As a young child, Bernard was sure he was being sexually abused because he had done something wrong
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Bernard grew up in the 1960s with his parents, whom he loved and respected.
However, he explains that his mother suffered with poor health and his father was often away. For this reason, he did not feel he could tell them that he was being sexually abused.
Bernard regularly went to meet his friends at the local swimming pool. He explains that nearly every time he went there he used to see a man, whose name he never knew, in the boys’ changing rooms. He would chase the boys around, and if he caught them would bite them on the bottom, ‘making the whole thing into a big game’.
Bernard says he doesn’t know if this man was a member of staff, but he is quite sure that the people who worked at the pool must have known he was in the changing rooms all the time.
The man started targeting his attention onto Bernard, and this led to him taking the boy into a cubicle and sexually assaulting him. Bernard was about eight years old at the time, and he remembers how he found this ‘really unpleasant’. He adds that he kept thinking that he must have done something to provoke the man, but he couldn’t work out what he might have done wrong.
Bernard also enjoyed training at his local football club, but the abuser began to stalk him there too, hanging around in the changing rooms and sexually assaulting him in the same way.
He says that ‘having been a very good boy’ he started misbehaving at that time. He doesn’t remember whether anyone talked to him about why he was doing this. He says that he has problems with his memory and a lot of what happened back then is ‘a bit of a blur’. He wonders if this is because he has blocked out some of what happened.
Bernard went to a very strict Catholic school, and he does remember that their response to his behaviour was to punish him. He says ‘They just saw you as a naughty child who needed to be disciplined’.
He also recalls that he blamed himself for what was happening because it seemed to him he was the only one the abuser picked on. He now thinks it is very unlikely that he was the only child to be abused by this man. He adds that he can’t understand why no one ever challenged the fact that the abuser was constantly in the changing rooms.
Bernard describes the ways that the abuse has affected his life. He says he is ‘massively over-protective’ of his grandchildren, especially when they go swimming. He has mental health issues, including depression, but has not mentioned the abuse to the doctors treating him. He says he would find it ‘too embarrassing and shameful’ to tell them.
It was only recently that Bernard told his wife about the abuse he suffered as a child. She encouraged him to report it to the police. He says that the first officer he saw ‘was completely uninterested … saying it was all too long ago’.
Despite this Bernard persisted, and had a more positive encounter with two other officers. However, they were unable to establish the identity of the unnamed abuser and the investigation did not proceed.
Bernard believes there should be very careful monitoring in public places where children may be vulnerable to abusers.
He says that if sharing his experience with the Truth Project prevents even one person going through what he went through, then it will have been worth it.