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HALIFAX — The man she accused of raping her was convicted of sexual assault — but a Nova Scotia woman says she regrets going to the authorities.

Shannon Graham, 22, told police that her common-law spouse, Jared Beck-Wentzell, sexually assaulted her in their home in Bridgewater, N.S. in July 2014. Earlier this year, Beck-Wentzell was convicted of sexual assault and sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but the 23-year-old was released in June pending appeal.

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“I got what most people hope to get. I got the conviction. I got the sentence. And yet, he’s out free,” Graham says. “I sit there and I go, ’What was any of this for?”’

The Canadian Press only identifies victims of sexual assault with their active consent. Graham has asked to be publicly identified and went to court to successfully get a publication ban on her name lifted.

I got what most people hope to get. I got the conviction. I got the sentence. And yet, he’s out free

Despite the ostensibly successful trial, Graham said the two-year journey through the legal process has been punishing. At every juncture, Graham says Beck-Wentzell was given the benefit of the doubt, while she says she was treated “like a piece of evidence” and less than “an actual human being.”