Felix says 'You're like a little child crying out in the wilderness and nobody's listening'
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Felix was sexually abused by a church chorister when he was a child.
He finds it very hard to come to terms with the fact that for many decades, the half an hour of abuse that was inflicted on him has had a lasting impact on his life.
Felix grew up in the 1950s and 60s. He sang in his local church choir and cycled to attend practice three or four times a week.
The choir consisted of about 20 boys aged between 8 and 12, and about 20 adult males.
One evening after practice one of the adults, Walt, who was in his mid-20s, approached Felix outside the church. Felix says Walt ‘somehow inveigled’ him to get into his car. He says that even so many years later ‘I can see it happening … the colour and make of the car’.
As Walt drove he started talking about sex. He stopped in a remote country lane and began to masturbate Felix. He made the boy do the same to him. Felix was 12 years old.
Felix’s friends noticed he did not cycle home with them, and he thinks one of them mentioned something to the choirmaster, who questioned Felix a couple of days later.
He says it was very embarrassing for him, but he gave details of what had happened.
Later, the choirmaster and the vicar told Felix that they had asked Walt not to sing in the choir for three months.
Felix says that looking back, it was ‘culprit protection as opposed to victim protection’. The two clergymen did not mention the abuse to Felix’s parents. Walt was still allowed to ring the church bells, and so Felix had to see him at church which he found very difficult. He remembers that he felt ‘dirty and unclean’.
About a year or so later, Felix’s parents warned him about men who ‘do awful things’. Felix said he knew all about that. He says the response from his parents was ‘very sterile’ and they sent him to be examined by a doctor.
The GP performed an intimate examination of Felix. He thinks the doctor suspected that ‘buggery had taken place, which it hadn’t’. The GP took no further action and his parents didn’t follow the matter up.
Some time after this, while he was still a minor, Felix contacted the police about the abuse, but, he says, they did nothing.
Felix says the impact on him of being abused was, and still is, ‘massive’. As an adult, he struggled with his sexuality and the feeling that he could not meet ‘normal’ expectations of getting a job and a girlfriend.
At times he has rung helplines, crying down the phone. In his 40s, he suffered a breakdown and was diagnosed with depression.
Felix married, and he and his wife had counselling together. He feels this helped to an extent but says ‘the abuse got in the way’ and they are now divorced.
He tried again to get the police to investigate the abuse, but without success. He contacted the diocese in which the abuse took place, and after some time, he says, ‘they are beginning to respond’. The church referred Felix’s allegations to the local police, and Felix has been interviewed.
The police located Walt but he has denied the abuse. The investigation is continuing, but Felix is not optimistic it will result in a conviction.
Felix feels that it is his word against Walt’s and that the criminal justice system should have more sympathy towards the victims of abuse, instead of protecting the perpetrators.
He feels a lot of anger at the ‘empty promises and platitudes’ made by the Church of England about child sexual abuse. He feels let down by the doctor who examined him, by the police he reported the abuse to as a youngster, who sent him off ‘with a flea in my ear’, and also by his parents.
The church did not offer any assistance or support to Felix, and he feels they should be under a duty to assist him and other survivors of child sexual abuse that occurred within the church. Instead of ‘clinical emails’, he says he would have appreciated an offer of counselling.
Felix firmly believes that specialist counselling can help survivors of abuse.