The man who abused Louie claimed that the boy’s parents had asked him to do it
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Louie was sexually abused by a ‘respectable’ man who was trusted by his relatives.
It was years before Louie told anyone, and he worries that the abuser may have targeted other children.
When he was a child, Louie used to go and stay with a cousin, Charlie, and his family. A Sunday school teacher, Mr A, was a regular visitor at his relatives’ house.
Louie remembers one occasion, when he was about eight or nine years old, when his cousin seemed very anxious about Mr A coming to take them out.
The man took the boys for a walk on a nearby common. As they approached a toilet block, Mr A told Louie to wait outside to ‘keep watch’ and not allow anyone to go in. He took Charlie inside.
Afterwards, his cousin would not tell Louie what had happened.
Some time after this, Louie was sexually abused by Mr A. The man took him to a flat, telling him that he would find out that what he did to Louie’s cousin was ‘not too bad’. Louie explains that the abuse involved masturbation. He feels unable to describe what happened next but says that he was in so much pain afterwards that he could not sit down properly for days.
Mr A claimed that Louie’s parents had asked him to sexually abuse their son, because he had been ‘naughty’. He made the same claim about Charlie’s parents. Louie says this made him very distrustful of his parents, and describes feeling a ‘heavy burden of hiding the abuse’.
Some time after, Louie spoke to Charlie about what had happened. Charlie disclosed that Mr A had been sexually abusing him on a regular basis over many years.
Louie’s behaviour in school changed and he distanced himself from his friends. When he went to secondary school, he went through a stage of bullying others. This was out of character for him, but he felt it was a way of protecting himself.
Recently he decided to report the sexual abuse to the police, but he worries that this may have an impact on his cousin. His parents now know that he was sexually abused, and they find it hard to accept that they missed the signs.
Louie is frequently triggered and experiences frightening flashbacks of the abuse. He has difficulty trusting people, which often makes him feel very isolated. He has struggled with guilt that Mr A may have abused others.
Louie highlights the need for teachers to pick up on possible indicators of abuse, such as changes in behaviour, and the importance of giving children opportunities to talk in a safe space.
He would like to see a national campaign to raise awareness of the signs of abuse and educate people about its impact on adult life. He thinks that well-known people speaking out about their experiences would help encourage others to disclose their abuse.