Feeling she will not be believed has been a recurring theme in Angharad’s life
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Angharad was sexually abused in the home of a neighbour when she was a small child. She spoke about the abuse but her father did not believe her and a police investigation did not proceed.
This experience left her feeling there was no point reporting the further abuse that she was subjected to in her pre-teen years, and that she was to blame for it.
Angharad grew up with her parents and siblings. She describes her father as the ‘king of the castle’. He used to tell her mother that she would never get anyone better than him who would take on the children.
While Angharad’s mother was at work, a couple who were friends of the family would babysit her at their house. She remembers being taken upstairs by the husband and laid on the bed. He rubbed his genitals on hers and fondled her.
She says she knew she ‘didn’t like it … it didn’t feel right’.
The abuse occurred just after Angharad had started primary school and she thinks it went on over about four or five weeks. The man’s wife was usually out when it happened, but she strongly suspects the wife knew of the abuse.
She remembers telling her mother that she did not want to go to the couple’s house but her mother said she had to go. She recalls asking the couple if she could go to see her mother at work, but they told her that her mother was too busy and did not care about her.
She says this made her feel she could not tell her mother what had happened, but she did tell her older sibling who immediately alerted their mother.
She recalls being interviewed by the police and feeling embarrassed. She is aware the investigation did not proceed and feels she was not believed. She thinks her school was aware of the abuse because of the police involvement and the time she was away, but she cannot remember getting any support.
Angharad refers to a second experience of sexual abuse when she was a pre-teenager. She and a male a few years older than her had sexual intercourse on several occasions. She describes one of these as ‘rape’.
Angharad suffered an attempted incident of sexual abuse when she was a young teenager, by her father’s friend. After an evening in the pub, the friend came home with them. She says he obviously had intentions of inappropriate behaviour, and that her father threw him out of the house.
Years later, when Angharad was at college, a fellow student told her about being sexually abused by her father. Other students there did not believe this account, but Angharad did. She says at this point it hit her what had happened to her as a young child and she had a mental breakdown.
Angharad has experienced guilt, shame and depression and made suicide attempts. She says that growing up, she felt ‘that’s what men were going to do … [was] abuse me for sex’.
In her young adulthood she consumed a lot of alcohol and had casual sexual encounters with males, as she felt this enabled her to be ‘in control’.
Repeatedly feeling she is not believed has affected Angharad throughout her life. She recalls when she was a teenager approaching some parents who were allowing their child to be babysat by her abuser. She warned them about what happened to her, but they did not believe her.
She feels hurt that she has found out from her mum that her father did not believe that she had been abused. In recent years, she has severed contact with her father. She says ‘I don’t need him in my life ... he’s not ever been beneficial’.
She did not tell anyone about the second episode of abuse until she was an adult as she felt ashamed, and also that she would not be believed. She has since told family members but they were unsupportive.
Angharad has now escaped her marriage, which was abusive. She describes herself as being over-protective of her children.
She hopes that talking to the Truth Project will help keep other children safe in future. She feels strongly that children should be believed when they report abuse, and that even if cases don’t proceed, they should be offered therapy and support.
She would like to have therapy herself now and wants to ‘move forward and try to rebuild who I am’.