Hazel says ‘No one listened, no one acted. If they had I wouldn’t have had the struggles I’ve had’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Hazel’s ordeal of abuse has been made worse by the indifference and incompetence of some of the institutions that should have protected her.
After many years, she is still waiting to hear if the man who sexually abused her will be prosecuted.
Hazel was sexually abused by her stepfather, Erhan, for eight years. The abuse began when she was five years old, and she thinks that the point it ended was when her periods started.
When she was seven, Hazel started talking to her teacher most mornings about what her stepfather had done to her the night before.
In secondary school, Hazel was in a drama production that featured the topic of sexual abuse. As an adult, she discovered that this prompted some teachers to discuss the possibility that she may have been abused. She later told one of her subject teachers she was being abused.
Hazel has discovered from her files that all these teachers passed their concerns to social services. However, no action was taken and no one contacted Hazel or her mum.
When Hazel was in her mid-teens, her mum found out about the abuse. ‘I had told another friend and they told their mum, who told my mum’ she explains. Her mum immediately contacted the police and Erhan was arrested.
During the investigation, a strong suspicion emerged that Erhan had also sexually abused Hazel’s younger sister. Hazel took what she describes as ‘a serious overdose … because I felt guilty he had stopped with me and started on my baby sister’.
This convinced Hazel’s mother that Hazel could not cope with a court case, so she pushed for the investigation to be halted.
Erhan had left the family home, but he would regularly stalk Hazel, sometimes on the way back from school, and make threats against her and her sister. Many people from the local community took his side, and verbally abused Hazel and her mother for reporting the abuse to the police.
Sometimes Hazel’s mother called the police about Erhan harassing Hazel, but the abuser seemed to find this funny and was allowed to simply drive off. ‘I feel completely failed by the whole system’ Hazel says.
After she disclosed the abuse, Hazel began drinking heavily. Unable to bear being in the house where she was abused, she slept on the streets for a time. She was aggressive and became involved in an abusive relationship. ‘For a long time, I believed I was just here to be abused’ she relates.
Hazel became pregnant. She says was terrified of having a girl in case she too was abused.
For a time, Erhan moved abroad, but a few years ago he contacted Hazel on social media, and she realised he had returned to her local area. ‘This made me want to take control and not allow this man to rule me any more’ she says.
She made a complaint to the police but has been very frustrated with delays, cancelled appointments, loss of records and inefficiency on the part of different services. She has discovered basic mistakes in her files, such as her name being recorded wrongly.
Hazel says she understands that proof is needed and she has taken a lot of time and care locating key documents from health and social care records, only to find that months later, these have not been passed to the police as promised. ‘No one seems to be working together … no one talks to each other’ she says.
One police officer she is dealing with is very good, but has an overwhelming case load. She is currently waiting to hear from the Crown Prosecution Service whether they will prosecute Erhan.
Hazel has suffered with her mental health. She has had therapy but still struggles with feelings of anxiety and anger. The realisation that so many people knew about the abuse and failed to act has had a profound effect on her. ‘Why wasn’t I important enough?’ she asks.
She also suffers with physical conditions as a result of the abuse she suffered. She says ‘There is nothing in my life that he hasn’t affected’.
Hazel believes there are many improvements that could be made to protect children. Social services should act on referrals and investigate them promptly; police investigations into child sexual abuse should be prioritised, and more resources should be given to the police.
She concludes, ‘No one listened and no one acted. If they had acted my sister would not have gone through what she did … and I would not have had the struggles I’ve had’.