A ‘respectable’ man used his wealth and status to insinuate himself into Bradley’s family
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Bradley explains that his family had many reasons to trust the man who abused him. Perciville was a lay preacher with the Church of England and active in local Scouts and community groups. He was also a prosperous businessman who was generous to the hard-up family.
But Perciville began sexually abusing Bradley when he was nine years old, and continued to do so at every opportunity for the following six years.
Bradley grew up in the 1960s and 70s, in a large family that was very involved with the church. He served as an altar boy and he was very keen on sport.
He says that Perciville ingratiated himself with the family so successfully that he was almost part of it. He would take Bradley on fishing trips and other activities, initially in groups, until he ‘whittled’ it down to just Bradley. At Scout jamborees, Perciville would arrange for Bradley to sleep at the end of the communal tent, and come in at night and abuse him.
Bradley thinks the abuse was an ‘open secret’ because Perciville had abused the older brothers of some of the other Scouts. He says ‘I was not the first or the last …’
Perciville had a branch of his business in another county, and during the school holidays he took Bradley to work there, giving him another opportunity to sexually abuse the boy.
Perversely, he threatened that he would tell people what Bradley ‘had done’, and Bradley explains that for him, this would have been ‘the end of the world’. He lived in a very ‘masculine, roughty-toughty’ world, playing rugby and boxing and he did not want his sporting life to be affected.
The abuse stopped when Bradley was 15 years old and his parents walked in and found Perciville abusing their son.
They reported it to the police but Bradley describes the investigation process as ‘brutal’. He recalls some of the comments made by police officers, such as ‘You’re bigger than him … how come you didn’t beat the shit out of him?’
Perciville offered Bradley’s parents money to stop the court proceedings but they refused and he was convicted on Bradley’s evidence. His punishment was community service.
Bradley considers that his life has been affected by the abuse in many ways. He says that at first he channelled a lot of aggression he felt into his sporting activities, but later his anger surfaced in his relationships. He has had failed marriages and found it difficult to maintain long-term relationships due to his behavior and depression. He has misused drugs and alcohol.
His mother was a teenager when she gave birth to him, and she has told him she thinks she was too young to recognise the inappropriateness of Perciville’s close involvement with their family. Bradley has a strained relationship with his parents and feels that the roots of this disharmony lie in the abuse he suffered.
However, he has recently started counselling sessions and says he is now able to discuss his difficulties with people close to him.
Bradley feels strongly that people should always speak up if they have doubts or concerns about child sexual abuse, and that young survivors should be well supported during and after court processes.