Casualty star Sarah Seggari surprised by ‘special’ reaction to Rida’s sexual assault story

Rida Amaan’s life at work changed last week (Picture: BBC)

Rida Amaan (Sarah Seggari) was sexually assaulted by her work colleague in last week’s episode of Casualty.

The Holby ED nurse ventured upstairs a few weeks ago to work with a highly successful surgeon called Russell Whitelaw (Robert Bathurst). It took her a bit of time to adapt to her new role but eventually, she found her feet and started to learn a great deal from the experience and her new senior.

During a scene that saw the team continue operating on Stevie Nash (Elinor Lawless), Russell came up behind Rida and assaulted her. In the initial aftermath, Rida struggled to do her job in theatre, so much so Russell ended up asking her to leave.

Outside, Rida panicked and broke down.

When I was sixteen, I was sexually assaulted by my work colleague, just like Rida. Watching this nurse immediately know her ordeal needed reporting was hard because when it happened to me, I was so young, and nobody told me being groped wasn’t acceptable.

The latest boxset for the medical drama is called Internal Affairs (Picture: BBC)

The powerful scenes made me feel emotional. While it’s amazing Casualty are shining a light on this, I couldn’t help but feel if 16-year-old Calli watched Rida’s storyline, the aftermath of her situation would’ve played out very differently.

The reaction to the scenes that aired last week and was something Sarah Seggari and I spoke a lot about in our chat. She told me that after Russell assaulted Rida, she took to social media to see what people were saying.

‘The feedback from the audience at the end of that episode, it felt like the females completely understood what had happened and it was like 50/50 with men’, she said.

‘I don’t want to gender specify because I think that’s kind of wrong, but just from a brief view of the audience I think that’s so interesting and what you had was really good discussions.

‘The comments where people who had been through that were trying to explain what that can feel like and how that is an abuse of power, I think that’s really special rather than people just arguing over “I felt this and I felt that.” There was a learning, which I never thought could come as an outcome from that episode. I thought that was really special and beautiful.

Russell came up behind Rida and assaulted her (Picture: BBC)

She added: ‘I also think, because what we filmed was more graphic than that and we tailored it back in the edit, it’s exactly how it would be for anyone. If you had your friend go through it, it would be his version of things and her version of things and you don’t know what actually happened. It’s really cool that Casualty decided to go down that avenue rather than you see it and you know, kind of thing.

‘I think it’s something like one in eight women have been sexually assaulted in the world and that really played in my mind going forward from this ep, that every one in eight women that Rida encounters, or Sarah encounters, in the world will have been through something like that. It shifted my brain into a different way of thinking, I guess.’

Sarah notes that Rida’s assault falls under what is sometimes called the ‘grey zone’. No-one witnessed the assault, only Rida and Russell know exactly what happened. As a result, the character will be left questioning each moment, wondering whether she’s right to speak to someone about Russell.

Rida has been working away from the ED (Picture: BBC)

‘I think it’s important to highlight that somebody who is plus size and a Muslim, can they be believed? Will the general public, population, HR, hierarchy, believe her versus a really good surgeon – a surgeon who everybody would want to do their surgery if they had to have it. Those are massive factors thrown in and the odds don’t look good for her in Rida’s head’.

She highlighted: ‘There’s no rule book. She doesn’t know what should happen. They tell you when you train to be a nurse to speak to your senior, so that’s off the table. Then speak to their senior and that’s HR and you see her battling with ‘They’re not going to believe me and I’m just going to cause trouble.’

‘You see the victim-blaming that goes on: “Maybe I egged it on, maybe I did something to give the wrong clues and the wrong impression to him.” We hear it about girls going to clubs and stuff happening – what were they wearing? Why did they go running at night? You know not to put your headphones in. It’s a very clever, very grey-area situation and a lot of women have unfortunately had to go down that path.’

Rida prepares to report Russell

Rida spends the majority of her shift tonight building up the courage to tell Siobhan (Melanie Hill) about Russell. She is supported by friend and fellow nurse Cam (Barney Walsh), who knows from experience how supportive and understand Siobhan can be.

She will arrive in the office only to find Flynn (Olly Rix) there instead of Siobhan. Flynn explains that Siobhan will return soon, but he has no idea that Rida has spent all day preparing for this exact moment.

‘She doesn’t have a great track record with clinical leads so that really puts her on the back foot’, Sarah explained.

No-one saw Russell assault Rida (Picture: BBC)

‘She’s convinced herself she’s going to tell Siobhan. You know when you plan out the conversation in your head? I think Rida will have done that with Siobhan and planned out, “If she says this I’ll say this. If she goes down this route I’ll tell her this is the truth and this is what happened.” Then the minute she says “Dr Byron,” it throws her for a loop because it’s so embarrassing to tell a guy about something like this. It just is. And then he’s clinical lead.’

Flynn and Russell share a connection already

Rida decides to try an tell Flynn about Russell but as soon as his name is mentioned, the situation changes.

Sarah reflected: ‘Then I think she’s like, “Well I’m here now. I should.” Then he drops the bomb that he is related to Russell and the walls just come up. She’s like, “There you go, he’s going to fire me. They’re all in on it together”. Don’t forget that everything the audience has seen of Flynn, Rida hasn’t. She’s been upstairs. The only thing she did see was him firing her friend Tariq. So she hasn’t seen any of this approachable, lovely guy.

‘She just thinks he’s another Patrick [a former Clinical Lead, played by Jamie Glover], another bad clinical lead and there is no support for her, a nurse.’

Cam has been supportive of Rida (Picture: BBC)

As someone who knows what it’s like to live with the overwhelming emotions after being sexually assaulted by a colleague, and being forced to work with them afterwards, I was intrigued to know what was ahead for Rida, and whether the truth about Russell would ever get exposed.

‘It’s only going to be more explosive. It’s going to have some twists and turns I really don’t think you’ll be expecting. It was a joy to film’, she teased.

‘You’ll see a very different side of Rida that we haven’t seen in the two years she’s been on telly. That was really fun to play.’

Sarah is passionate as she talks about Rida’s story. She knows from research and simply being a woman in 2025 that this sort of thing happens all of the time, and I couldn’t help but thank her for making me and so many other women feel seen.

‘I was really, really honoured to be even given a storyline’, she smiled.

‘Not everyone gets the privilege. I’ve been really lucky that the past two stories I’ve been involved in have been based on true stories. I’m lucky that Rida has only done true stories so I can really dive into the truth of that. The research is easy and accessible.

‘I knew how demanding this would be and how important a story it would be and I wanted to do it justice.

She added: ‘I met a lot of people who were involved in situations like this. Even as we were filming things were coming out in newspapers that were really similar and it just urged me and pushed me and let me have a voice in the rehearsal rooms and in filming, that we were on the right track.

‘It was important to show the shades, the different colours, in these situations and how uncomfortable it can be and how not black and white it is. I think that’s the most interesting thing, when it’s not black and white.’