Dee says that when she was fostered ‘I wasn’t any bother – I was too terrified to be any bother …’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
After Dee’s father died in an accident her mother was unable to look after her.
She was sent to live with a foster family, June and Ron, and their two children. She gives a harrowing description of the neglect and abuse that she endured from the day she arrived to live with this couple.
Although she did not know it when she was a child, Dee was autistic. Her mother had taken her to the doctor who prescribed medication for ‘behavioural problems’, which included antidepressants. She says her mother would give her ‘extra doses’ to keep her under control.
When she was five years old, Dee was taken into care. She later found out that the fostering was a private arrangement and that June and Ron had never previously fostered a child.
Dee describes a catalogue of physical and emotional abuse that she endured from June, who she says was ‘sadistic’. A paediatrician who saw Dee told June that the little girl ‘needed to be managed with a firm hand’. Dee feels this gave June ‘free rein to do as she pleased’ with her.
With June and Ron, Dee says she was treated ‘like the family dog’; she never ate with them, and was often denied food so she had to steal things to eat.
She was left alone for long periods in the house, not allowed to join in family activities and was sent to her room as soon as she returned home from school. During school holidays she was sent out in the morning and told not to return until 4pm.
A social worker used to visit every six months or so to see Dee, but she says they did not stay long and only asked questions about school and ‘superficial things.’ Dee says she didn’t dare say anything to the social worker about the way she was treated in case it got back to the foster parents. She adds that she thought of them as her ‘owners’.
Dee did not speak around this time and she was later taken to see a psychiatrist about this. She remembers her confusion because her foster mother would tell her not to speak but her foster father would ask what was wrong with her because she didn’t.
When Dee was nine years old the couple’s son Ray, who was a few years older than her, began sexually abusing her. He groomed Dee first by befriending her, teaching her to play games, taking her on bike rides and buying her chocolate bars.
Dee relates that she did not have any ‘normal’ friends because she was so isolated, so she liked the attention he gave her.
The sexual abuse began with Ray making Dee take off her clothes and ‘examining’ her genital area. He would show her porn and put his penis in her mouth, which made her cry. The abuse took place over a year in the family home and nearby empty buildings. Dee says she was ‘freaked out’ by it even more than the behaviour of her foster mother.
On one occasion, Dee remembers, ‘something switched’ inside her and she ran away. She was picked up by the police but no one questioned her about why she had run away and she was taken back. Her foster mother beat her ‘senseless’. She recalls being on the kitchen floor in a puddle of urine, unable to believe that this was her life.
Shortly after this incident the social worker visited and told Dee she would be leaving the foster home in a week. Dee vividly remembers the journey to the children’s care home. She says: ‘I felt like I had been released from prison’.
At the home, she thought it was ‘a miracle’ that people were nice to her and she had food. She did not say anything about what had happened to her. After a year in the home, she was returned to her natural mother.
She describes the following years when she was a teenager as ‘hard.’ Her mother had mental health problems, was very controlling and would not let Dee out of the house. Dee says that in some ways her natural mother took over where her foster mother left off. She cannot understand why social services let her return to her mother as they knew about her mental health.
When Dee tried to talk about the abuse she had suffered with the foster family, her mother ‘didn’t want to know’ and told her to forget it. Dee says she wished she could have stayed in the children’s home.
When she was in her late 20s, prompted by the birth of her first child, Dee reported the abuse to the police in the two areas she had lived, but no action was taken. At one stage she was told June had died, but this turned out to be incorrect.
Dee made a further complaint about 10 years ago, which she says was investigated, and her foster mother and Ray were arrested, but the case was not taken any further.
She had previously spoken to a psychologist about the abuse and had discovered that Ray had been married, but then had moved back to live with his mother. Dee was worried he may have abused someone else, and this prompted her to report him.
Dee explains the impact the abuse has had on her life. As a child, she says she lived in the moment, not thinking too far ahead. She says of her treatment by June ‘My life was over as soon as she started doing that to me.’
She finds it difficult to comprehend how anyone could treat a child in the ‘evil’ way she was treated. She wishes the foster parents knew what effect their behaviour has had on her life.
She has been on antidepressants and says that she thinks about dying every day. She has received CBT but did not find this helpful and does not think any kind of counselling will ‘make it right or ok’. She says she is frightened of people and she cannot bear to feel under anyone’s control or vulnerable.
She adds that on a day-to-day basis, she is ‘all right’ – her work and her own children keep her going and she is very proud of them. She has been very careful not to replicate any behaviours she suffered on her own children, so they have grown up ‘without crap’.
She describes her husband as ‘lovely’. Although he knows about the abuse he does not want to know all the details.
Dee thinks that professionals should be kind and ‘not take things at face value’, and they should dig deeper to discover the real reasons behind certain behaviours, and take action on the early signs.
She has seen her records from children’s services and believes she was the only child to be fostered by June and Ron. She says the records showed that the social worker had been aware that things were ‘not right’ in the home and was concerned about the ‘emotional climate in the household’.
Dee adds that they obviously knew something was wrong because she was under psychiatric care for being ‘weird’, but no one ever asked her what was happening.
She says there needs to be safe places where children can go and trust someone – where they will be believed. She mentioned that if Childline had been around at the time she was being abused she might have called them.
She feels strongly that foster parents should be properly vetted and checked that they are ‘not in it for the money’ and that victims and survivors should have easy access to their social services records.
Dee feels it should be emphasised that abusers are ‘not all men in dirty old raincoats ... it could be anybody’.