Sorell had known her family GP all her life and felt she had no reason not to trust him
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Sorell’s parents were cold towards her, and they brought her up to have an unquestioning trust in authority.
She believes these factors made her vulnerable to being sexually abused by her family doctor.
Sorell says that her family home probably appeared ‘perfect’, but she was unhappy as a child. She describes herself as an ‘overachiever’ but says she felt ‘totally depressed and anxious’ at school.
She adds that she never felt loved by her parents, and her father once told her that she wasn’t wanted. Both of them worked and she was cared for by her grandparents – she says her grandfather was ‘overbearing’.
As a young girl, she says, ‘it was drilled into me to trust in authority and keep quiet’.
Sorell became sexually active when she was 15 and she went to see her GP. She had known him all her life and trusted him.
The doctor suggested that Sorell should start taking the contraceptive pill. He told her that because the pill could only be prescribed for medical reasons at her age, they would pretend it was for heavy periods. He added it would be their ‘little secret’.
After this, Sorell had to visit the surgery every three months and the GP would examine her breasts every time she saw him. She says she was very self-conscious about her body but she thought this was ‘normal’.
When she was 16, the GP told Sorell to make an appointment for a smear test as there was a risk of cancer and blood clots with the pill. She remembers the receptionist seemed very angry.
On the day, her sister attended the appointment with her but was told to sit around the corner. Sorell still has flashbacks about the procedure, and the aggressive way he used the instrument to examine her.
During another appointment, Sorell admitted to the GP that she was occasionally using cannabis and cocaine. He suggested that she wanted him to bend her over his knee and smack her. She says at this point she realised that she could never go back to see him as her GP, and she transferred to another in the surgery.
Some time later, Sorell found out that the doctor was being investigated for making inappropriate remarks to another patient. This prompted her to report her experience to the surgery, and she was asked to give a statement to the practice manager.
However, Sorell didn’t trust the surgery to take action, so she went to the police. She was no more confident in the way they handled her complaint, particularly when they sent an official letter and got her name and phone number wrong. When they turned up at her house with no warning, weeks later, she says she felt angry and judged it to be a ‘box-ticking exercise’.
Sorell’s experiences have had a profound effect on her mental health. She has suffered from severe depression and used alcohol and drugs excessively. She became reckless sexually, and was in an abusive relationship.
She would like to see careful scrutiny and supervision of the way medical appointments are conducted. She adds that there should be an organisation for children who are being abused to contact that will automatically trigger an investigation, with a specialist child sexual abuse unit.
Sorell feels let down by the authorities for not investigating her complaint, and by inadequate mental health support services. However, she has praise for the NSPCC, who she contacted as an adult and who put her in touch with a victim support organisation, which in turn suggested she speak to the Truth Project.
Sharing her experience has given Sorell some sense of closure, and, importantly, allowed her to make suggestions to help prevent abuse of others.