Ailsa feels let down by delays and bad communication by police investigating the abuse she suffered
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
When the man who sexually abused Ailsa left the country, the police said they had ‘flagged’ it and would know if he returned.
But it was only because Ailsa told them he was back that they resumed their investigation.
Ailsa was adopted by her mother’s second husband Terrence when she was two years old. Her mother and Terrence had another child.
Ailsa was subjected to emotional, physical and sexual abuse by her mother and Terrence. She says ‘It wasn’t a very nice home to be in, I didn’t have a good upbringing’.
Ailsa recalls that when friends or relatives visited, her mother and Terrence would present a very different side to their family life.
Terrence was in the armed forces so the family moved a lot. By the time Ailsa was eight years old she had attended over 10 schools, which made it difficult for her to make friends. She also became withdrawn and isolated and wary of everyone.
She was 11 years old when Terrence began sexually abusing her. The abuse went on for seven years. On one occasion her mother walked in and saw Terrence abusing her, but she didn’t say or do anything.
When Ailsa was in her mid teens,Terrence left her mother and moved overseas, and Ailsa moved out of the family home to a bedsit. But Terrence still sexually abused her when she was made to continue to visit him, threatening that she would be ‘locked away in a mental home’ if she told anyone.
Some years after it ended, Ailsa reported the sexual abuse by Terrence to her local police force. The police said there was nothing they could do apart from flag it on their system, because Terrence was living abroad.
A few years later, Ailsa discovered that Terrence was back in the UK. She informed the police, who were not aware and Terrence was arrested, interviewed and bailed. Ailsa provided several interviews, and statements were gathered from witnesses.
She says that she did not receive much in the way of communication or updates from the police and often had to chase them for information. When the investigating officers changed she was not told or introduced to them.
Terrence left the country again and a warrant and an extradition order were issued. She is still very frustrated and disappointed with poor communication from the police and long delays in the process.
Ailsa finds it difficult to express her emotions, accept love and form relationships. She has abused alcohol and is triggered by certain smells and situations.
Ailsa says the police, and other people, need to understand how hard it is for someone to come forward and disclose abuse, and how important it is to be heard and believed. She feels the current system does not support this and would like to see improved communication with victims and survivors, and more accountability for professionals.
She says ‘I’ve not been heard properly; people become closed within their job, their post ... they become within the system’.
‘People don’t understand rape and sexual abuse until they’ve been in the situation. Sexual abuse just keeps getting swept under the rug’ she adds.
She is having counselling which she says is a ‘godsend’.