A dance instructor held in high regard by Beatrice’s parents sexually abused their daughter
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Beatrice and her family took part in dance lessons in their local community.
The instructor sexually abused Beatrice but her mother refused to take any action. Beatrice believes this was because she did not want to disrupt the family’s social activities.
Beatrice says that at first, she used to go with her parents and watch them having dance lessons. When she was entering her teenage years, they encouraged her to join in and to have private lessons with Bernard, the instructor.
At first, she says, ‘everything was fine’, until one day when the lesson finished and her parents had not arrived to pick her up. She remembers this seemed unusual because they were never late.
Bernard led Beatrice outside the hall, and took her to a secluded spot where he began kissing her and touching her breasts. Beatrice says that she was shocked. Bernard took her back to the car park and by this time her parents had arrived to take her home. Looking back, she realises that Bernard had finished the lesson early so that he could abuse her.
Beatrice confided in a friend about what had happened, and they insisted that they told her mother. She and her friend were shocked at her mother’s reaction. She refused to tell Beatrice’s father, or the police, or take any action at all.
Beatrice now believes that for her mother to have done anything would have meant a massive change to the family’s social life and her mother was not prepared for this to happen. She says ‘How a mother can take that reaction is still beyond me’.
Not only did her mother take no action, but she continued taking Beatrice to dance lessons and her parents began inviting Bernard and his wife to the family home. Bernard would take any opportunity to touch Beatrice during these visits, and he began to call her on the family home telephone when he knew her parents were out.
A few years later, Beatrice got a boyfriend and they began attending Bernard’s lessons together. But Bernard continued to abuse her, and when she was in her mid teens, he started raping her. She became pregnant twice and both times her mother arranged a termination. She told Beatrice that if her father asked any questions she should tell him her boyfriend had made her pregnant. After the second termination, the abuse stopped and the family no longer attended dance lessons.
Beatrice says the effects of the sexual abuse have caused her to struggle with relationships. She has feelings of worthlessness and has deliberately put on weight to make herself less attractive.
She has spent time in psychiatric institutions and been considered a suicide risk. She suffers with PTSD, other mental health issues and has night terrors.
After both her parents died she decided to speak out and report Bernard to the police. He was arrested but he denied everything. She feels that the investigation was slow and not thorough, and she found the police to be uncaring.