Are self-swab kits ‘the start of the end of sexual violence’, or could they cause more harm than good?
Illustration: Louis Wood
Content warning: this story contains references to sexual violence
“In court I was cross-examined for about an hour – it was incredibly brutal and invasive,” explains Megan*, a Bristol woman in her mid-twenties who experienced sexual violence at the hands of someone she knew.
“I was blamed because I’m pretty, they said it was my fault he couldn’t control himself… It traumatised me as much as being raped did,” she continues. “If I [had been] told the forensic evidence was unreliable in court… I would [have been] so gutted, leading to even more self-blame.”
In the event, despite a wealth of forensic evidence, the trial concluded with a not-guilty verdict. Megan says the accused’s defence team argued that “he didn’t realise he was raping me”.
As Megan’s experience demonstrates, the justice process for rape victim-survivors is often harsh, gruelling and with little prospect of closure – the sharp end of what’s been described as the “decriminalisation of rape” in the UK.
Against a backdrop of chronic underreporting of sexual assaults, a company called Enough has been handing out self-swab test kits across Bristol, targeting university campuses. They are also being sold online for £20. Until it changed in January, Enough’s Instagram profile was subtitled “the start of the end of sexual violence”. The organisation says it gives survivors “power and options”, claims to have “spoken to numerous experts… and done our due diligence on the admissibility of the kit [in criminal justice proceedings]”.
But the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine (FFLM), a body that sets professional standards, has warned that at-home sexual assault kits “lack clinical and legal legitimacy” and “do not meet standards for clinical utility and, worse, risk depriving survivors of their ability to seek judicial recourse”. The NHS has also put out a joint statement recommending people visit a sexual assault referral centre (SARC) rather than self-swab.
The FFLM’s statement calls on any UK service offering self-swabbing to make clear what is being offered, and the tests’ forensic and legal implications. So is Enough offering sufficient clarity on what these kits provide? Or do the tests being distributed in Bristol risk further muddying the fraught and traumatic waters survivors must navigate?
Mixed messaging
Enough was set up in response to the shocking underreporting of rape in the UK, especially on university campuses (see box). It says it has distributed 7,000 kits, which enable people to swab themselves vaginally, orally or anally, after rape or sexual assault.
Users can then post the swab to a lab to be processed, with results stating whether foreign DNA was found and if so, the sex of the DNA profile. Enough’s website says the kits are “a visible signal of the prevalence of rape” and “a symbol of a world without sexual violence.”
In late 2024, co-founder Katie White told the Tab the kits, and an encrypted, timestamped service to capture survivor testimonies that Enough also offers, are “not for criminal prosecution”, adding that “anyone who wants to report to the police should go there first”. Speaking to the Cable for this article, she says the kits are “for validation of survivors and deterring perpetrators”.
It’s so important to get awareness out, but they need to make sure they aren’t making it harder for us to convict our rapists
Sophia, rape survivor
But on Enough’s site, information about kits’ admissibility in criminal proceedings is less clear, and scattered across multiple pages. The ‘Kit’ page, which sits prominently at the top-left of the homepage, merely says in its FAQs section: “You can only [currently] be tested if you go to the police or a SARC. 5 in 6 people don’t want to do that. This is the first time you can self-test and be in complete control of your results and recovery.”
A separate page of expanded FAQs, which users must scroll to find, explains that half of each swab sample is frozen so “it can be passed on to the police (if you ever want to)”. It says police “will consider any relevant information for a case”, adding that if an alleged assault is reported later, officers would request the frozen sample in addition to the DNA results and any testimony recorded via Enough.
Only at the end of the list of FAQs comes the statement: “If you want to report to the police, you should go there first because a full sexual assault exam conducted by the police or at a SARC is more extensive and designed to facilitate a criminal investigation.” A further privacy policy page, also at the bottom of the site, repeats the warning in more detail, in line with the FFLM recommendations.
The only information accompanying the physical kits is instructions on how to use the swab. It does not mention SARCs or the police.
‘The swab is not the job’
What, then, do the SARCs recommended by the NHS provide? Services offered at the centres include HIV prevention, STI tests, emergency contraception and hepatitis B injections. These go far beyond the administering of a swab.
“The phase that we say is, ‘the swab is not the job’, because it’s so much more than just a swab,” says Professor Catherine White, a forensic physician and sexual offence medicine lead for FFLM.
“We ask: is there any domestic violence? What support network do they have, who’s going to look after them when they go home, and I’ll do a medical history, for their overall health,” she adds. “Also when I examine them, I look to see have they got any injuries? Have they got any injuries that could be explained because of their medical condition? Are they suicidal? We spend a lot of time on all those issues before we even start to examine them.”
Megan explains: “The cleaning is to a really high standard, they wear full hazmat suits and masks – it’s really intense to see,” of her experience of visiting a SARC. “My entire body was examined visually for any injuries new or old, any cuts, bruises, tattoos and piercings were noted along with an explanation of how and when they’d happened.
“They took swabs which were high into my cervix for some and others were more shallow,” adds Megan, who also received the morning after pill from the SARC. “The nurses were so reassuring during this, and they never made me feel at fault.”
For maximum credibility, forensic evidence must be taken in a specific way by trained professionals. “Forensic scientists rely heavily on how we take the sample to be able to interpret the findings,” says Professor Catherine White, a forensic physician and sexual offence medicine lead for FFLM. “That would be really quite a big issue, with these swabs.”
A 2022 report in the Science and Justice journal explained that the medical exam and the evidence it produces is about more than just “is DNA present?” It added: “The finding of no semen on a self-sampling device may incorrectly lead the victim to believe they were mistaken, and were not in fact a victim of crime.“
One of Enough’s messages is that kits give people validation they were actually raped. But as it is quite common for semen not to be found after rape or sexual assault, there is a danger self-swabbing could cast doubt or shame instead.
Professor White questions whether kit users are sufficiently informed. “You can only consent to something if you are fully aware of the pros and cons,” she says.
Most of my university student peers have heard about Enough. Yet despite Katie White’s statements, many I speak to believe they are intended for criminal prosecution.
“I thought that was the whole point,” one says, when I explain the kits may not produce reliable evidence.
Untested evidence
This is Enough Limited is a private company owned jointly by Katie White and US-based entrepreneur Thomas Allchurch – who invested in a similar venture in the US: Leda Health. Leda Health also makes self-swab rape kits and has faced criticism from experts and the general public, and received many cease-and-desist orders, including from Washington’s attorney general. Leda has had no paying customers and its tests have never been used in court.
Bristol student Sophia*, who has experienced sexual violence, tells the Cable she likes Enough’s ideas. “As a survivor of rape, I think it’s so important to get awareness out,” she says.
“However,” she adds, “they need to make sure they aren’t making it harder for us to convict our rapists.”
Self-swab kit evidence, explains Tony Ward, a law professor at Northumbria University, could be excluded on the grounds “that it is insufficiently reliable to be admitted, at common law and under the Criminal Practice Directions (CPD) 2023”.
Under CPD 7.1.3 (d), “the defence could claim the evidence was ‘flawed’ because it relied ‘on an examination, technique, method or process which was not properly carried out or applied, or was not appropriate for use in the particular case’,” Ward adds.
He cautions that this is “a factor to be taken into account, not an automatic ground for exclusion” of evidence from self-swab kits. “That kind of dispute is very common with forensic evidence, especially DNA, and I think the courts would rightly regard it as a matter of weight to be decided by the jury,” Ward says.
Sarah Crew, chief constable of Avon and Somerset police recently suggested self-swab tests might be admissible in court. Even so, she strongly urged people to visit a SARC.
‘We agree there are limitations’
When I sit down with Katie White to discuss the concerns over Enough’s self-swab kits, she says she began looking for solutions because she is “close to a lot of people who have been raped”. She adds: “We have helped people who will never feel comfortable reporting officially.”
Asked about whether adequate information is being given to users, White directs me to the ‘Report’ page of Enough’s site. “In that first line of ‘reporting’, it says if you’re considering going to the police or a SARC, you should go there first,” she says.
The page does say: “If you want to report to the police now, you should go there first. You can come back here after.” But it doesn’t mention SARCs – again, the information feels incomplete. Very soon after our conversation, White posts a video to Instagram explaining briefly how SARC testing is more complex than self-swabbing.
During our chat, White also says Enough “have been in conversation with the safeguarding lead of the NHS, who confirmed that they are happy with the signposting, the safeguarding measures and communications, across our website”.
But an NHS spokesperson, after checking with safeguarding colleagues, told the Cable that “is not correct”, and directed me back to the cautionary statement previously published online.
White says Enough’s “main aim is validation as the first step to home recovery, but more than anything, it is to create cultural deterrence and social deterrence – and that’s why we say it’s social justice, more than criminal justice”. She added: “We agree there are limitations compared to going to the police or SARCs, but it’s better than nothing.”
Enough’s stated intention to “end rape” sounds noble, but the jury is still very much out as to whether its kits will help survivors. They may not provide the chance to prosecute perpetrators, and they do not provide STI tests or emergency contraception.
While founder White’s argument is that the self-swab kits are “not for criminal prosecution”, it leaves one wondering: what are they really for, and do users understand this?
As things stand, Enough’s website and accompanying information simply do not do enough to explain to users the limitations of these tests. This risks misleading vulnerable people, and diverting them away from vital resources that actually can help them.
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