The man who sexually abused Erik ‘was so good at getting inside my head that I still believe it was my fault’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
The man who repeatedly raped Erik gave him money and manipulated him into believing he was responsible for the abuse.
Decades later, Erik is still affected by this and says ‘I keep asking, why did I not run, why did I allow it?’
Erik grew up in the 1970s and 80s. He says his parents ‘didn’t do emotions’ but stresses that they were good people who he could rely on.
The man who sexually abused him was a neighbour called Joe. He was in his 60s, and was a member of the Salvation Army. Joe would often be outside leaning over the garden wall as Erik went past. One day, he gave Erik a comic.
Erik says ‘I was very innocent and thought nothing of it ... I took it and said thanks’. Over the following weeks, Joe gave him more comics. After a while, Joe told Erik he had some sweets in his bedroom for him.
Erik says that again, he ‘didn’t think anything of it … back then these concepts of grooming and paedophiles didn’t exist’. He went into Joe’s house and up to his room, where he saw a collection of ‘adult magazines’ laid out on the bed. As a boy of about 12, Erik was curious, and the two of them looked through the magazines.
Joe continued this grooming over the next few weeks, until one occasion when he offered Erik money to show his penis. Joe started touching Erik, and gave him more money. Erik says he now knows he should have run, but he didn’t understand the implications of what was happening.
This abuse continued for about six months. Then when Erik was 13, Joe made him turn over, pushed his head down and anally raped him. Afterwards, Joe said ‘that was fun’, but Erik, shocked and in severe pain, said he didn’t want to do that again.
Joe told him he had to do it again, because ‘I’ve written down how much money I’ve given you’ and he showed Erik a detailed diary. ‘From then on, I had to go every week because I thought he would tell people’ relates Erik. He describes how he would feel sick, having to go to Joe’s house.
Erik adds that by this time, as well as hating the abuse, he understood it was very wrong, but he felt it was his fault and he would be blamed. Joe continued raping him for about a year, until someone mentioned to Erik’s father that his son was going into Joe’s house.
Erik’s father confronted Joe. His parents did not discuss it with him, so Erik’s recollections of what happened next are incomplete, but he remembers being in a police station and being examined. He recalls ‘I felt humiliated … no one was talking to me’. He has no idea if Joe was charged or convicted.
He has since tried to find out what happened, but he never knew Joe’s second name, and his efforts to find information about him from the Salvation Army and the police have not produced anything.
Erik developed an addiction that has had a huge financial impact on his life, but it is under control now. He takes medication for depression. He has had to have surgery because of the physical damage caused by being raped as a child so many times.
He has had therapy, but is still tormented by feelings of shame that he was somehow responsible for the abuse. He understands that Joe manipulated him to think this by giving him money, and he knows that if he heard of this happening to another child, he would never think it was the child’s fault.
But still, he says, ‘It’s haunted me my entire life … I’m trying to change it, but I’ve always thought it’s my fault for allowing it, not his fault for taking advantage’.
Erik has several suggestions to improve the experience of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse. He says that professionals involved in cases should always explain processes and reinforce the message that ‘this is not your fault’.
He says victims and survivors should be provided with appropriate support that they don’t have to pay for, or wait too long for. ‘I was lucky and could afford to pay – lots can’t.'
Erik would like to see a culture created where victims and survivors are not afraid to talk about what has happened to them.
He says ‘I felt dirty and wrong. I’m not sure I would ever have spoken about it and I feel the culture of the day would have seen me as the one who was to blame’.
Erik never told his first wife he had been sexually abused, and the marriage broke up. He is now with a partner who he says gives him all the support he needs. ‘Talking to her is the best therapy for me.’
However, he adds that he knows he is still trying to find some sort of resolution. ‘I wish I had been braver … I can’t get over that it happened.’