Olivar says ‘What a traumatic long-term effect these things have – I’ve thought about it for over 50 years’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Olivar describes a distant relationship with his parents when he was a child.
He says ‘I think I was an obvious person for a child abuser to pick on’.
Olivar was sent to boarding school in the UK, and for a time, his parents only came to see him every two years.
He was sexually abused by a teacher, Mr Jones, who he describes as ‘an extremely accomplished groomer’. Olivar says ‘I was lonely in a bleak environment, so someone treating you as special, giving you cakes and presents, expressing liking for you, then love, was really potent’.
Olivar adds that Mr Jones was considered to be a good teacher. Mr Jones also ran after-school activities, and this gave him more opportunities to sexually abuse pupils.
The first incident Olivar remembers occurred when he was pre teen. He was wearing shorts, and Mr Jones sat next to him in class and put his hand on Olivar’s thigh. ‘He didn’t conceal what he was doing, and the other boys laughed, which made me feel it was normal’ recalls Olivar.
The abuse escalated and became a regular occurrence. Mr Jones touched Olivar’s penis and would masturbate him. Olivar describes the confusion he felt as a pre teen boy. He describes feeling obligated to seem to be enjoying the abuse to please Mr Jones. He remembers feeling shame that he did enjoy the sensations, but also thinking that nothing in life would ever be the same for him.
The abuse made Olivar feel isolated from the other boys, which added to his loneliness and made it more important to him to be ‘special’ to Mr Jones. Mr Jones once tried to anally rape Olivar, but stopped when Olivar resisted.
Mr Jones was married with children, and he sometimes invited Olivar to his house.
Olivar says ‘He seemed to want to befriend my parents – he invited them for dinner’. He adds that his father questioned him about Mr Jones and the amount of time he spent with the teacher, and once commented ‘It’s not healthy’. But Olivar didn’t want to have a conversation about it.
He believes that several members of staff at the boarding school knew what was happening. He overheard concerned-sounding conversations about the amount of time he spent with Mr Jones, but he says, looking back, he can see that the headteacher was ‘weak and ineffective’.
Olivar adds that when he was pre teen he went to see a member of staff because he was worried he had a sexually transmitted infection. The doctor said this couldn’t be the case, as Olivar would not have had sex.
When Olivar said that he had, the doctor said ‘Poor you’. Olivar says ‘He sounded genuinely sorry, but nothing happened’.
Later, Olivar moved to another school, and he told a member of staff about the sexual abuse he had been subjected to. Soon after, Mr Jones and the headteacher were sacked from their posts at the boarding school. No one spoke to Olivar about this, or his disclosure.
Olivar went on to university, but found it difficult. At one point, he approached a counselling service, but was unable to talk about the abuse.
After he got married, his wife encouraged him to have counselling. He says this has helped him to see that the man who manipulated and abused him, and seemed to have ‘nerves of steel’, was in fact ‘weak, confused and childish’.
However, Olivar still struggles with significant impacts from the abuse that occurred more than 50 years ago. He describes feeling that he was corrupted, and also shame that he was somehow complicit, even though he was a child being sexually abused by an adult man.
He says ‘If I’d been raped it would have been horrible, but I wouldn’t have to worry about whether I was colluding … I’m tired of feeling guilty about it’.
Olivar says he has spent a lot of his life wanting to be ‘invisible’ and doesn’t even like seeing his reflection in mirrors. This has affected his working life and he feels he has underachieved.
He feels unable to stand up for himself, has low self-esteem and suffers with depression. He has difficulties with relationships and intimacy. He says ‘I am in the habit of dealing with everything on my own, but I think life would be more pleasant with more sharing’. He adds that recently he has talked to friends about his experiences.
Olivar feels he was badly let down by people in positions of authority in his school who knew Mr Jones was an abuser. He says ‘The people who failed me were just inadequate, they didn’t get it and they couldn’t be bothered’.
He strongly believes that without strong, effective leadership that looks beyond the needs of organisations, abuse will go on occurring. He adds that help and support should be available to victims and survivors as soon as they need it.
Despite the challenges he faces, Olivar says ‘It’s not to say life has been all miserable. I feel pride in the fact that I’m still standing, having been dealt a bad hand’.