Ailish did not want to have a family of her own – she feels it is not possible to protect children
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Ailish grew up in the 1980s in a close-knit community where, she says, ‘People were always in and out of each other’s houses’.
An elderly neighbour took advantage of this trust to sexually abuse her. He said no one would believe her if she told, and sadly this was true.
The neighbour, Bryan, was in his 60s and he and his wife were close friends of Ailish’s family. She called him ‘uncle’ and she liked going round there and walking their dog. He began buying her gifts, and she explains ‘The abuse just snuck in … I didn’t know it was wrong’.
Ailish was in a Catholic primary school when the abuse began. ‘I was too young to know about the birds and the bees’, she says.
Bryan would make her watch pornographic videos and would tell her about ‘disgusting things’ that he had done with women. He told Ailish he wanted her to do those things with him when she was a little bit older.
The abuse escalated, and she says it was unusual if she went round to Bryan’s house and he didn’t touch her. He also took her to places in his van and abused her. He told her that her parents would never believe her if she told them what was happening.
Ailish says she began to distance herself from Bryan when she was a teenager, as she started to realise that what he was doing was wrong.
She disclosed the abuse after she had a minor accident on some apparatus which caused her to bleed in her pelvic area. Her mum saw the blood and asked if she had had sex, or if anyone had done anything to her. This prompted Ailish to tell her mum what had happened.
Ailish was taken to the family GP, the police were contacted and she was examined at a rape centre. Bryan was arrested.
As the criminal proceedings progressed, Ailish says, she changed and became ‘angry beyond belief’. She was asked to describe an intimate feature of Bryan to identify him but her evidence was discredited in court. It was also suggested that because Bryan had a health condition he would not have been strong enough to abuse her.
He was acquitted of the charges and this made her feel even more angry. She found it very difficult to be at school during the trial and her education suffered.
She was referred for counselling, but says ‘It wasn’t like I was going there for being abused … it was like I was going as a naughty child that was telling lies’. The counsellor seemed to be only interested in difficulties in her home life. She became estranged from her mother and went to live with her father.
Ailish feels she was let down by several individuals and institutions. She went through a difficult court case only to see Bryan acquitted. She felt during the trial that no one cared about how the abuse had affected her.
She strongly believes that Bryan’s wife must have known about the abuse but did nothing to prevent it. She feels the counselling she had was ineffective and damaging and tore her family apart. When she requested her medical records she was surprised to find they do not mention the abuse.
She feels that children should be educated from a very early age children about sexual matters and grooming, and be encouraged to tell adults about anything that is happening to them. She would like there to be designated safe spaces and members of staff in schools for this purpose.
Ailish also believes that families should be given more support regarding the impact of child sexual abuse. She emphasises the importance of believing children when they make a disclosure.
Lately, she has achieved success in her working life and feels she has come to terms with the abuse. She concludes, ‘It’s not going to ruin my life, but it ruled me for a very long time without me knowing’.