After 2,487 days holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy, Julian Assange was finally dragged into the light of day by the Metropolitan Police and arrested.

‘Hurrah!’ you might think. ‘He’s going to face the charges of sexual assault in Sweden!’ Sweden, from which he fled nine years ago. Sweden, where a British court ruled he should be extradited, only to have Assange dodge that extradition by seeking political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy.

The two women who have variously alleged that he penetrated them while they were sleeping and without using condoms, must be looking forward to the possibility of the cases being reopened and heard. They had refused repeatedly to have unprotected sex. And everyone, even those who worship Assange, a saint of free speech, would surely be pleased at the prospect of justice – whether by conviction or exoneration.

Or you might think, ‘What’s all this about Sweden and women?’ There’s a version of the Julian Assange Story where the women are written out and the focus narrows to what people see as the important bits. The heroic bits. The bits about Assange working with former United States military analyst Chelsea Manning to download and publish classified databases – the famous 2010 Wikileaks scandal – exposing evidence of US atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many lives were endangered in the process – information is classified to protect individuals as well as the secrets countries want to keep – but this part was largely ignored in the fanboying (and to a lesser extent fangirling) that followed.

Julian Assange: Is the controversial Wikileaks founder a ‘hero’ or ‘villain?’