Candice says it should not be assumed that placements with relatives are safe for children
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Candice was sent to live with relatives because her mother could not look after her.
She was sexually abused by her ‘uncle’, and later discovered he had been accused of abusing another young girl.
When Candice was five years old, social services placed her and her siblings with a couple who were relatives of her stepfather, because their mother was unable to care for her children.
Her ‘uncle’, Ollie, sexually abused her several times a week for about seven years. The abuse always happened when Ollie’s wife was out.
Ollie would claim that the abuse was ‘punishment’ for misdemeanours by Candice. She remembers one incident when she was home from school because she was unwell. At first, the abuse usually took the form of him touching her sexually but as she got older it escalated.
Candice and her siblings were also physically abused by the couple, and says that one sibling was ‘in and out of hospital’ with injuries, but no one raised a concern about this. She remarks that they were hardly ever visited by social services in their placement, and says ‘You would have thought they would have picked something up’.
She now knows that Ollie had been accused of sexually abusing another young relative before she and her siblings were placed in his care. The relative had reported the abuse to the police, but retracted her statement as a result of pressure from the family.
Candice was moved from the household when she was in her early teens, after she told someone about the sexual abuse. Her siblings were left there and she felt guilty about leaving them. She says ‘I think that was the real hard part; losing my siblings and everything’.
She was placed in foster care and says that she went into ‘self-destructive mode’ as a teenager. She was unable to control her temper and was moved between several placements.
Candice believes that social services need to be ‘more on the ball’ in checking on children in placements, and should not assume they are safe just because they have been placed with relatives. She questions why she and her siblings were sent to live with a man who was an alleged abuser.
She says her relationship with her siblings was fractured by their separation, but they are now working to mend it.