Girl kicked out of her high school for public lewdness - after reporting she'd been raped
- Rachel Beadshaw-Bean, now 20, says she was raped three-years-ago at Henderson High School, in East Texas
- She told the band director, he dismissed the allegations
- School officials eventually took action - but only to punish her after police declined to press charges
By RYAN GORMAN
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A Texas teen was kicked out of high school three years ago after telling officials she was raped and police declined to press charges.
Rachel Bradshaw-Bean, now 20, was raped by a classmate in the band room at Henderson High School, in East Texas, in December 2010. Instead of seeing her attacker get justice, she was given 45 days in disciplinary school.
Officials decided the sex was consensual, charged them both with public lewdness and booted them from school - she received the same punishment as the boy she says attacked her.
Devastated: Rachel Bradshaw-Bean was kicked out of high school because she told school officials she was raped
Ms Bean chose to speak about the incident to NBC News after the recent wave of high school rape cases that saw allegations swept under the rug and accusers shamed by their communities.
Her attack happened on school grounds, but the first teacher she told of the horrifying ordeal told her to ‘work it out with the boy,’ she said.
The young boy, unnamed because he was a juvenile at the time, asked the devout Mormon to go to the band room one day after school for a talk.
She went, and security footage of her accompanying the boy would later be used against her because the visit wasn’t against her will - because she wasn't forced.
The boy’s intentions became clear once the pair was behind closed doors, he became violent and raped her despite her repeated pleas to stop. She said no - he forced her.
He stole her innocence, robbed her of her dignity. It wouldn't be the first indignity she'd suffer because of him.
‘I was crying. I pulled my pants up and went to the bathroom to clean myself up,’ she said about the immediate aftermath.
Shocking: Ms Bradshaw-Bean's accusations were swept under the rug, her mother said
She immediately told the band director.
‘Work it out with the boy,’ he told her.
‘There's no way I would do that,’ she recalled. ‘But I didn’t know what to think. I was 17.’
The teen suffered more indignity later that night while attending a Key Club meeting.
She sat silently with her mother, stepfather and young brother – her attacker was also in the room.
‘I didn't tell my parents,’ she said. ‘I didn't want them to have to go through that.’
Ms Bradshaw-Bean is not alone in that feeling of isolation. Only 40 out of every 100 rapes are ever reported, according to the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
She skipped the next day of school, but then returned to tell the assistant band director of the attack. He immediately passed word to school officials, soon the police – and her parents – were involved.
Scene of the crime: Henderson High School, in East Texas, is where Ms Bradshaw-Bean says she was attacked
The shattered teen's worst fears were realized, her mother ‘had this look in her eyes, like she had died,’ she said.
‘It kills you. You die. You stay dead for a while,’ mother Colleen Chevallier said. ‘You become another person. I'm not the same person I was before this.’
The result of a medical exam obtained by NBC News showed significant proof of an attack ‘consistent with information given per victim,’ including lacerations to the hyman and bleeding.
She gave an interview to investigators during which she was numb, ‘I just felt like I couldn't cry anymore,’ she recalled.
One day later police determined the sex was consensual, no charges would be filed.
‘I was so shocked,’ her overwhelmed mother said. ‘I thought, they are pushing this under the rug. She's being treated this way because she's a female.’
Henderson Police declined to comment when reached by NBC News, a Freedom of Information Act filing to obtain case files was denied on ground the accused was a minor at the time.
A large discrepancy: Ms Bradshaw-Bean's attacker was one of the 97 out of every 100 accused rapists that walk free
Among the evidence used to cite a burden of proof was the security footage, which showed the girl voluntarily entering the band room.
The physical evidence could have come from either consensual sex or an attack, police said.
‘I’m not saying I did not want to do it,’ investigators said she told them, but did not provide any further context.
The two teens were charged with lewd conduct and shipped off to disciplinary school for 45 days – together.
Only three out of every 100 supposed rapists ever spends a single day in prison, according to RAINN.
The boy trash-talked to her to other students. One taunted the girl, telling her she ‘asked for it.’
A relative of the boy cyber bullied her on Facebook.
A relative of the boy cyber bullied her on Facebook.
Happiness at last: Ms Bradshaw-Bean recently married Robert Bean, she finally feels happy again
A subsequent Title IX investigation by the Department of Education found the school retaliated against Ms Bradshaw-Bean for reporting the incident. Changes were ordered, the school was required to pay for her counseling.
Ms Bradshaw-Bean is trying to move on with her life. She is now happily married to a fellow student she met at college. He supported her decision to go public.
‘I'm as happy as can be right now,’ she said, adding that her attacker ‘took away my joy, but I got it back, double-fold.’
She is studying criminal justice and criminal psychology to eventually help other girls find the justice she never did.
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