Male victims of child sexual abuse are faced with ignorance and prejudice, Andrew says
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
From a young age, Andrew endured neglect in his family home, along with violence and sexual abuse from his father.
Staff in the care system, the police and teachers were aware that he was troubled and vulnerable, but he was not protected.
Because Andrew was treated so badly by his parents when he was a small child, he often ran away, sometimes for days on end. He remembers that he learned how to steal food and break into sheds so he could sleep inside.
He was first removed from his parents when he was about seven years old. In the children’s home he experienced more abuse from a member of staff, who would spank and touch him inappropriately.
When he was about 12, Andrew ran away from the home. A man offered him food and a place to stay, and then sexually abused him when he accepted. Andrew says that one day the police picked him up and asked him whether the man was sexually abusing him. He thinks the police officer suspected this was happening, but Andrew couldn’t bring himself to confirm it.
Soon after, the police stopped him in the early hours of the morning. They contacted his parents, who said they didn’t want him home and so Andrew was put in the cells for the night.
The following year, Andrew had an accident and spent some time in hospital. His mother didn’t visit him, but Andrew remembers that he enjoyed being in hospital because of the care and affection the nurses gave him. He comments that he never received this treatment at home.
When he returned home to his parents the physical and sexual abuse continued. He describes how he would ‘freeze’ when his father got in bed with him. He suffered emotional abuse from his mother, who wouldn’t let him eat at the dinner table with the rest of the family, saying he was ‘a disgrace’.
Andrew believes it was obvious that he was a very vulnerable boy. Over the next few years he suffered further sexual abuse by staff in children’s homes, a detention centre and in the outside world. This included being raped by a friend of his father’s. Andrew says that he will ‘never forget the pain’.
One person who did offer Andrew some support was a teacher at school. He says this meant a lot to him but was too late to make a real difference. On one occasion he reported the abuse by his father to the police. A police officer took him home and said he had made an accusation of abuse. As soon as the policeman left, Andrew says, he was beaten ‘almost to death’.
By the time he was old enough to leave the care system, Andrew was a ‘very angry young man’, who felt the world had let him down. He turned to crime, saying he ‘worked up the ladder’ to high level criminality. He made lots of money but ‘continued to live with the nightmares’.
He was eventually caught and sent to prison, where he saw a counsellor. He says this made him realise he needed to change, but he adds that he did not tell the counsellor much about the abuse, as he was still ‘so ashamed of it’.
Later in life he discovered that he has a form of autism and he thinks this explains a lot about the way his mother treated him.
Andrew has abused drugs and self-harmed. He says ‘that pain would take other pain away. No one questioned it’. He suffers from nightmares and has problems managing his anger. He feels the effects of the abuse ‘will never go away’ and it has affected his relationships with his children and his family.
However, he feels strongly that he wants to dispel the myth that victims become abusers. He stresses that he has tried his hardest to protect his children and doesn’t understand how anyone who has been abused could do that to another child.
He still finds it hard to talk about being raped and he feels society is very judgmental about male rape. He thinks male victims are seen as ‘weak’.
Andrew now writes about serious childhood issues and works for a charity helping families.