A Scout leader groomed Ged’s parents to gain access to their son
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Soon after Ged joined the Cub Scouts, the leader began encouraging his parents to go out while he babysat.
The leader used his position of trust to sexually abuse Ged.
Ged grew up in the 1970s. He comes from what he describes as ‘an affluent working class background’.
He joined the Cub Scouts when he was eight years old. Not long after he joined, his father joined the group as a leader. Ged remembers that the Scout leader Emyr quickly befriended him and his family. ‘He groomed me and my parents’ he says.
Emyr would often babysit Ged and his sibling. He would encourage Ged’s parents to go out by paying for them to attend events.
Ged cannot remember every detail of the sexual abuse but he knows that it started when he was between eight and nine years old. ‘I was young but I knew it was something taboo’ he says.
Emyr sexually abused Ged for five years. This included masturbation, oral sex, anal penetration and touching, sometimes involving other children and young adults.
Ged recalls how at Scout camps, Emyr would also share a tent with other boys, when the other leaders would either sleep in buildings, or share tents with each other.
He remembers one occasion when he was about 10, when Emyr’s mother found Emyr sexually abusing Ged in their home. She confronted Emyr angrily and threatened to report him to the police. However, she did not do this. ‘She obviously didn’t like what was going on but let it go’ he says.
Ged also recalls incidents of abuse involving other adults Emyr had invited to his home. The abuse involved pornography and masturbation. One of these men continued to meet and sexually abuse Ged and he recollects that Emyr was ‘jealous’ of this.
On another occasion when Ged was around 12 years old, Emyr took him away on a trip with another boy. They shared a room and Emyr sexually abused the other boy and asked Ged to join in. Ged remembers that he felt uncomfortable and did not want to.
When Ged reached his early teens he began to feel uncomfortable and didn't want to be involved anymore with Emyr. He had begun to understand more about sexuality and what was happening.
But when he tried to refuse Emyr’s requests, Ged says ‘He made me feel guilty. It was like “I have done this and you have to do this” ... there was a certain amount of coercion involved’.
He remembers feeling very confused about the situation as a young boy. He says ‘I wasn't sure it was what I wanted. I was never in fear or physically threatened … part of me will always believe I was complicit and I can't shake that’.
Ged started to say ‘no’ to Emyr more often and tried to avoid seeing him. Emyr tried to overcome this by contacting Ged’s parents to try to arrange to see him.
When he was in his early teens, Ged joined the cadets. One of the instructors asked him to go with him and do some chores. This man sexually abused him. Ged says it happened once, and it did not particularly shock him.
He says ‘I remember thinking “Here we go again … this seems to be the way things work out”’.
When Ged considers the impact that the abuse has had on him, he says that he asks himself ‘How much of what happened to me as a child would have happened anyway? I tend to blame myself for outcomes’.
As a teenager he was bullied at school. He feels it is odd he didn’t stand up for himself and wonders if the abuse led to him feeling emasculated and being victimised. He still lacks confidence and has low self-esteem. ‘I struggle to believe that there isn't a link between these two things’ he says.
He struggled to engage with school and further education, he has felt confused about his sexuality and has had suicidal thoughts.
Some years later, Ged found out that Emyr had been convicted and imprisoned for child sexual abuse. Ged was named as a victim but the police never spoke to him and he feels very angry about this. He believes that if he had been told at the time, it may have helped him recover quicker and stopped him feeling so confused.
Ged feels strongly that the police should always inform victims and survivors if their name comes up in an investigation. He thinks that some health professionals need a better understanding of child sexual abuse and the effects it has on victims and survivors.
He also believes it is very important that organisations apologise quickly and non-defensively for failures to protect children.
Ged has been having counselling and has decided to report the abuse by the cadet instructor to the police, as he wants closure and justice for what happened to him.
‘I am living with a sense of injustice and certain aspects of my personality which have been affected by this.’