Tanith did all she could to protect her younger sibling from their abusive stepfather
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Tanith was sexually abused by her stepfather, who was a member of the armed forces.
She was only a small child, but she still worries that people will judge her if they find out.
Tanith was living with her mum and stepfather, Richard, on an overseas army base when he first sexually abused her. She thinks she was about four when it began.
After the family moved back to the UK, Tanith remembers being at school when she was about six or seven, and some police officers came to talk to the pupils about sexual abuse.
Her friend nudged her and said ‘I think that’s been happening to me’. Tanith says she ‘marched’ her friend to the headteacher’s office to report this, but she did not disclose the sexual abuse she was going through.
Tanith remembers the abuse becoming worse when her mum started working night shifts. She would put her sibling in bed with her so that Richard couldn’t abuse her too.
When Tanith was about 10 or 11, her mum asked her if Richard had been abusing her. Tanith said that he had, and the next day her mum took the children to stay with a relative. She reported the abuse to the police, and Richard was arrested.
He pleaded guilty, which meant Tanith did not have to give evidence, but he received a very short prison sentence.
After Richard was convicted, the family moved, initially to a women’s refuge. Tanith was sexually abused by the son of one of the other families staying there. He was about 17. She says this was ‘nipped in the bud’ quite quickly and not long after, her family got their own home.
Tanith says that she went through a difficult period during her teens. Counselling was arranged for her, but she says she didn’t attend regularly. She says she finds it hard to talk about things and that ‘sometimes I’d rather help other people with their problems rather than my own’.
She started a new school but was not interested and started ‘bunking off’. She adds that she had a lot of arguments with her mum and ‘lashed out big time’.
However, Tanith says that despite this, she, her mum and siblings were a very tight family unit and would always ‘look out for each other.’ She feels she had a good childhood, ‘apart from the abuse’.
After Richard was released from prison he was convicted of other sexual abuse offences and is serving another, longer prison sentence.
Tanith says that she still has the feeling that the abuse was her responsibility. ‘I still cannot get over that it’s my fault’ she says, even though her mum tells her that it isn’t.
She has had relationships, but says ‘I’m more wary now … my trust now is not very easily earned’ and she thinks she keeps people at arm’s length. She does not want to tell people about her experience of child sexual abuse. ‘Hardly any of my friends know about it … I’m always worried they’re going to judge me’ she says.
Tanith feels that early education about child sexual abuse is important. She says that if as an adult, you suspect something is wrong and a child may be being abused, ‘don’t give up, keep plugging away’ until they tell you what’s wrong.