Crystal felt dismissed by the church safeguarding board when she reported sexual abuse by a vicar
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Having been sexually abused as a child by a Church of England clergyman, Crystal reported the abuse to church officials.
Her experience has made her doubt that they have learned anything from past mistakes.
Crystal describes an unhappy and disrupted childhood. Her parents were always arguing, sometimes violently. They separated and got back together more than once, but continued fighting.
She found comfort in attending church and singing in the choir, and she liked it when the vicar showed an interest in her. She confided in him about the problems in her life. ‘When I was with him I felt more secure. At home you never knew what you were walking into … he would talk to me about what I liked to read and things like that.’
Crystal can now see that this is how the vicar began grooming her. He would ask her round to the vicarage and she says this made her feel even more special. She was 13 years old when he started sexually abusing her.
The abuse started with him tickling her, and escalated to touching and oral sex. He abused her several times a week, usually after church services and choir practices.
She says that because her home life was so bad and he was an adult who was nice to her, ‘I think I blanked it out – the sexual stuff’.
For the first two years of secondary school, Crystal was in the top set. After the abuse started, she stopped doing homework and her academic performance and concentration plummeted. ‘I was away with the fairies’ she says. She thinks staff at school put this down to her difficult home circumstances.
The abuse ended when Crystal was 16 and the vicar left to join another parish.
Crystal had not told anyone about the sexual abuse, but she says by the time the vicar left, she was doing all she could to make herself unattractive.
However, she did meet someone and they have been married for 20 years. She told her husband a few years ago that she had been sexually abused and he encouraged her to report it.
Crystal initially approached the Church of England safeguarding team. She says the person she spoke to was dismissive and treated her as if she was still a child. ‘They did everything to put me off’ she says, including saying that the vicar was unwell and that so much time had passed since the abuse, it would be very difficult to do anything about it.
Some time later, Crystal heard a Church of England representative speaking on the radio about a report on non-recent cases of child sexual abuse perpetrated by clergymen. He said how much the church had learned from this, but after her experience with the safeguarding board, Crystal did not agree.
She remembers wanting to shout at the radio ‘You’ve learned absolutely nothing!’ She continues ‘That’s when I contacted the police’.
There was a lengthy investigation and the case was passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Crystal says ‘they were absolutely fantastic … they gave me reassurances that they believed me, but in the end they decided the vicar was not fit to stand trial’.
The vicar has since died, and Crystal feels that what happened to her can now never be properly addressed. ‘I wanted to face him and look him in the eye’ she says.
Crystal is considering a civil action against the Church of England. She is not interested in financial compensation. ‘All I ever wanted was a letter of apology’ she says.
Being sexually abused has affected Crystal’s mental and physical health, but she has recently started exercising and she sees a therapist. She says ‘I need to start living for me’.
Crystal adds that she hates being called a victim. ‘I am a survivor’ she says. ‘You have to be super strong to get through these things.’
She concludes by explaining that her reason for sharing her experience with the Truth Project is to help protect the next generation.