Selina feels there should be more support available for victims and survivors
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Selina’s family were supportive when she told them she had been sexually abused as a child.
However, she felt let down by police and court procedures and is concerned that these systems have not improved.
Selina says she was brought up in a close family. Her mother had a cleaning job at a couple’s house, and when she was off school, Selina would go along too.
The woman of the couple was disabled, and she remembers that her mother used to describe the man, Harry, as ‘a bit eccentric’. Harry used to say to her mother that Selina should stay with him so her young daughter wouldn’t be under her feet while she worked.
Selina recalls the layout of the house vividly. She remembers standing in the utility room with Harry behind her. She could see his reflection in the glass, and he used to put his hand in her underpants and touch her, and move her hand to touch him.
She cannot recall how many times this happened. She was about eight or nine years old and she thinks he was in his 40s or 50s. He worked for a children’s charity.
After a while, Selina told her mother she didn’t want to go to the house any more, but not the reason why.
She remembers that when she was in her early teens, one of her brothers told her that a relative was in prison ‘for touching young boys where he shouldn’t’. She could see the effect this had on her parents and it made her feel more certain that she could not tell them what had happened to her.
Selina says that she was not a bad child, just occasionally ‘a bit moody’, but thinks her mum put it down to her ‘being a normal teenager’.
She kept quiet about the abuse she had suffered until she was in her late teens, when she told her boyfriend. She says she still didn’t want her parents to know, but he was concerned about her and he ‘blackmailed’ her into telling them.
Her father took her to the police to report the abuse. Selina says that she felt ‘lucky’ she had his support, but it became very difficult for him because of the offences committed by his relative.
Selina feels there was insufficient support while she gave a statement and went to court. The evidence was not presented in time and the case did not proceed.
Selina has been diagnosed with PTSD and sometimes has difficulty communicating verbally.
She now works with victims and survivors and she thinks that court processes have not improved since her experiences. She feels strongly that more support should be given to victims and survivors. She adds that police and other services should have training and knowledge to signpost people to suitable services for help.