Sally-Ann says ‘I think the social workers just wanted to put a tick in the box’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Sally-Ann was sexually abused for several years by her older brother.
She was forced to leave home as a teenager and found it very difficult to access support.
Sally-Ann was the youngest in her family. She describes herself as a quiet, withdrawn child who was bullied a lot. Her brother began sexually abusing her when she was about five years old; she has few memories of life before that.
She explains that she did not realise that what he was doing to her was wrong until she was 11 and had her first sex education lesson. A couple of years later, she confided in a friend about the abuse.
Soon after, two social workers arrived at Sally-Ann’s home. Sally-Ann did not know this, but her friend had reported their conversation to a teacher.
The social workers had a private conversation with her parents, then told Sally-Ann they were aware of what she had said and that they would be investigating it.
They returned the following day and interviewed Sally-Ann at home, without her parents present. She says she told them she did not want her brother to be arrested as she was worried that this would tear her family apart.
But her brother was arrested and the police brought him back to the family home to collect some belongings. She was in the house when this happened. While he was there, her parents said to her it was ‘okay’ if she was lying and she ‘could take it all back’. She remembers feeling that she was being called a liar.
After his bail hearing, Sally-Ann’s brother was allowed to return to the family home. Later, the police said there was not enough evidence to proceed with the case. She relates ‘The next thing I know he is not being charged with anything … the case is closed and I just have to go back to my life with him in that house’.
Sally-Ann says she felt under a lot of pressure to take back what she had reported; she felt it was the right thing to do because it was what her parents wanted.
By this time her relationship with her parents was very strained; they often told her they thought she was a liar. When she was 15, she was ‘kicked out of home’.
Sally-Ann approached social services but they said they could not help because she was so close to her 16th birthday.
But she was still too young to use adult services, so she spent the remaining months before she turned 16 ‘sofa surfing’. Her GP referred her for mental health support, but again, she was caught between children’s and adult services.
Sally-Ann still feels very affected by the abuse. She finds it hard to trust people and make friends; she feels ‘paranoid’ in big groups. She has misused drugs, has low self-esteem and feels she doesn't like herself. She says she is afraid of having children. Her family relations are difficult and her parents still call her a liar.
She feels she was badly let down and ‘written off’ by social services and the police. She describes feeling that ‘they came into my house, dropped a bomb and walked away’. She had no follow-up support from social services after her brother’s arrest and the dropping of the case.
Sally-Ann feels this lack of interest continued as she tried to access support services.
She makes a number of suggestions about how social workers and police should work with and support child victims of sexual abuse. These include not interviewing children at home, but in a ‘neutral’ place, not allowing the perpetrator to be in the house with the victim, and keeping victims well-informed at all stages.
She is also very concerned about the gap between children’s and adult services, and the difficulty many people experience getting sufficient therapy
Sally-Ann says she sometimes wonders if it would have been easier to agree her disclosure was a lie – at least then she would have a relationship with her parents now. She adds that she has a supportive partner and friends, and has since accessed therapy that has been helpful.