“The Central line is always notoriously busy, so I thought nothing of being sardined up against people in the rush hour commute. I was on my way to a really important work meeting first thing, so I had my headphones in, zoned out of the chaos.

I had a sense that I could feel a hand between my thighs but initially thought someone was just sandwiched in and stuck. But then his fingers started moving up my leg and I paused my headphones to hear heavy breathing behind me. I froze, thinking he wouldn’t go any further, but he moved his hand up my inner thigh and literally grabbed between my legs.

I immediately turned my head and hissed, ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ and he quickly pulled his hand away. I waited a few more stations until my stop in silence. In hindsight, I wish I’d yelled at him to draw attention to what he was doing. Instead, as I got off I stared at him and took in what he was wearing.

I remember being absolutely furious. I stormed out of the station and texted my boyfriend what had happened, writing it all down in case I misremembered anything later. Bizarrely, I kept thinking maybe it wasn’t what I thought it was, maybe I’d overreacted. But I had the written account, and after re-reading it again and again I decided to report it.

I texted what happened, where it happened and the time it happened, as well as all the visual details I could remember of the man, to 61016 and within 24 hours I was contacted by an officer who took my report seriously and was super encouraging and supportive.

The officers were able to find the guy on CCTV and track him down – turns out it wasn’t the first offence he had committed. I felt reassured knowing my report had helped stop someone else experiencing assault, and would always encourage other people to report anything that happens on the Tube that made them uncomfortable in any way.

If it makes you feel weird, it’s probably sexual harassment and TfL and the police will actually do something about it – even if you don’t report it as soon as it happens.”

Emily

5 women share their stories of sexual harassment on public transport