I don't remember exactly what age I was when my father, Bill, started abusing me. It first happened in a caravan on some land that he owned. He began by asking me some questions about sex, curious to know how much I knew about it. He closed the door, and locked it, to make sure that no one would know, and the first incident occurred... one of many. Afterwards, confusion was the first thing I remember feeling. What the hell did he just do? Then, we went to the shops and he bought me fish and chips. He said something to the effect that it was for me being such a good girl. I didn't understand that he had committed a crime, I barely realised he had violated me in any way. I was too young to have set up proper personal boundaries, and he was my father, so I trusted him.

From there, incidents happened every weekend, whenever I'd get taken to his land, and his caravan - and he'd always 'reward' me, with chocolate or a computer game or something similar. If I asked for anything, he would always abuse me first so that I 'earned' it. He called the abuse 'itching'.

The incidents progressed and happened elsewhere, such as when I was at home. Sometimes he'd offer me gifts if I let him abuse me, and because I was too young to understand, I obliged, and thought that there wasn't anything wrong with it. Daddy would never hurt me, right? I entered puberty and realised that it wasn't normal, that it wasn't what all the dads did to their children and that - I thought - it was far too late to stop it. After all, I'd let it happen, I was to blame. He always enforced that way of thinking, and would tell me regularly that if I told anyone, 'it would incriminate us both'. He also said he might commit suicide, and that I'd never see him again. I began to loathe him. I wanted him to die. One time, he asked me if I would let him penetrate me, and I screamed at him, and he never asked again.

Bill was diagnosed with prostate cancer around that time, and after the operation (which he survived with flying colours, as well as fighting off MRSA) the incidents got worse because he made me do things that he said would help with his 'condition', during his recovery. At school, I had started a relationship with a boy and wanted to see him on the weekends, and Bill used that to get more sexual favours from me. I used to look at my boyfriend across the classroom and think 'if only you knew what was happening to me...'

I was convinced that I would be disowned from my family if I ever told anyone about the abuse. I felt like I was a prostitute, cheating on my boyfriend. I was very insecure and always thought of other girls as being better than me in every way, because they were 'pure', and I was not. They were whole, and I was fragmented. And I became obsessively needy and clung to my boyfriend, telling myself that I needed to spend as much time as I could with him, because he was my escape. More time with him meant more abuse from Bill, which made me needier still. I was needy enough to allow myself to be abused in the mornings before school, just so that he would get me there on time, to spend a few more minutes with my escape. And when the incidents increased in frequency and severity, I went along with it. My attitude was 'it's already happened a million times, so what difference does it make now?'

When Bill took me and my brother up to see my Mum and second brother (who lived away from me) over the holidays, my life changed forever. He never stayed with us when we were with mum because my parents always argued, so he left us there and went back home. My mum mentioned child abuse in passing in a conversation we were having about something else. Whenever she would steer the conversation elsewhere I'd bring it back to the subject until she asked me 'why are you asking me about this? Your Dad isn't doing anything to you, is he..?'

When I nodded, she was shocked, and left the room without saying a word. I couldn't believe the words had come out of my mouth, and I knew from then that everything was about to change. The next night, she told my brothers, who called the Police. I remember Mum waking me up in the early hours of the morning, and leading me into the living room, where my brothers gave me a hug, held my hand and said nothing. I felt numb. The Police arrived at 5am Christmas day to conduct an initial interview, and a week later I was doing my video interview at the station. Bill was still back at home, oblivious that I'd somehow found the strength to disclose. When I was told that he'd been arrested, I wished that I could have been there when they did it; he would have been having a typical morning, feet up on the sofa, bowl of All-Bran and the Discovery Channel. Next thing he knows, he's got Police officers banging on the door and driving him to the nearest station to interview him, no time for him to think up a defence of lies.


I stayed with my Mum and out of school for a number of weeks, and they were some of the worst times of my life, despite it being the beginning of the end of my abuse. I felt isolated, alone and, for a time, suicidal. I didn't know what was going to happen next, and felt like the rug had been pulled out from under my feet. It was also when I began to replay everything that had happened to me, and realise how badly I'd been exploited. I rang my boyfriend and told him, in a very long and emotional phone call, about being abused, and the part that he had played in it, without ever even realising. Although he and his family were all very supportive of me, we fell apart a few months later, and I felt that it was a necessary loss, as the relationship had been so tied up with my abuse.

Bill got evicted from our house, and Mum sold it. I moved to a new home with my brothers, and started at a new school for year 11. I remember having this glorious feeling of a fresh start, and I made new friends. When I got told over the phone, that Bill was going to go on trial for what he had done, I was happy. It was a long wait for the trial, and it was delayed for a few months, but finally took place in early 2007.

The trial lasted for a week, although I was only required as a witness for one day. Because I was underage, I was taken into a separate room from the rest of the court, and communicated via a video link. Bill's defending barrister asked me intrusive and graphic questions, and scraped the barrel to find any excuse that might vaguely imply that I was lying about the whole thing. It was a difficult day, and the barrister tried to break me by telling me that I was lying and that it never happened and that Bill was innocent. It was his job to try and win the case for him... I just wonder if he slept well that night.

Mum and I stayed home on the day of the verdict. Mum prayed all morning that I'd get justice. We got a call at about 3pm to say that Bill had been proven guilty on 13 counts of indecent assault, and we cried. It was very emotional, and I was so relieved. We won. Everyone who had attended the trial on my behalf came home, and we all celebrated. The sentencing took place, and I attended it in person. I saw him, and he saw me, and I saw him get sent away by the Judge, whose words I'll never forget:

"You, who are meant to be one of the most important and trusted people in your daughter's life, used her young body for your own sexual gratification. If there was anyone from whom that poor girl should have been protected, it was you."

He received a sentence of three years, and was released after eighteen months for good behaviour. Is there a need for penal reform? I think so.

...

When the abuse ended, my life began, all over again. At the time of writing I am 19, and to strangers I probably seem like an 'ordinary' girl. There's no need for any more people to know about my abuse because it's in the past; every time that someone new does find out about it, however, they always express their surprise that someone as 'grounded' as me could ever have come from something as traumatic as that. It pains me to think about all the children – and adults - who are still at the stage before their disclosure. Whilst every case is individual, I don't believe that anyone can understand the kind of negative emotions that a victim goes through better than someone who has been through it themselves. That's why I got involved with Fixers. It's high time that people become more aware of how much of a serious and common issue this is.

I want to help create a society where children are regularly reminded that they can go somewhere that's safe and confidential to disclose to someone who will take them seriously if they are being abused by anyone, anywhere. And I want the perverted perpetrators who get kicks out of abusing children to be made fully aware, by this society, that they can't escape justice so easily anymore. Support for children and general awareness of the issue is a lot better than it was 30 years ago; but it can be a lot better still. It sounds so simple, but to assume that adult survivors feel that their abuse was not their fault would be a mistake. We know, intellectually, that it wasn’t our fault – but few of us actually feel it. And that lingering sense of guilt is instrumental in preserving the potentially lifelong self-torture that many of us endure.

What I’m saying is... Anyone who has been sexually abused needs copious amounts of reassurance that it was not their fault. We need to feel that society’s got our backs, and that can be achieved through regular contact with the appropriate support services who are available, yet so little known: no counsellor came to my rescue when I was at school immediately post-disclosure, when all the teachers knew why I had been absent. I organised my own help.

My abuser got a ridiculously lenient custodial sentence that, to my mind, does not equal the immense level of pain that he caused. What do you suppose that did for my sense of guilt?

On the flipside, now that I am an out of the closet survivor, able to transform my experiences into something positive in order to help others – and now that I have received significant recognition for doing exactly that – what do you think that did for my sense of feeling like the abuse was my responsibility? It has blown my mind in every positive direction. For every iota of recognition I get, that sense of guilt gets pushed a little further out of my mind. I want every survivor to experience that.

Let it be known, that disclosing about my abuse was the best thing I ever did.