personal story 1: 'i didn't realise what was happening'

Sunday 27 January 2013

Jane, a mother and domestic abuse victim, feared her daughter was being sexually abused:

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"I left Susan's dad because I didn't want her to see the domestic abuse I was experiencing from her father. It wasn't a healthy environment.

"Susan saw her dad trying to push me down the stairs and he had her in his arms when he was doing it. And she was only three. That just is something that a child should not see. I had to get out for my own safety, but for hers as well, because I couldn't believe how far things were going. And I thought: 'What if he turns on her one day?'. Then I went to my sister's to stay. When I got there I felt like a great weight had been lifted and I just thought I can't go back.

"For a short while she didn't see her dad, but then she started seeing him again. At first I didn't realise what was happening. I just noticed that sometimes she would come back sore. I didn't know her dad had started seeing a woman whose son had been known for sexual behaviour. "I spoke to her dad, told my lawyer, and it was raised at court. I thought possibly when she was going to the toilet she was wiping herself from back to front and that her dad wasn't always checking her. But there were other changes in her. She started to wet the bed, soiled herself. She also showed sexualised behaviour. That coupled with everything else was another indicator that it wasn't quite right. Then I began to piece things together. On one occasion Susan came home from weekend contact with her dad and she was absolutely worried sick. I couldn't get her settled. She was worried that the house was going to be burnt down. She was asking: 'Where would we live when the house was burnt down?'. "And when I asked her what made her think that was going to happen she told me: 'Daddy was speaking to someone else and he told this other person that he was going to burn the house down.'"I contacted the police. It was at the point that I wouldn't have put anything past him at all. I also thought what a disgusting thing to say in front of a child – because she was absolutely sure this was going to happen. I was keeping a diary of what Susan was saying and doing. She played a game with her cousin, my niece, called princesses and dragons. This also ended up in sexualised behaviour. My sister walked in on it. She said that what she witnessed was pornographic. "Susan told me and a clinical psychologist that her dad didn't listen when she tells him things."We had numerous welfare hearings at court because her dad was trying to increase contact. At the very last meeting Susan had with the panel, Susan said she did not want to see the boy ever again. She also said she did not want to see social workers ever again because they tell lies, and she didn't want any more panel hearings – because nobody was listening and nobody was helping. "When the case came to a head finally, the sheriff halted the hearing because he was concerned that Susan had been sexually abused. And certainly the clinical psychologist stated that he could not rule that out. But then, at that hearing, her dad turned round and said: 'It's all right, I've split up with the boy's mother.' So it was like, fine, no need to worry, case dismissed."Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the child

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Families

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personal story 1: 'i didn't realise what was happening'

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