Tiffany says that writing about her experience of abuse is ‘the beginning of the road to freedom for me’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Throughout her childhood, Tiffany was sexually abused by her father.
He was a professional who worked with children and he was sacked after Tiffany reported the abuse as an adult, but she feels many signs of abuse were missed when she was a child.
She has reviewed records from her childhood and has found a catalogue of missed opportunities for professionals to intervene.
She knows she was a very small child when the abuse began, and it continued into her teens. At first, her father started touching her when she was on the toilet.
Tiffany’s records show that she was taken to see the family GP almost a dozen times between the ages of four and seven, with symptoms associated with urine infections.
She began self-harming when she was six, by scratching herself until she bled. This escalated to cutting herself as she got older. Sometimes she did this in front of teachers, who simply told her to ‘stop doing that’.
Tiffany remembers that when she was about 12, and her breasts were starting to develop, her father made inappropriate remarks about this, in front of other people, but no one challenged him.
Around this time, he started trying to rape her. She was already suffering with mental health issues and was on medication. She was also seeing a child psychiatrist.
By the time she was in her early teens, Tiffany’s father was raping her regularly and she became worried she was pregnant. She tried to tell an older female relative, but was told not to be so silly.
The abuse stopped when she was 18 and left home.
Later in her life, Tiffany reported her father to the police. She was prompted to do this because he was spending time with a family member who was the same age as Tiffany when her father started abusing her.
Social services carried out an investigation and her father was sacked from his employment. However, Tiffany was too scared of him to take things any further and no other action was taken against him.
Tiffany says she is sharing her experience because she wants professionals to recognise the signs of abuse and always be prepared to act on them.