Claudine’s father used threats and manipulation to commit extreme sexual abuse on his young daughter
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Claudine’s mother had a serious physical disability. When she was in her mid teens, she was befriended by a man much older than her. She had children with him, one of whom was Claudine.
Claudine was subjected to brutal abuse by her father over many years, but when she reported it to the police she was told that she might experience worse if she went into care.
Claudine grew up in the 1960s and 70s. The family moved frequently and their accommodation was often completely inadequate – at times they lived on campsites and even in a car.
She was about six years old when her father began to single her out for emotional abuse and manipulation. He would tell her that her mother didn’t love her and wanted to put her in a children’s home. But, he added, she was his ‘princess’ and he wouldn’t allow that to happen.
As Claudine grew to believe that she was safe with her father, he began to touch her inappropriately, tickling her and putting his hands in her ‘private parts’ after she had had a bath. She says at that point she did not understand that what he was doing was wrong.
The sexual abuse escalated, with him telling her to touch his penis, and trying to penetrate her. Afterwards, he would tell her that it was their secret and that she must not tell her mother or anyone else, or she would end up in a children’s home.
Claudine remembered an occasion when she got into trouble at school. When she told her father what had happened he physically assaulted her, then took her upstairs and digitally penetrated her. The next day he went into the school and ‘made a fuss’ about her having been in trouble.
She describes another instance of her father’s manipulation that led to sexual abuse. For a time the family lived in a cottage, and this was an unusually happy time for her. She remembers writing a poem and making a daisy chain necklace for her mother. But her mother swore at her and shouted that she didn’t want it.
When Claudine told her father, he said her mother was ‘just in a mood’. That night he came to her room and sexually abused her. She began to cry because he was hurting her and he told her it was ‘what people do when they love each other’.
She remembers feeling that she loved her father and desperately wanted him to protect her, but she came to dread him coming to her room.
Over the next few years, the sexual abuse by her father became more extreme. He kept attempting to rape her vaginally, then began to anally rape her, and hit her when she cried. She remembers her mother once asking why she was crying, and her father explaining it away by saying that she had fallen over. She also became pregnant by him and had a termination arranged by the GP on the basis that it was a result of sexual abuse.
She remembers wanting to tell her mother but was still frightened that her mother would put her in a home. She says she also felt her mother probably knew what was happening, but because she didn’t do anything, Claudine felt she had to accept the sexual abuse happening.
She says she once had a talk with one of her siblings, when they confided in each other that they were both being sexually abused by their father. But the two children decided it was not in their best interests to tell anyone.
When she was a teenager, Claudine ran away from home eventually ending up in a police station. She was interviewed by a female detective about the sexual abuse, who she says was sympathetic and sensitive. However, a male police officer then asked Claudine if she understood the implications of what she was reporting, and said that her father could go to prison for a long time. He added that if she went into care that she was likely to experience far worse and she should withdraw her allegations.
She remembers hearing some arguing between the police officers, then her mother turned up at the station and took her home.
Claudine says that for years she felt she had done something wrong and deserved to be abused. She contemplated suicide, and lives with physical injuries and health conditions as a result of the abuse.
She entered into relationships with abusive people, and says she finds it hard to show emotion, even towards her children whom she loves deeply.
Claudine believes that GPs and teachers should be alert to signs that children may be being sexually abused, and take action. She also thinks that single police officers should not be able to influence the course of an investigation.