Laura says ‘It is humanising to go through therapy and see others who have been through so much’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When Laura reached puberty, her stepfather began preying on her and sexually abusing her.
The police saw images of her on his computer, but she was too scared to say what he had done, and he was allowed back home.
Laura was very young when her parents split up but she has happy memories of being looked after by her grandmother. She says it was ‘the best time for me; the best of my childhood’.
When she was about 11, her mother met a new partner, Benjimin. She says that because her mother was happy, she was happy. She adds ‘Everyone said how fun he was … and he was, initially’.
When her mother became pregnant, Laura was excited. But she was sad when they moved away from her grandmother and after the baby was born she started to feel ‘pushed out’ and not part of the new family unit. But she wanted to help with the baby, so she made an effort to be mature.
Laura says she hit puberty quite early and when this happened ‘things got weird’. Benjimin started to point out her developing breasts and made jokes about her in front of other people. Laura did not want to cause a rift between him and her mother, and she was not sure if she was being ‘over-sensitive’ so she did not say anything.
Benjimin started filming her and her friends, which she found very embarrassing. At one of her teenage birthday parties, Laura wore a fashionable outfit and Benjimin filmed her, focusing only on her breasts. Her mother saw the video and simply commented it was ‘a bit weird’. As she grew older, the inappropriate comments from Benjimin became more and more frequent and he also began sending her sexualised texts.
Laura says she did not want to appear sexual in any way. ‘I didn’t want to develop into a woman.’
She had always worked hard and done well at school, but her behaviour changed and she became angry and frustrated. Laura’s grandad asked her if she had any problems with Benjimin but she denied it. ‘I wanted to deal with it’ she says. She tried to call Childline a couple of times, but couldn’t get through, and was frightened the number would show up on the phone bill.
Laura remembers one occasion when she and a friend wanted to go on an outing, but Benjimin said he would only allow it if he could ‘grope’ her. For weeks she said no, but finally under pressure from her friend, she agreed and Benjimin abused her.
Laura’s mother started to become suspicious of Benjimin spending hours on his computer at night. She asked Laura to look at it, and Laura found a file containing photos of her, and also a film he had taken of her in the shower. She says ‘Mum was freaking out, she couldn’t believe her eyes’.
Laura’s mother confronted Benjimin, and he became very angry with Laura and stormed out. But, she says, ‘he manipulated his way back’. He made an excuse about the film, pretending it was innocent.
Laura says ‘I couldn’t understand how anyone believed him’. But then, a family friend reported ‘some oddness’ about Benjimin to the police. The first Laura knew of this was when she was pulled out of class and sent to a room where she was questioned by the police. Shocked and embarrassed, she denied Benjimin had done anything.
But the police also interviewed her mother, who told them about the video of Laura, and the police took Benjimin’s computer away. They interviewed Benjimin and social services became involved and tried to persuade Laura to say what had happened.
But she did not want everyone finding out; her family had made her feel it was her fault, and she says ‘I just wanted to be normal, go back to school and have friends’.
Benjimin was allowed back into the house and Laura says that as she grew older he began to lose interest in her.
She says she didn’t think about what happened to her for a long time because she didn’t want ‘to look vulnerable’, but recently events in her life ‘brought it all back’. The abuse has had a huge impact on her emotionally and sexually, and she has often felt sad and angry.
Laura has received specialist counselling and attended a course with other victims and survivors. She feels it is ‘best to be in a group where people understand you completely’.
She thinks it is important to educate children when they are young about what is right and wrong, and then as they reach puberty, issues about consent should be discussed.