Rose

Rose was brought up in a children’s home from a young age. When a kind and protective staff member left, she was left vulnerable to a sexual predator.

When a new manager, Walter, arrived from another home to take over, she remembers somebody saying ‘he plays about with the children’, but she didn’t understand what it meant.

A nurse who had worked with Walter before moved to the home with him. Rose describes her as lovely lady who was there when they got back from school and told the children to talk to her about any problems they had.

One night, Walter put the girls to bed, which felt alien to Rose as they had never been looked after by a male member of staff before. She questioned why he would put them to bed when there were female members of staff available. She didn’t like it and told the nurse.

She also talked to the nurse about the first time Walter abused her. She was in the garden and Walter tried to kiss and touch her.

Later, the nurse went to check on the dormitory after bed time and caught Walter there with the girls. Rose thought that action would be taken but she found the nurse packing her bags and believes she was sacked.

Rose recalls that Walter would invade the children’s privacy by entering the bathrooms. She spoke to an adult at the home about the abuse, who said that because Rose had no family, she didn’t know what affection was and that was all Walter was showing.

Rose thought that there was no point speaking to her again as it would go no further. She believes she was one of the first children in the home to be abused, and thinks she was targeted as she had no family.

Rose did not tell anyone in school again about the abuse, as nothing had happened when she had tried to report it previously.

When an official visit was due, Walter took Rose aside and said that if she told anyone about the abuse, nobody would believe her. He later moved Rose to another home out of the area and told her to make a fresh start with new friends.

She says she never mentioned the abuse but one of the members of staff said ‘We know that you are a troublemaker and we have been told not to listen to your lies.’

Three years after she left the home, Walter’s abuse of other children was discovered when another family reported it to the police. Rose is unclear whether the police took action but thinks that Walter was removed from the home.

After this incident, someone from the home came to see Rose and she told them all about her abuse, but she is not aware that anything happened after this.

Rose explains that as an adult she met the children’s home provider to talk about the abuse. They did apologise, but she thinks it was too little and too late.

They never acknowledged that there was a problem in the home that Walter moved from, and when Rose got her file from the provider, documents relating to the years when Walter was in the children’s home were missing.

Rose says she has made complaints to the police, but the police have not done anything. She feels she needs ‘closure’ and a police investigation would provide that.

Rose has tried to go to court several times for civil compensation, but the rules governing criminal injury compensation have until now stopped her moving forward. She continues to fight to get justice through the courts for her and the other children in the home.