Mal says ‘I think a lot of things are moving in the right direction, but we need to keep that up’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Having been sexually abused as a child, Mal went on to build a career in safeguarding.
He has many insights and suggestions on the subject of child sexual abuse, from a personal and professional perspective.
Following a family bereavement, a neighbour, Ray, came to offer condolences to Mal’s mother.
Ray was a recently retired professional who was very involved with the local church and ran activities for young people in the parish.
Mal, who was about 11 years old at the time, describes Ray’s approach at first as ‘old school’. The boys’ and girls’ clubs were separate, with different activities. Ray had a large house and garden, with lots of pets, and he used to invite the boys to his home to play and help out with chores. Mal says he was happy to do this because he loved nature and animals.
After a couple of years, Mal’s mother started socialising and going out more, and he spent more and more time at Ray’s place.
Mal chooses not to go into details about the abuse, but he says that Ray got ‘very hands-on’. Mal says that he occasionally challenged this behaviour, but Ray would say things like ‘This is just what a father figure would do … I’m looking out for you’.
Mal says that the abuse became worse over time. Sometimes he struggled with his school work and Ray started helping him, but would hit him when he made mistakes.
When Mal was 16 he had an argument with Ray about the abuse, and Mal went home and told his mother about it. She called the police and Ray was arrested. He admitted the abuse, but died before the case went to court.
The church said this was a tragedy, and that there was no evidence that Ray had done anything wrong.
Mal left home the following year, and says ‘I got on with my life’. He says he ‘kept things locked in a box’ until his memories of the abuse were stirred up by hearing that another member of the same church had sexually assaulted a young person.
Through his career, Mal has completed a lot of safeguarding training, and he has been in contact with the safeguarding officer who works in the diocese. He has confidence in the commitment and intentions of this person.
Mal says that he is affected by sleep problems and flashbacks; for a few years he was confused about his sexuality and had difficulties with relationships.
He would like primary care health services to be more aware of mental health issues that people experience after traumatic events. The only support he was offered as a 16 year old was a prescription for sleeping tablets from his GP. He says referring people for counselling services may be a cost, but can save a lot more money in the long run.
He would also like to see services better connected, and more funding for secure IT so that notes can be shared, with the right permission. ‘Having to tell the same story again and again is not good for victims and survivors’ he says.
Mal thinks that the church now has more in place to support safeguarding but that there are still some groups reluctant to engage with training. He says this is possibly because youth work is ‘an add-on for the church, not its main business’ as it is for organisations like the Scouts. But he emphasises that the church needs to take a strong stance on safeguarding.
He believes his career has allowed him to ‘turn a negative into a positive’ and says he feels very lucky to have fantastic support from his partner, relatives and work colleagues.