Daran says ‘I didn’t have a childhood, I just existed’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Daran was subjected to sadistic sexual abuse over a 10 year period by his mother and a man she was having an extra-marital affair with.
He told three people in authority, but none of them took any action to protect him.
Daran describes his family as ‘well off’, with a nice house and car. As well as working full time, his father did a weekend job as a handyman for a local man called Terry.
His father introduced the family to Terry, who immediately began paying attention to Daran and his mother. Daran remembers Terry would sit on the sofa and put his arms around both of them. This escalated to the man touching Daran on the genitals and making Daran touch him.
Daran says ‘I was scared senseless ... I didn’t know what to do’, but Terry ‘laughed it off as normal’.
He remembers how his mother seemed to change as she spent more time with Terry. Daran began wetting the bed, and she beat him for this.
Daran’s father began a new job which meant that he worked away all week. This allowed Terry to visit every day. He started having a relationship with Daran’s mother and he threatened to kill Daran if he told anyone about this or the abuse.
Over the years, the sexual abuse became worse and more frequent, with Terry masturbating, digitally penetrating and raping Daran. Sometimes his mother watched the abuse and took photographs.
Daran reported the abuse on three occasions. First he spoke to a GP, who had said he did not want to see Daran alone, and then rang his mother. Daran was badly beaten by his mother that night and there was no follow-up by anyone to his disclosure.
When he was about 11, Daran says, he decided he had had enough. He told a police officer about the abuse. But again, his complaint was passed on to his mother, and he was beaten.
The third person Daran reported the abuse to was a teacher at secondary school. But he was let down again – staff in the school office phoned his mother and he received another beating.
After this, Daran decided his only way out was to become strong enough to stop the abuse. He began attending a boxing club, telling his mother he was at another activity. Three years later, he says, he waited for his opportunity and when Terry abused him he ‘beat the crap out of him’.
He recounts that he wanted his mother to call the police, so that ‘everything would come out’, but she refused. He left home and went to live in a bedsit. He has never seen his mother since.
As an adult, Daran says that he has felt worthless, unloved and not believed. The abuse has affected him emotionally and physically. He struggles with an addiction that he says has caused him to do ‘a lot of bad things’.
Daran stresses how important it is to believe children and he says authorities need to be more aware of the impacts of sexual abuse and work to keep children safe.