Alun says the therapy he received in prison ‘turned everything around for me’
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When Alun was being abused as a child, he tried to ask adults for help.
It was only when he was sent to prison that he got the support he needed.
Alun had a difficult childhood growing up in the 1970s. His father worked long hours and his mother physically abused him.
When he was six years old, his grandfather and step grandmother sexually abused him on a family holiday. They carried on abusing him until he was 11.
Alun developed behavioural problems and was prescribed medication by a doctor. In his early teens, he was sent to a special school. There he was sexually abused and raped by a teacher, who used drugs and alcohol to groom him.
His behaviour deteriorated, and became even worse after his father died. He was expelled from school, developed addiction problems and became homeless.
While Alun was serving a prison sentence, he received help and support. He says ‘I met some of the best people in my life there … they helped me to look at myself, the abuse, how I felt about it’.
He has not abused drugs since he was released but he says he is still dependent on prescription drugs to get him through the day.
While he was serving his sentence, Alun reported the sexual abuse he experienced to the police, but was told that the perpetrators were either dead, or could not be traced.
Alun says that as a child, he tried to talk to adults about how unhappy he was, but they did not seem to listen and nothing was ever done to help. ‘I was seen as “a bad boy” and largely ignored’ he says.
He wants to emphasise that every child is special and each one must be listened to.
Alun says that the abuse he suffered affected his life ‘in that I never thought about relationships or having a family and I never thought of the future’. But he adds, ‘I used to think I wanted to die but now I want to live’.