Ava says ‘I will probably always feel like I deserved it or something like that’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Ava was sexually abused when she was a young teenager by a member of a church music group she belonged to.
At the time, her parents were separating, and she describes what her abuser did as ‘classic grooming’.
Ava explains that the man who abused her, Clive, was a family friend who had a son the same age as her.
She says the abuse began at a ‘low level’, and escalated to rape. She describes how Clive would manufacture situations to be with her when no one else was around, and he would also drive her home.
She describes herself as ‘introverted’ but she did have some friends. However, when she was in her early teens she became cut off from them and very isolated. At school, Ava didn’t go to lunch for over a year and she says staff at school were concerned she was being bullied.
The abuse continued for about a year. Clive told her that no one would ever believe her, and she thought that was the case. He even made threats about the pet she owned and he enjoyed controlling her. She says that when her pet died, she realised he had less of a hold on her.
The headteacher at Ava’s school began asking her if she was all right. At first Ava wasn’t sure why, but the inquiries later became specifically about sexual abuse. The teacher told Ava that she didn’t have to say anything but ‘just nod’ if anything applied.
Soon after, the police came to Ava’s home. She says that at the time she felt her life would be over if she talked to them, and for months, she refused to say anything about the abuse.
When she did, she says, the process that followed was ‘a horrible experience’ that had a terrible effect on her life. She found it particularly hard the way that different organisations didn’t coordinate and communicate with each other. She was taking exams at the time, and she remembers that she was sometimes pulled out of lessons to be interviewed.
However, because Clive pleaded guilty she didn’t have to go to court to give evidence. He was convicted of sexually abusing Ava and another girl, and given a lengthy prison sentence.
Ava says that she probably didn’t do as well in school as she could have done, but she did manage to get to university. By this time she had had some therapy, but did not find it helpful. She says at the time she felt she ‘didn’t know what was happening … I never felt that I had an advocate or support’.
Ava self-harmed when she was at school. She still has flashbacks and suffers from anxiety, but has found ways to manage this. She struggles with feeling shame about being sexually abused, saying ‘It’s the realisation further down the line that you almost let yourself walk into it.’
She says there was no regulation of the music group she belonged to, and no one challenged the fact that she was regularly left on her own with Clive.
She is now married and she says she has ‘a reasonable group of friends’ but doesn’t ‘like people to get close’.