True story of assualt.. HELP!!

Hello readers, so many times the case of abuse have been ignored or overlooked by both the public and parents. This is a story of a grown woman who recalls the humiliation she faced. As you read, you would see reasons to listen to your children or wards. Most times they hide certain things because they feel you won't protect them. But it is the work of the adults around to protect these little ones and show love.

By the time she was 12, Rachael*, now 44, had been sexually abused repeatedly by two men. But when she tried to tell her parents, they didn’t believe her. Here she tells her shocking story.

I'm the youngest of four children and I was always ‘Daddy’s special girl’. There’s a six-year gap between me and my brother Robert, who is number three, so I really was the baby. My late father was a sergeant in the RAF. He was a drinker who didn’t contribute to the housekeeping, a very angry man who beat me for misdemeanours such as wandering outside my designated play area, and he regularly hit my mum. But I loved him in spite of everything. When he wasn’t around, I used to pine for him. He was the only one who ever bought me sweets. Dad could be very caring and loving, but he was unpredictable.

I felt isolated and lonely as a child. My eldest sister was meant to look after me when Mum was working, but she often went out and left me alone. One morning, I went for a walk and got lost. My sisters found me and brought me home and, knowing Dad would beat me, they dressed me up in lots of thick knickers and trousers so I wouldn’t feel the blows. I was only five. Sometimes I had to stay off school because of the bruises.

I was six when it happened for the first time. I’d gone out on my sister’s bike – she was meant to be watching me as Mum was at work. As I cycled around strange streets, I heard the sound of puppies yelping coming from a house by a big green. I stopped in the hope that I’d catch a glimpse of them, and as I went over to the fence I saw these little black balls of fluff in the front garden, and then a man appeared and asked me if I’d like to see them. I said yes. I’d never seen him before but he asked me where my dad was. His message was clear: ‘I know you.’ He said I couldn’t tell anyone I’d been inside his house, and then he started tickling and touching me. Eventually he took me upstairs and lay on top of me.

‘I’ve tried to block the abuse out of my head, but with the Jimmy Savile revelations it has all come flooding back’

I was so frightened because I couldn’t breathe. Afterwards he kept saying, ‘Don’t tell anyone – it’s only fun.’ Then he cuddled me and said, ‘We’re friends now,’ and I promised to go back to see the puppies. I didn’t understand what had happened. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t tell anyone because I’d have been beaten for straying from my boundary.

My parents split up when I was seven. Mum moved in with a friend and Dad with his new girlfriend Jean, who later became my stepmother. I loathed her, but I wanted to be with Dad, so Mum agreed and Dad was given custody of me while my two sisters and my brother went to live with Mum. Dad had retired from the RAF by this time, having won a lot of bravery medals for his work as a fireman. We had a social worker who used to visit us – every ‘broken home’ had one in those days – and Jean was sweetness and light when they came, but utterly vile to me normally. She and Dad argued constantly. She told him regularly that he didn’t discipline me enough, so I’d get a beating just to appease her. I ran away more and more, sometimes to Mum’s, but I’d always get taken back. I became naughty at school because it was the only place I could express the burning anger inside me. I didn’t do any of my schoolwork, which I now regret because I was bright and a quick learner. Dad and Jean drank a lot and we all went to the British Legion club every night in the Midlands town where we lived. I made a friend called Diane who was a year older than me and was also from a broken home.

A close friend of Dad’s who came to the club on Saturdays started walking home with us, and he used to put his arm round my waist when we were going up the hill. I was ten, skinny and not confident. He was about 40 and smelled of beer and cigarettes. Over the weeks, his hands gradually moved to my bottom, but it was so subtle, such a slow process, that by the time I realised what was happening I felt awkward and couldn’t complain, even though I knew it wasn’t right. I remember he came to the swings where we played, calling us his ‘favourite girls’. He touched our bottoms and Diane laughed. Diane kept saying, ‘Come on Rachael, it’s funny,’ but I didn’t think it was funny. Things progressed from there. He encouraged us to sit on his lap in the billiard room at the club, one girl on each knee, and his touching became more and more intimate. As Dad’s close friend he was well protected and I think he knew we’d never tell. He had such power and I was very scared of him. There were usually others in the room, and whenever I got up to move away from him my knickers twanged where he’d had his hand inside them, and it sounded so loud I remember thinking, ‘Everyone heard that,’ but no one ever said anything. Dad was too busy drinking at the bar or arguing with Jean to notice where I was. This man asked me to wears skirts, and I begged Mum to buy me jeans to protect myself, but I couldn’t explain why I needed them so I never got any. I hated it, but I didn’t know how to make it stop. I used to run away and once slept on a slide in a playground. Another time the police found me wandering alone on a motorway.


She told me not to tell lies about Dad’s friends, and then told Dad. He got very angry, so I never told anyone again. The abuse by Dad’s friend at the Legion got worse. I was never raped, but I was seriously sexually assaulted, and he kept saying, ‘One day you’ll be mine.’ When I was almost 13, I convinced Dad I was an adult so I wouldn’t have to go to the Legion any more. On the odd occasion when I was forced to go, I said ‘no’ to this man and he stopped, but he’d got away with it for three years. I was so traumatised, I wet the bed until I was 18. The awful thing about sexual abuse is that victims feel it is their fault. You ask, ‘Why me? I must have done something to encourage it, because it’s not happening to other girls.’

I know, rationally, that none of it was my fault, but another voice inside me still says, ‘You should never have gone to that house to see the puppies,’ and, ‘You shouldn’t have sat on his lap,’ and, ‘How did you allow that to happen?’ There is a lot of shame and stigma attached to sexual abuse, so I’ve never told anyone, apart from Mum a few years ago. She cried and said sending me to live with Dad was the biggest regret of her life. I haven’t told my two children. I don’t want anyone’s pity. I’ve been married twice, but I find it very hard to trust men. I am very needy and my self-esteem is low. I’m not good at opening up and confiding in people, and I know I try far too hard to please, not just men but at work and with friends.

I wish I could be stronger, different. I still feel dirty after all these years. I’ve tried to block the abuse out of my head, but with the Jimmy Savile revelations it has all come flooding back. I keep thinking about the thousands of young girls who are still being abused and who never speak out. And the ones who tried to tell people in authority what was happening but, like me, weren’t believed. I feel sick now that I allowed my abusers to get away with what they did. A large part of why I didn’t tell a teacher or someone else in authority was that I was from such a chaotic background and always wanted everyone to think I was from a normal, loving family.

I received little love as a child, and that’s a hard thing to acknowledge. It made it very easy for my abusers to move in on me. If someone says something vaguely critical, I take it to heart. I have never, ever felt safe or secure, and never felt needed by anyone apart from my children.

The sad and unfortunate truth, which I hate with all my heart to acknowledge, is that I felt needed by my second abuser. He gave me the attention I craved. His motives were abhorrent, but I didn’t know that at first and by the time I did, I was trapped. This is how sexual abuse happens.