Collin says ‘As a parent, you have responsibility to be aware and open about child sexual abuse’
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Collin says that as a child, he was quite isolated and fearful of his stepfather.
He thinks this made him vulnerable to grooming and sexual abuse by a sports coach.
Collin’s parents split up when he was very young and his mother remarried. Collin was frightened of his stepfather because he was quite aggressive.
His parents were self-employed and always busy, but they played a racket sport. Collin learned to play and showed talent for the game, and his parents decided to arrange coaching sessions for him.
The coach was a man in his 40s and he taught Collin and a few other boys. Collin says ‘It was all right to start with. I spent a lot of time with him … he almost became a surrogate parent’.
The coach became friendly with Collin’s parents, to the point that he began joining them on family holidays.
Collin was 14 years old when the coach first sexually abused him. The abuse took place in the showers at the sports centre, where the coach would come behind Collin and touch his genitals. He doesn’t know if the coach was sexually abusing the other boys in his group – he says the abuse only happened when he was on his own in the changing rooms.
The abuse took place regularly. Collin says he did not feel he could tell his parents, partly because they were close friends with the coach and also because he was afraid of his stepfather.
He comments about the coach: ‘He didn’t even have to say “Don’t tell your parents” ... he knew I was afraid of my dad’.
When Collin was 17, the coach started letting him drive his car. This gave the man more opportunities to sexually abuse Collin. He says ‘It meant I couldn’t get away from him’.
Collin adds that the coach didn’t do anything ‘worse’ than masturbate him.
The abuse stopped when Collin went to university. He had no more contact with the coach, but some years later he heard that a young boy had made allegations against him, and the coach was sent to prison.
Collin did not tell his parents about the abuse; he has disclosed as an adult but has never reported it to the police.
At the time he was being abused, Collin said he didn’t really understand what was happening. When it began, he had not had any sexual experiences, and it caused him a lot of confusion about his sexuality in later years.
Looking back, he can see how the coach groomed him. He says ‘It was a classic situation – the perpetrator making friends with the parents’. He adds ‘I am a non-confrontational person, so I was probably a classic victim’.
Collin says that more education, awareness and open discussion of child sexual abuse could have helped protect him. ‘Back then I don’t think people knew or talked much about that kind of thing’ he says.
He would like parents to be aware of child sexual abuse issues and the safeguarding checks that need to be carried out on anyone they trust with the care of their child.
Collin has been happily married for more than 20 years and says that for a long time, he didn’t think about the abuse. But more recently it has been on his mind – he thinks partly because he has been under stress and also because there is so much more publicity about child sexual abuse.
But he says ‘I am comfortable in my own skin … I did nothing wrong. I feel good having come along to share it. If it makes a difference to one person, it’s worth it’.