‘As an adult, when I looked back at my childhood, I didn’t like what I saw’ says Gaynor
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Gaynor says she has only recently realised that her marriage was founded on child sexual abuse.
She was groomed from the age of 15 by a man in a youth group, and married him when she was 16.
Gaynor grew up on a housing estate in the 1980s and 90s. She met a man called Derek, who was in his mid-20s, in a group run by a Christian organisation. She says ‘All of the children from the poor families were encouraged to go by their parents’.
Gaynor says she felt safe there and that she could trust the leaders, but looking back, she thinks there were a lot of individuals who were not trustworthy who were associating with vulnerable people. She comments that one youth worker was ‘done’ for raping an under-age girl.
One evening Derek and some other older males at the group gave Gaynor and her friends alcohol. This was the first time she got really drunk. Derek took her home in his car.
By this time, Gaynor had been ‘kind of adopted’ by the church. She had been given keys for the homes of Christians at the organisation for times when she needed to stay away from her family home. Derek drove her to one of these houses.
He stopped her getting out of the car, and kissed her and touched her all over her body. ‘I was really scared and really drunk’ she says. ‘When I went into the house, I didn’t feel drunk any more.’ That night she put toilet bleach in her bath.
She was relieved when she went back to the church group and Derek was not there, but a few weeks later he reappeared. After this, she says, Derek did not leave her alone. He would park at the top of her road in the mornings and offer her a lift to school. He told everyone he was in a ‘relationship’ with her. There were some teachers from her school who volunteered at the organisation and she remembers one of them voicing concerns about her welfare.
Gaynor was spending more and more time with Derek. Within a few months she had stopped attending school. At weekends Derek would take her to different houses belonging to people in the church organisation and rape her. He always gave her enough alcohol to get her drunk before doing this. ‘He told me if I left he’d kill me’ she says.
Gaynor contracted two sexually transmitted infections while she was still 15, and attended a sexual health clinic.
Then Derek got his own property and Gaynor moved in with him. ‘From there, it went horrible’ she says. When he went to work he would lock her in the house all day, and she describes feeling really bored, but says ‘I only really knew this was wrong about a year later when someone else commented on it’. She became pregnant.
Gaynor later married Derek. ‘I was never really asked “Is this what you want to do?”’ she says. She knows that her mother agreed and encouraged it.
She had a number of children by Derek, who were born very close together.
Derek was extremely manipulative and controlling. He would make Gaynor feel she was imagining this and she now thinks that he ‘gaslighted’ her throughout their marriage. He became physically and sexually violent towards her.
Gaynor was becoming worried about her children’s safety, and after a severe beating by Derek she fled with them to a refuge. She remembers telling the staff about the way he treated her, and being surprised when they said it was an abusive relationship.
She was rehoused and awarded custody of the children, but soon after, Derek turned up at her house. She was already pregnant with their child, and he scared and manipulated her into taking him back. Gaynor hid this from social services because she was afraid they would take her children away.
Derek began trying to prevent the children leaving the house and going to school, and after some time, Gaynor managed to finally end the relationship with him.
Gaynor suffers with low self-esteem and anxiety. She worries that Derek will hurt her and she is afraid to have another relationship with a man. She experiences physical symptoms relating to her anxiety.
Gaynor is concerned about the Christian organisation that is still active in the community where she grew up. She thinks there are people who are not properly vetted mixing with vulnerable children and young people, and that the church should address this.
She would also like professionals working with children to be more alert to signs of grooming and child sexual abuse, and report any concerns. Gaynor feels she was let down by a number of people she had contact with in health and education services.
Gaynor is devoted to her children. When she feels anxious, she tries to distract herself by doing something creative.