.
I tried two weeks more, noanswer.
They were getting perturbed withme, so I figured I better stop.
(26:09):
I called Commissioner Robinsonand I told him, Do you know
what's going on?
I can't really I hear they'reclose, but they won't really
tell me any details.
Do you know what's going on?
Because I just not getting agood feeling.
And he said, I could never gethim to call me Derek.
He calls me Mr.
Hurley.
He said, Mr.
Hurley, I think you've takenthis as and pushed this as far
as you can.
Now's the time to call theembassy.
So I call the embassy.
(26:30):
They call me back.
I tell them the story.
They say, Can you write it upand send it to me so I can
circulate it?
Which I did.
The next day, a high-levelperson in the embassy called me.
And I just want to tell you thisbecause this just puts this in
perspective.
He said, Told me who he was,super nice man.
He said, before we talk aboutit, he said, I have all the
information on the case.
I've already talked to Antigua.
But before we talk about it, youhave to tell me how you got the
(26:51):
case this far because we don'tget cases this far.
SPEAKER_02 (26:53):
Oh wow.
SPEAKER_00 (26:54):
I pause because I'm thinking, gosh, what do I say?
I need his help.
I don't want to antagonize.
I said, look, I don't want youto take this the wrong way.
I'm just going to be honestabout it.
I told him about theconversation with the consulate.
That's why we didn't call.
And you know, that's what I'mtelling you.
She told us correctly becausethey hadn't got a case to this
level.
And so the reality is we pushedit as much as we could.
(27:18):
And I said, Look, we can talkabout that all you want, but
right now I need your help.
Can you help?
And he says, We're gonna help.
And they got a lady from the UKembassy, also in Barbados, Sarah
Abraham, involved, and she spentweek after week flying back and
forth to Antigua measuring thejail.
So they have all these littlethings that have to be.
(27:38):
It has to be so big and all theall the she got all of that
sorted and went into theparliament meeting and also
negotiated with the defense onthis so that we would avoid an
appeal.
She did all that.
And then she went into theactive parliament meeting in
Antigua, stopped the meeting toget the prime minister to sign
off on the deal.
It was kind of a big thing.
(27:59):
But she was incredible.
And then they extradition thenwent quick because they started
where we stopped with theprison, and she had already
negotiated it all.
It happened very quick.
A month later he was in Antiguaand you know with no bond or
anything.
And they did put him in, it's aformer U.S.
naval base, and they have aprison sales in there.
So that's where he that's wherehe's still at.
(28:20):
He had the option after theappeal and the second appeal.
Once there was nothing else toexhaust, if he were still in
prison, he could basically I saypetition, because that's the
right word, but fill out a formand they will send him to the UK
to serve the rest of his thing.
But he has not done that.
Interesting.
Yeah, and he's the only one inthat, him and a guard every day.
SPEAKER_02 (28:40):
Very interesting.
That's a bit long, but thatthat's a kind of important
pieces to hear from No, I thinkthat really frames out this case
and gives the story the depththat it deserves.
Now we've talked a lot about thecase and about the governments
and embassies and extradition,but we haven't talked yet about
Caitlin.
She's was the victim, she's nowa survivor, and she chose not to
(29:03):
remain anonymous, which is herright, of course, either way,
throughout this whole process.
Why do you believe that uhCaitlin chose uh to identify
herself and why other victimsremain silent?
SPEAKER_00 (29:19):
You know, I've done a lot of these, and nobody's
asked me that before, but it ispretty easy for me to answer
because when we were at thetrial after it was over, the
local television wanted tointerview her and she did it,
but they had her blurred.
She had not given up anonymityat that point.
On our trip home from the trial,she just was talking to him and
said, You know, I think I'mgonna give up my anonymity
because I didn't do it, I didn'tdo anything wrong, and I'm not
(29:41):
carrying a shame around like Idid something wrong.
So she said, you know, these arekind of her words, not exactly.
You know, the Me Too movementhad a big impact, and we had a
lot of conversation about thistopic during that, but it's
faded a bit, and we need morestories out there, so I want to
get mine out there.
And I actually said, Well, whatdo you?
Thinking?
And she said, Do you think wecan get a major news network or
(30:05):
something to cover it?
And I said, Yeah, I mean, Ithink we can, because I know
some contacts in this space atthis point.
And I called a good friend ofours who was really critical for
our family, Annie Clark, who'sin this space.
She she started EROC in rape oncampus.
Anyway, she gave me a lot ofguidance throughout, but I said,
Do you know anybody?
(30:25):
And so she gave us people from anumber of networks.
Caitlin talked to all of them.
I ended up talking to most ofthem as well.
And she decided she was justgoing to go with CNN.
Well, six weeks after theverdict was the sentencing, we
were allowed to join via Skype,so we didn't have to travel.
And so CNN was at our houseduring that Skype.
So they sat through thesentencing and then did all
(30:46):
interviews and all this after.
And so she wanted the story out.
She just did not want to carrythat burden.
She didn't feel like she didanything wrong.
You can see from the textmessages clearly she wasn't
interested in this.
So, you know, she just didn'tthink it's fair to be people to
blame her or be critical of her.
I will say, as you would expect,a lot of trolls from the
article, but more good than bad.
(31:08):
It was it ended up being verypositive.
Over a million people read thaton their website the first two
days it was out.
She heard from people all overthe country.
SPEAKER_02 (31:14):
She's so brave and so strong.
I really applaud her decision,and I think she took a stand,
not just for herself, but forsurvivors everywhere.
I've interviewed many survivorsof rape and other gender-based
crimes who have all spoken aboutcarrying shame and you know,
carrying blame for the crimescommitted against them.
(31:35):
But she clearly understood thatthat does not have to be the
case because it wasn't herfault.
It's never your fault.
SPEAKER_00 (31:41):
And I'll tell you the truth, I was a little
surprised she went that route.
I mean, whatever she wanted todo was fine.
But she had a tough time throughthis.
And so maybe winning the trialhelped, right?
For sure it helped, but it maybeit validated I didn't do
anything wrong, he's the bad guyhere.
I maybe that's a little bit ofit, but you know, she has
handled herself on in the trial,and she it was brutal.
(32:05):
It just as you hear is no joke,they just crucified the victim,
the defense, and it was justlike that.
But she came out and did that,and she was great on the stand,
she's done some podcasts, she'sreally good.
I'd love to have had her onthis, but she's married, she got
a six-year-old daughter, sheworks full-time, so she just
sets sometimes.
SPEAKER_02 (32:24):
She's a busy woman, I get it.
SPEAKER_00 (32:26):
She is, but she is, she's gonna get more and more
involved.
She wants to.
This is a big deal for her, too.
But as you ask about othervictims, I've learned a lot from
this myself, and that's why I'min this space.
I would love for everybody toreport.
I would love it, but Iunderstand why they don't, and I
do not blame them.
Once you go through the processof what they have to endure, it
(32:48):
sometimes I think it's an easydecision not to do anything.
Whether they tell people or notis another decision point.
And I get calls, I have hadcalls from people I do not know,
I'm not even sure how they gotmy contact, that they're victims
and have not talked to anybody.
The last one was in MiddleTennessee.
I live in Knoxville, Tennessee,and she told me what happened.
I said, You feel free to tell meas much or as little if you want
(33:10):
to tell me what happened.
And she told me everything, youknow, and I'm I'm very
empathetic because I've gonethrough all this stuff, but
she's like, What do I do?
And I'll just be honest, I willnever tell anybody what to do.
I said, Look, I can't tell youwhat to do, but what I can do is
tell you what the process isgonna be like, things you need
to consider.
Like in Tennessee, you have fromwhen it happened, you have five
(33:31):
days to get a rape exam.
So whether you want to take itforward now, or even if you
think you might in the future,at this point, you've got two
days left to get a rape exam.
You need to know that.
Here's what's gonna happen.
As a side note, I have threedaughters.
Caitlin's the oldest.
My middle daughter was a policeofficer in Nashville, Tennessee,
big city.
After just under three years,she became a sexual assault
(33:53):
detective.
She had been through this wholeprocess with her sister.
She was, as a patrol officer,great with victims because she
had the empathy because she'sbeen through this experience.
But also with her being in thatrole, I learned a lot because,
not that I knew who or any ofthat, but she would tell me case
situations and what happens.
And the fact is, you know, shewould take ten cases like this
(34:14):
to the prosecutor, people thatmove forward with it.
Most of the time we're lucky ifeight of them get taken.
So you can go through all thesethings, interviews, you know,
then they're going to talk tothe perpetrator if they know the
perpetrator.
In this case they did, you know,and then they will come back and
validate things.
And you go and you've done arape exam, you're putting
(34:34):
yourself through a lot.
And the sad part for me is mostof the time the cases aren't
taken for because they just sayhe said, she said, and they
don't feel they can win.
If they don't feel they can win,they won't take it.
And so you do that and you don'teven get your day in court.
And I've had victims tell me,even if I lose, I just want to
confront them and I just want toget it out there.
You know, but that you don'teven get that.
So we've got a lot of problemswith how we do these things, and
(34:57):
we're one of about every countrythat has these problems, but we
could do better.
SPEAKER_02 (35:01):
A thousand percent we can do better.
I want to talk about the trialfor a minute because I'm curious
about how it's different inAntigua versus the United States
and so on.
So, from what I understand,during the trial, there were
certain themes towardsvictimization that were on
display.
What were some of those themes?
How was Caitlin treated?
Was she victim blamed, and soon?
SPEAKER_00 (35:21):
Hundred percent.
I'll just say this they reallydidn't have a good defense.
He said it was consensual.
That that was it.
That was the only defense.
So there's got to be a bad guyhere.
We're in court, so they want tomake Caitlin the bad guy.
She wasn't having it.
I just tell you she w she wasnot having it.
But they questioned, of course,the things you hear, what she
was wearing, which is funny, shewas in a nice dress at the show,
(35:44):
then they came and she's gotsweatpants and long sleeves
short.
Ridiculous questions.
You know, were you drinking?
Here's the thing they want totalk about drinking all the
time.
Yeah, they had some wine.
It came out that neither one ofthem were remotely at all
intoxicated.
They didn't have that much overa long period of time.
It was just a little bit.
And the defense attorney surelyknew that was coming out because
it was the perpetrator that saidit.
SPEAKER_02 (36:06):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (36:06):
Yet he still badgered her about it.
They were going to watch amovie.
It ended up being, if youremember the movie called
American Pie, Caitlin didn'teven know what it was.
She'd never seen it.
We spent 20 minutes with thedefense trying to just browbeat
her into her admitting shepicked the movie.
She's like, I never even heardof the movie.
I didn't even know what it wasabout.
It was rough.
I mean, you just want to get outof your seat and go throw a
(36:28):
forearm to somebody's head.
That's how, I mean, it was itwas tough.
After that, when she said thatabout watching that, she says,
you know, growing up, we just Ihad two sisters, we played, we
didn't watch that much TV.
And the defense attorney said,Are you Amish or something?
I will say the judge called himout and kind of scolded him a
bit, and he needed it.
(36:49):
And in the end, they just didn'thave a defense because there's
too much indefensible stuff inthis case.
So, yeah, she went through allthat, but she kept her cool the
whole time.
So, as far as the victimizationpart, yeah, it was their whole
case.
The defense called nobody, butthey cross-examined and
basically Caitlin had the worstof it.
You know?
SPEAKER_02 (37:08):
Yeah, that's really shameful.
I'm sorry for that.
I want to also ask you aboutTinder.
Has Tinder had anything to sayin response to the attack, the
crime?
Any other thoughts from them?
SPEAKER_00 (37:18):
They haven't.
I mean, they probably don't evenknow about it.
We certainly hadn't reached out.
I mean, I'm sure there are a lotof unknown cases that aren't
that dissimilar, starting fromTinder.
I really feel like, you know,online dating is a big thing.
In fact, I will say this, thismight shock you.
I don't think I've ever toldanybody this on one of these
things.
Caitlin's husband now, she metonline, on an online app.
(37:39):
She met him on it and they dateda while.
Of course, she was a whole lotdifferent at this point.
Right.
But but, you know, they'remarried and they're good.
And but so, you know, it can befine.
I know a lot of people that havemet people through this.
But I would say this this is myadvice to people doing this.
Until you get to know thatperson fairly well, which means
multiple dates in public.
(38:00):
Stay in public.
I would also say there are somereally good tools out there.
I will mention two.
I don't have anything personallywith them, but I'm just telling
you because I research a lot ofthis stuff.
Okay.
There's an app called I'm Safe.
And you can put your friends init, your family, you can put who
you want in it.
And if you're going on a date,you can turn on geo tracking,
(38:20):
they can track you.
You can tell them where you'regoing, they can see where you're
going.
If you're getting a bad feeling,if you're going, hey, we're
supposed to turn left, we turnright, you can hit a help me
button or you know, basicallyemergency button or something.
And it will send those friends,it does not go to the police.
Because you might want to dothat when you get a bad feeling,
but nothing's happened, right?
And they know, so then they cancall, you know, they they can
see where you are.
(38:41):
If you don't call back orsomething, then they can call
the police.
So there's some good tools outthere that I would highly
recommend people look into.
And just because we talk aboutdrink spiking, which is a
horrible problem, and that'swhat you know happened to
Caitlin.
If you've never heard of NikeCap it, it's a simple cover for
your drink, you know, and Ithink that would help because
(39:02):
it's easy to put something insomebody's drink if it's just
wide open there.
And the last thing on that I'llsay is if you're out and you're
having a drink, even if you'renot on a date, you're out with
your friends, and this is men orwomen, obviously 90% of it's
women that get assaulted, butdon't leave your drink alone.
If you have go to the bathroom,either you have a close friend
eyeballing that thing the wholetime, or just get rid of it.
(39:22):
If you happen to walk away totalk to somebody, if you've
walked away from that drink, donot drink because the number of
these happening.
I know a lot about Nashville,it's a big party city.
Yeah.
And this happens constantly.
Every night, I'm sure thishappens.
SPEAKER_02 (39:37):
It's it's a huge problem internationally.
It is, and I value thoseresources for listeners who
might want to take measures tofurther protect themselves, but
I also understand that it is,again, always the woman, always
the potential victim or theactual victim who has to do all
of this work.
(39:58):
It's really, you know, we talk alot about ending sexual violence
on this podcast.
That's what we need to stayfocused on too, is making sure
that this is a problem iseradicated.
I'm curious if the verdict andthe conviction of this
perpetrator and even theextradition process changed
anything in the way that Antiguaviews sexual assault, sexual
(40:21):
violence, or prosecutes thesecases.
SPEAKER_00 (40:23):
You know, I'm still in touch with people there.
In fact, I was back there forthe first time since the trial
last December when I did atrauma-informed approach
training to first responders.
And I offered that and I did iton my own dime because it was
important.
But I honestly don't thinkanything's changed.
There are a lot of peoplecomplaining.
I follow news down there becauseI do have friends down there,
(40:45):
and I have seen comments fromthe public prosecution's office
and the attorney general'soffice, and they talk about
doing training.
The training I did, peoplethought we need to do this more,
we need more people trained onthis.
And I've offered to come and doit as much as they want, but
just nothing, nothing's come ofit.
And to be honest, you know, eventhough I've paid for everything
my first time down, my flight,everything, yeah, I will give my
(41:08):
time to do this stuff, but I'mnot in a position just to pay
for you know flights and allthat stuff.
But expenses aren't that much.
So I'm like, if you'll justcover my expenses, I'll do as
many classes as you want forfree.
And uh it's still budget, eventhen, it's budget.
These are poor countries.
There's another country I'mtalking to down there about
doing the same thing, andthey're gonna try to get the
budget pass because they're oneof those four that I mentioned
(41:29):
that I mean they're they have aproblem.
SPEAKER_02 (41:30):
For sure.
And I I can't think of a betteropportunity than for law
enforcement and other firstresponders from those countries
to come to the conference oncrimes against women.
SPEAKER_00 (41:42):
Well, I've let a lot of people know about it.
Even, you know, I've talked tofolks there about potentially
going through our case.
So I've invited the attorneygeneral, the prosecutor, and
Sarah Abraham from the UKEmbassy.
Would they be interested to comebecause then you could get all
the different elements of thecase?
And it's just a but the budgetthing is tough.
It it's just tough.
They don't do a lot of thatbecause it costs them a bit of
(42:04):
money.
And I'm trying to convince themto do it.
We'll see.
Well, I appreciate youadvocating for the perfect for
your it would be perfect foryour May conference because you
have such an internationalgroup, and it is a unique case.
Never been an extradition in theEastern Caribbean before like
this.
And there's a lot of setbacksalong the way.
It's a long story.
We just touched on it really,but yeah, I'm with you.
(42:27):
I'm trying.
SPEAKER_02 (42:27):
Yeah, I'd love to see a group from those countries
come and learn with us at theconference and share their
experiences as well.
Now, you turned your pain intopurpose and started an Antiguan
justice campaign, and then laterwrote a book called Antiguan
Justice, a father's fight.
Can you tell us about theadvocacy you do through Antiguan
Justice and share some of themajor themes of the book?
SPEAKER_00 (42:50):
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I knew that I needed to
get in this space.
I really felt it was important,and I was just fortunate to be
in a position, I've had a goodcareer and done fairly well
where I could walk away and beokay and not really knowing the
financial part.
I had no expectations on it.
And I started working my waythrough it.
Now, I wrote the book, notbecause I wanted to I I mean, I
(43:13):
would have never in the worldthought I'd write a book, but I
had notes from every phone call,from every all the emails, and I
had all the information.
I just needed to write the storyaround it.
So it's very much my story ofthe case because I spent the
four years grinding this thingwith the governments and police.
So it's an interesting story,and I thought it'd be
(43:33):
interesting.
But also to Caitlin's pointearlier, there's not enough
stories about this out there.
I couldn't find one that a manhad written, certainly not a
father, and so I thought it'sunique.
But I didn't write it so thatI've written a book.
I didn't write it for any money.
It wasn't about that for me.
It was about I need a tool.
I'm not in this space.
I come from a differentindustry, right?
But this might be a tool to helpme get in the space.
(43:55):
That was my primary reason, andit has helped because it
validates that I I'm just notsomebody just coming in here.
I've been through this process.
And so, yeah, it kind of didwhat I wanted it to do.
And, you know, right now, justyes about some of the things I'm
doing.
I do help.
I mean, I volunteer for rain.
I do projects with most of themso they're not long term.
(44:16):
Just did one with them a couplemonths ago.
I'm starting to do some thingswith I have a right to.
I have high hopes with thingsI'm gonna do there.
You said something earlier aboutprevention.
I will just tell you that thisis an important message.
I've spent a lot of time tryingto help people with tools and
how to keep themselves safe,which is always gonna be
important.
We'll never eradicate it, right?
(44:37):
So that's important.
But through some things and somefriends I've met through this
space, what we really need to dois the movement that's the
opposite of toxic masculinityand start talking about how to
be good men, how to beempathetic, you know, how to
respect people, consent.
That's what we've got to dobecause if we can change the
mindset of young men and men,they don't commit the crime.
(45:00):
And that's the biggest chance wehave.
Men are the problem, men arealso the solution, and I need
men to get involved to be thesolution.
SPEAKER_02 (45:09):
Excellent advice.
Derek, thank you so much fortalking with me today and being
on the show.
SPEAKER_00 (45:14):
Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_02 (45:16):
Thanks so much for listening.
Until next time, stay safe.
The twenty first annualconference on crimes against
women will be held May 18ththrough the 21st, 2026, in
Dallas, Texas.
Learn more at conferencecaw.organd be the first to know about
all conference details, as wellas the latest on the Institute
(45:37):
for Coordinated CommunityResponse, an annual conference
summit at Beyond the Bounds, andthe National Training Center on
Crimes Against Women.
When you follow us on socialmedia at National C C AW.
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