Mick says ‘I was never seen, never heard. It’s always me who slips through the net’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Mick describes an early life of cruelty, neglect and abuse.
He lives with severe impacts on his mental and emotional health, and says he does not believe in or trust any institutions.
Mick grew up in a large family. He describes a childhood with no love, and severe neglect by his parents. The children were often starving and were sometimes fed by their neighbours. They were rarely sent to school and could hardly read or write. Instead they had to do manual labour with their father.
When he was 11 years old, Mick was sent to an optician’s appointment alone. The optician gave him a glass of water, which made him feel dizzy and sick. The next thing Mick knew he was lying face down on the floor, feeling excruciating pain as the optician raped him.
Afterwards, the optician said ‘It’s your own fault, you’re so beautiful’.
Mick remembers struggling to get out of the door. He staggered out and was being sick in a park when a man hit him and called him ‘disgusting’. Then a couple helped him. He tried to wash himself in a river to get the blood off and ease the pain.
Back home Mick could not tell anyone what had happened. But he remembers feeling that everyone knew and says he still feels this way today.
In his mid-20s, Mick was arrested for theft. He told the police about the rape, and the senior officer asked him why he had not run away. He taunted Mick that he would be raped again in prison if he was convicted.
When he mentioned it to another police officer, the officer responded that it was a long time ago.
Mick discovered later that the optician was already known to the police for engaging in sexual acts in public.
Even though he was obviously malnourished and his attendance was very poor, no one at Mick’s school apparently raised any concerns. He recalls a school report where one teacher asked who he was, as he never saw him.
Mick describes the rape as life-changing. He says the rapist ‘murdered me that day’. He has been in prison, struggled with alcohol abuse and attempted to take his own life several times. He has never been able to hold down a relationship. ‘I’m worthless, I’m no good to anybody’ he says.
He adds ‘It’s very painful … sometimes I cry myself to sleep. There isn’t a day goes by that I don’t think about it’.
Mick is adamant that children should never be left alone with adults during any appointments. He also feels very strongly that the justice system is too lenient on perpetrators of child sexual abuse, and that sentences should be longer.
While he was in prison, he attended classes and learned to read and write.