Ffion says that when she was in care ‘It was scary and violent and nowhere was safe’
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Ffion feels angry and let down that professionals did not help her when she was being sexually abused.
She says ‘I should have been treated as a child, with respect and dignity, and loved. Someone should have said “this isn’t right”, instead of blaming me and normalising it’.
Ffion was born in the 1990s into a large family. She describes her childhood as ‘chaotic … there was a lot of domestic violence’. Her parents drank heavily and when her mother moved in with a new partner, he also abused alcohol and Ffion says ‘he wasn’t very nice’.
When she was 13 years old, Ffion was taken into care. After a brief stay with foster parents, she was told ‘You’re a bad kid’ and sent to a children’s home in a police car.
The atmosphere here was uncaring and Ffion did not feel safe. ‘It was bad’ she says. ‘We were kids but we were not treated as kids.’ She knows she is neurodiverse but she was not diagnosed, and labelled as ‘naughty’.
Ffion was continually bullied by other children and sometimes by staff. She often went missing from the home, and says that on some of these occasions she was out drinking. She would do this with her peer group, including one girl who she wanted to please, because she was a bully.
When Ffion and the other children went out drinking, they would often end up at houses belonging to different men who groomed them, gave them drink and drugs, and sexually abused them. Sometimes men would come in their cars to the children’s home and collect children to be abused.
Ffion says that her memories of this time are fragmented – she thinks she has blocked some of them out. She knows that she was held against her will sometimes and raped. Sometimes the men took photos while they were abusing her. ‘I just didn’t want to be there. It was just mad. I was scared all the time’ she says.
She has suffered mental health problems and has spent time in secure units. She says she has never felt that her treatment was properly explained to her, and she often felt blamed for running away from care.
Ffion feels that many of the children’s home staff were aware that children were being preyed on by abusive men, but did little to protect them.
She relates ‘They see kids missing from care, taking drugs, drinking, kicking off and fighting … and they see it and say “Whatever … you’re a bad kid … that’s expected of you anyway”. No one said “Why do they go missing? What's happening here?” They knew what was happening – they just didn't give a shit’.
On occasions when the police found her and took her back to the home, she thinks they saw her as a nuisance and a troublemaker who was complicit in the abuse. She remembers officers sometimes saying derogatory things to her. For example, they would comment on the way she was dressed, and if she had gifts or money from the abusers, they said she was a prostitute.
Ffion feels that most of the professionals involved in her life failed to show any compassion and understanding towards her or the traumatic experiences that she was going through, but instead saw her as the problem.
She says ‘I hate them for it … this has shaped my life … they don't understand what they have done’.
Ffion says her behaviour was often aggressive and rebellious but it was the only way she felt she could express herself. Looking back, she thinks that when she became angry and upset, the staff in the children’s home did not have the skills to calm her down.
Ffion has PTSD, agoraphobia and anxiety. She suffers with flashbacks and nightmares, and has thoughts of suicide.
She is now having therapeutic counselling, and she feels it would have been better if this had been offered to her when she was a child. She wishes that the adults who were supposed to care for her had made an effort to build a trusting relationship with her. She thinks she should have been given education about relationships, sex and grooming, instead of just being provided with condoms.
Ffion would also like to see stronger penalties enforced against people who sexually abuse children, rather than victims being blamed.