MPs were reduced to tears this afternoon as they listened in silence to a colleague reveal she was raped as a 14-year-old.

Michelle Thomson, the independent MP for Edinburgh West, said she felt "ashamed" after a man she knew took her into the woods and assaulted her as he walked her home from a youth event.

Speaker John Bercow, who was visibly moved, praised the MP's bravery and told her she had "left an indelible impression on us all."

Michelle Thomson credit: BBC

Speaking in a debate about eliminating violence against women, Ms Thomson told the House of Commons: “I’m not a victim, I’m a survivor.”

She revealed she hadn't told her parents and that despite being happily married for 25 years, the rape had “fatally undermined” her self-esteem.

Ms Thomson, 51, said that the attack had been "mercifully quick" but said it had left her feeling "spoiled and impure and revulsion towards myself."

Speaker of the House of Commons-elect John Bercow credit: AFP

She told MPs: "When I was 14 I was raped. As is common, it was by somebody who was known to me.

"He had offered to walk me home from a youth event and in those days everybody walked everywhere, it was quite common to do that.

"It was early evening, it wasn't dark. I was wearing - I'm imagining, I'm guessing - jeans and a sweatshirt."

When he led her a slightly different way, she said: "I didn't think anything of it.

"He told me he wanted to show me something in a wooded area and at that point, I must admit, I was alarmed. I did have a warning bell - but I overrode that warning bell because I knew him and therefore there was a level of trust in place.

"To be honest, looking back, at that point I don't think I knew what rape was. It was not something that was talked about."

She said her senses were "absolutely numbed", telling MPs: "Thinking about it now, 37 years later, I cannot remember hearing anything when I replay it in my mind.

"Now, as somebody who is an ex-professional musician who is very, very auditory, I find that quite telling."

Ms Thomson added: "It was mercifully quick and I remember first of all feeling surprise, then fear, then horror as I realised I quite simply couldn't escape - because he was stronger than me, and there was no sense even initially of any sexual desire from him, which I suppose, looking back, again I find odd."

After the incident she said she didn't tell her parents, her friends or the police. "I bottled it all up inside me," she said.

"I hoped, briefly and appallingly, that I might be pregnant so that would force a situation to help me control it."

Ms Thomson said she felt "ashamed" that she had "allowed this to happen to me", debating internally what had happened.

She added: "I felt I was spoiled and impure and really felt revulsion towards myself. I, of course, then detached from the child up to then I had been.

"Although, in reality, at the age of 14 it was probably the start of my sexual awakening, at that time, remembering back, sex was something that men did to women and perhaps this incident reinforced that early belief."

Mr Thompson added that women and society have to stand up for each other and "be courageous".

She said: "We have to call things out and say where things are wrong. We have to support and nurture our sisters as we do with our sons."