Wesley was raped at boarding school. ‘I felt it was my lot … it was what happened’ he says
All names and identifying details have been changed.
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Wesley was subjected to years of brutality and sexual abuse at a prestigious boarding school.
Far from home and feeling ‘abandoned’ by his parents, he says there was no question of reporting the abuse to anyone.
Wesley grew up in a family of academics with high expectations. He was sent to a boys-only boarding school in the 1960s, when he was 13 years old. He describes a regime of brutalisation, which began from the very first day.
Wesley explains that the school culture gave the older boys rights over the younger ones; including setting initiation tests and what was known at the time as ‘fagging’, where younger boys had to carry out chores for older ones.
Senior pupils were free to ‘punish’ the juniors with impunity. This could involve beatings that were so harsh they often left marks, or being forced into showers that Wesley says were so cold ‘it felt like icy needles raining down on you’.
The physical brutality added to the emotional issues Wesley was already dealing with, as a result of feeling abandoned by his parents and left ‘without any form of comfort or hope of rescue’. There was no pastoral care in the male-dominated institution, apart from a matron who attended to minor injuries.
Dormitories were organised to accommodate boys of different ages, and the sixth form pupils decided who slept where. Wesley was the youngest in his dorm, which was overseen by a sixth former called Brennan.
Brennan sexually abused Wesley. Wesley was 13 when the abuse first happened, and it included rape. He remembers Brennan undressing and getting into bed with him. He remembers Brennan’s weight on top of him and the heavy breathing.
Wesley doesn’t know if this happened every night, but he is sure it happened regularly over the term. He recalls his feelings of anxiety and tension when he had to face Brennan the next day, but nothing was ever said about the abuse.
He also describes an instance of abuse by the school chaplain, which involved being beaten for failing a test. Wesley felt there was a sexual element to this punishment.
He adds that along with the abuse he was subjected to, there was a culture of ‘sexualisation’ prevailing in the whole school. Older boys would put pressure on younger ones to take part in sexual acts in the dormitories and bathrooms.
Wesley didn’t talk about any of this to anyone, and says it never occurred to him to tell his parents.
He believes that the sexualisation culture may have had a ‘soothing effect’ on him and some of the other boys, in that he feels it replaced the affection they should have got from their parents.
Wesley says the abuse he experienced as a child has affected him in several ways. He suffers with depression, is disgusted by some aspects of sex, and feels a sense of secrecy and shame that has affected his ability to form lasting relationships. He feels a fear of what he describes as ‘alpha males’.
Traumatic memories are triggered for Wesley by certain situations, and he has physical conditions that he believes are caused by tension.
He feels strongly there is no room for complacency in the safeguarding of children and young people, and he would like to see more resources for support and preventative work. He says it is essential to be alert to young people who may be going beyond the boundaries of normal sexual behaviour.
Wesley says he has lacked confidence in his career, but recently has been working in the field of child sexual abuse and finds this very fulfilling. He says he is receiving good support from a counsellor.