Felicity says ‘Just because something is “historic” doesn’t mean it’s not important’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
As a small child, Felicity was taken into temporary foster care.
No one explained where she was going and for how long. To add to the trauma, she was sexually abused while she was with a foster family.
When Felicity was about six years old, her mother fell ill and was taken into hospital.
She now knows that because her father was struggling to work and take care of his three children, he decided to put them into temporary foster care.
But at the time, Felicity says, they had ‘no idea of what was to come’. She describes how one day when she and her siblings were playing in the garden, a van pulled up and three men got out. They picked up the girls and drove them away.
No one explained what was happening, and they were not given the chance to collect any possessions.
Felicity remembers that the three of them were sent to live with a family, but were moved to different foster carers within a week. Shortly after they arrived, one of her siblings became ill during the night and was taken to hospital. No one explained to the other two siblings what had happened.
Many decades later, Felicity still vividly recalls the trauma of how it felt to ‘go from a happy existence in a family home to being plucked away’. And then one of her siblings disappeared without explanation.
There was no contact with social services, and no one told them anything about their mother, and how she was doing in hospital.
The foster carers had a teenage son, who began coming to Felicity’s bedroom at night and sexually abusing her. Felicity shared a bedroom with her sibling and she says she was petrified that if she tried to stop him, he might abuse them.
The boy abused her several times, and she kept quiet to protect her sibling, until one day she plucked up the courage to tell the foster mother. Felicity says the mother didn’t seem surprised or upset but she told her husband. He hit his son, who left the home.
Nothing further happened, and as far as Felicity knows, no one told social services or anyone else about the abuse.
After about six weeks away, they were returned home. There was no support for them afterwards. ‘We were just expected to get on with life,’ Felicity says.
Felicity has suffered with mental health issues since she was a teenager. She has flashbacks and nightmares, and struggles to trust people. She is having therapy.
After she saw a television programme about non-recent sexual abuse, Felicity decided to report what had happened to her to the police. She couldn’t remember the first name of the boy who sexually abused her, but she had the records of her foster placements, and she knew the family surname.
However, she says, the police decided it was ‘in the past’ and they didn’t have enough to go on. She was astonished at this.
She feels she was let down by the police – they made no attempt to investigate her report or trace the abuser. Felicity feels concerned that she was not the only child the son may have abused. The family had fostered before and the mother didn’t seem surprised when Felicity told her what was happening.
Felicity also feels let down by social services who did not support her and her siblings, or explain what was happening to them. She says it’s vital that children placed in care are supported with good communication.
In later life, Felicity achieved a degree and now works to support people with mental health problems. She says she wants others to have the voice she was never given.