For many survivors of sexual violence, the trauma doesn’t end after the assault. Sometimes it continues in the office, across meeting rooms and workplace conversations, where the person accused still holds power. One woman says that was the reality she had to live through.
The hardest part wasn’t only what happened that night.
It was walking back into work a few days later, knowing the man she says raped her was still her boss.
She says she had no idea what Monday morning would bring.
In her first media interview, the woman, identified only as Gemma to protect her identity, revealed she was working for Superdry co-founder James Holder when he raped her after a work night out in 2022.
Holder, 54, was sentenced in May to eight years in prison after being found guilty of rape. During sentencing, the court described the attack as a “despicable piece of sexual violence.”
“Yeah, he did. Very much like he would have spoken to me the week before. As if nothing had happened,” Gemma said when asked if Holder spoke to her after she returned to work.
Gemma said she first worked at Superdry’s headquarters in Cheltenham before joining another fashion business Holder launched after leaving the company.
At Superdry, she barely interacted with him. He was someone many employees viewed almost like a celebrity within the business.
That changed when she joined his new venture.
She described a workplace where staff were constantly under pressure and afraid of making mistakes.
“There was no room for mistakes,” she said, adding that employees were always on “high alert.”
She believes it created an atmosphere where people felt they had to fall in line.
“It certainly was a way of trying to command respect and a sort of allegiance to his agenda,” she said.
The assault happened after colleagues went for drinks at Gin and Juice in Cheltenham in May 2022.
Gemma said the evening started like any normal work social.
“It was just, you know, colleagues going out,” she recalled.
But later in the night, she noticed Holder’s behaviour change.
Friends arranged separate taxis for both of them, yet Holder climbed into hers without being invited.
She expected to get out at her home while he continued to his own.
Instead, he followed her inside.
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Gemma said Holder initially fell asleep on her bed before waking up and calling her into the room. When she refused, she said he dragged her onto the bed and raped her.
“He’s the person paying your wage every month,” she said while describing the fear she felt the next morning.
Returning to work, she said, felt impossible.
“You don’t know what Monday will bring. You don’t know what Tuesday or Wednesday will bring,” she said.
“For me, it was kind of more of a moment of being completely destabilised.”
She described herself as being in “survival mode” during those first days back at work.
Looking back, Gemma believes Holder behaved as though he had nothing to fear.
“It just shows him for what he is. It’s a power trip.”
“He was accountable to no one.”
She also admitted she delayed reporting the assault because she feared his influence in the fashion industry would damage her own future.
“I felt there was certainly a risk that this would affect my future prospects in finding work,” she said.
A turning point came when the business went into liquidation just days after the attack.
Gemma described it as “a blessing in disguise” because it meant Holder was no longer her employer, removing what she saw as the biggest obstacle to going to the police.
She believes the wider fashion industry also has difficult questions to answer.
Research published last year by industry publication Drapers found many fashion retail employees viewed sexual harassment as a common workplace problem, with senior colleagues often accused of abusing their positions.
“There’s a level of control and there’s a level of power and trust that just gets completely exploited,” Gemma said.
“It has been a culture within the industry that I’ve seen, and there is a level of misogynistic behaviour in the industry.”
Following Holder’s conviction, Detective Constable Elle MacLeod of Gloucestershire Police praised Gemma’s courage, saying her decision to come forward may have prevented others from becoming victims.
“No one is above the law, regardless of your status, wealth, or power,” MacLeod said.
A spokesperson for Superdry said Holder resigned from the company in 2016 and that the rape case related to an incident in 2022, years after his involvement with the business had ended.
Today, Gemma says she is finally beginning to move forward.
She hopes other survivors will never blame themselves for crimes committed against them.
“I did not ask for what happened to me. That was not on me. That is completely his responsibility,” she said.
And when asked how she wants James Holder to be remembered, she gave a response that left little room for interpretation.
“As a rapist because that is what he is.”
