Dex felt it was ‘cool’ when a teacher befriended him, but this man sexually abused him
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Dex was bullied at school, and his mother asked a teacher to try and help.
But this teacher took advantage of Dex’s vulnerability and sexually abused him.
Dex’s home did not feel like a safe place. His father was violent and often absent, and his mother was an alcoholic.
At school he was isolated and bullied to the point that he felt suicidal. As one of the few pupils who was not white, Dex felt that he ‘stood out’ and he thinks this was a factor in the bullying he suffered.
Knowing he was having problems at school, Dex’s mother asked one of his teachers, Claude, to try and help her son. Claude approached him and Dex explained how he felt. He remembers that he cried a lot, and he felt relieved that he had someone to talk to that he felt he could trust.
Claude took drugs and his home was known as the place where pupils from school would socialise. So when Claude invited Dex to his home, Dex felt this was ‘cool’ and that ‘I had arrived’.
But Claude sexually abused Dex in his home. This happened on many occasions. It began when Dex was 12 and went on for about three years. Claude gave Dex alcohol and also Class A drugs before sexually abusing him. He adds that there were often other young people at the house who were smoking and drinking.
Dex quickly became dependent on drugs and alcohol and he would go to Claude’s house every weekend because of this. He says he always felt that he was to blame for the abuse, because he went to the house, but he now realises this was part of the tactics Claude used to groom him.
He says that his mother became aware of what was going on with Claude, but she ‘just accepted it’ and took no action.
When he was 14, Dex left school and over the next few years he moved around the larger cities of England. He lived on the streets and turned to crime and prostitution to supply himself with drugs and alcohol. He talks of ‘surviving day to day’.
He ended up serving a short prison sentence which he says helped him. He went to Alcoholics Anonymous and has been clean and sober since then. He is on a waiting list for therapy.
Dex feels that although there have been a lot of changes in safeguarding and checks on people who work with children since he was abused, there may be scope for more improvements. He also suggests that schools could do more to provide someone, perhaps independent of the school, to whom a child could talk safely.
He says he feels that he has found some peace. He has good friends and feels hopeful.