Dana says people should not be afraid to challenge those who have ‘status’ if they suspect abuse
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Dana was not believed when she told people in authority that her father was sexually abusing her.
She thinks this is because he was seen as respectable and upstanding in the local community.
Dana grew up in the 1960s and 70s. She describes her family life as ‘fractured’ as both her parents had children from previous relationships. They did not take good care of any of their children.
Her father was a military man who was extremely strict and controlling. Dana says he took no notice of her until she was about seven years old, when she moved into a bedroom of her own. He began coming into her room at night. She wasn’t allowed a light, but she could hear him standing there breathing.
After this, her father began undressing her, and touching her. He first raped her when she was eight years old. This continued happening a few times each week. Dana says that her mother was often out of the house at work when the abuse took place.
During the time he was abusing her, Dana’s father used manipulation and tactics to ensure the rest of the family mistrusted her – such as stealing possessions from them and blaming Dana. Dana says this worked and the other family members thought she was ‘a bad child’.
Her father was also violent towards her mother and her sibling. Dana would sometimes step in and take the blame for things to protect her sibling from being beaten.
Sometimes Dana’s father would follow her on her way to school and take her back to the house to abuse her. When she was questioned about her absences, Dana told a teacher that her dad was taking her back home and what he was doing. She says she didn’t have the words or the knowledge to say he was sexually abusing her, so she described it, but the teacher took no action.
She feels the teacher didn’t believe her because her father was seen as an ‘upstanding’ member of the community. He had been in the army and was on the local council, and Dana was always well dressed.
When Dana was about 11 or 12, her father took her to the police station and told them she had been stealing. After this she was allocated a social worker and a probation officer. Some time later, she told her social worker about her father’s behaviour but he did not react.
Dana ran away from home when she was in her mid teens and got a job and a flat, but the police traced her and turned up. In the police station she told her mother why she had run away, in front of a police officer, but they still sent her home with her mother.
Dana’s mother denied knowing that her husband had been sexually abusing Dana, and her reaction was ‘cold’. Only Dana’s probation officer did anything to help – he arranged a foster placement for her.
Dana says the abuse she suffered ‘ruined my life’. She lives with constant self-doubt. She blames herself for the abuse, and says ‘You beat yourself up more than anyone else can’.
She finds it hard to trust people and form relationships, and she has no trust in authorities.
Dana would like people to make time to listen when children want to speak. She says ‘Children must not be put off and told to wait for an appointment time’.
She feels that people who work in schools and youth settings must be alert to the possibility that children who appear to be fine may be being abused. She adds that authorities should be careful not to let deference to hierarchy and power stop them from asking questions.
Although her father told her she would ‘amount to nothing’, Dana gained vocational qualifications and has a career that she loves.