Stuart says ‘Part of the grooming was he made me feel it was my choice’
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When Stuart was 17, he was groomed and sexually abused by an older man.
For many years, he questioned whether he had been abused because he was not a young child at the time, and he still worries that people will judge him for what happened.
Before he went to university, Stuart spent a year on a work placement. He lived in lodgings and as he liked singing, his landlord suggested that he join the local church choir.
One of the leading members of the choir was a man called Johnjo. Stuart says ‘He groomed me into an inappropriate relationship’. Stuart was 17 and Johnjo was about 20 years older.
In the year this happened, Stuart was below the age of consent for homosexual relationships, and the age difference and authority that Johnjo had in the choir made the ‘relationship’ even more improper.
Stuart comments ‘The relationship was known about by several members of the choir, and the vicar’s wife, but no one did anything to stop it or spoke to me about it’.
Later in the year, Stuart’s parents found out about Johnjo, and Stuart went home to see them. He recalls ‘I think they were disappointed’ but adds that he thinks this was as much about his homosexuality as the age gap.
While Stuart was away, Johnjo attempted to take his own life and told Stuart he had done this when he returned. Stuart says ‘This made me feel I had to tread on eggshells the whole time’. Johnjo also drank heavily and seemed increasingly emotionally unstable.
Stuart says that Johnjo had boasted to him about having had a boyfriend who was 16 years old. He adds ‘I remember him making comments about other younger boys in the choir, but don’t know if he did anything with any of them’.
Johnjo once invited a friend over to watch him sexually abusing Stuart. ‘I wasn’t comfortable but I had to go along with it’ says Stuart. The friend later claimed that he believed Stuart was in his mid 20s but Stuart says ‘There is no way I looked that age’.
Eventually Johnjo left the choir. Stuart is not sure if he resigned or was sacked, but he had been obviously drunk at some recitals.
Stuart went to university and for many years he put aside thoughts of what had happened with Johnjo. ‘I thought it was an unpleasant thing that had happened in my teens and I should forget about it’ he says.
But he was living with a number of difficulties, and when he heard a victim and survivor of child sexual abuse talking about the effects of his experiences, Stuart says ‘I suddenly recognised the way I was feeling, but I had not made the connection’.
Stuart finds it difficult to maintain relationships, or to trust anyone in authority. He can’t enjoy music any more. He says ‘It is bound up with what he did to me. He stole my youth from me, and the opportunity to have my first sexual experience with someone I chose’.
He has suffered with bouts of severe depression since his early 20s, and has suicidal thoughts. At first he didn’t seek any treatment. ‘I was worried I might be labelled or put in hospital’ he says.
Stuart says he has continually questioned whether what happened to him was abuse ‘because I was not 8, I was 17’. Although he can now see that he was groomed and abused, he still thinks that people will judge him and say ‘You could have said no’.
But he has now seen a psychiatrist and is being treated for depression and having counselling.
Stuart says ‘I feel I was seriously let down by the church and I feel anger towards them’. He adds that he thinks people in the church decided to put Johnjo’s interests before his, because they were worried about Johnjo’s emotional state. ‘But they could have dealt with both things’ he says.
He has contacted the church, and says the safeguarding officer took his allegations seriously and referred the matter to the police and social services.
However, Stuart is concerned that although they are taking safeguarding more seriously, the church must be vigilant about potential danger to older teenagers as well as young children.
Stuart says he has had a ‘reasonably successful career’ but ‘it’s difficult to see a future I enjoy and I can‘t imagine having a fulfilling relationship’.