Jasper says ‘I missed my childhood … I had to grow up fast … I had to learn how to defend myself’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Jasper had a troubled childhood and adolescence in the 1960s and 70s.
He was placed in the care system, where he suffered physical abuse from other young people and sexual abuse from a member of staff.
Jasper’s parents were not in his life very much. In his early teens he began committing petty crimes and was referred to an assessment centre, then sent to a children’s home.
He was physically abused in the assessment centre, and in the children’s home, where the older boys beat him up. ‘They’d come round during the night … every night of the week I’d get a beating’ he says.
In his second year, he was moved to a different dormitory. The housemaster, Mr Smith, sexually abused Jasper. He says ‘It was not just me … he did it to other kids as well’.
The sexual abuse went on for about a year until Jasper was discharged from the home in his mid teens. He lived on the streets for a while, then managed to find a flat and a job, but he struggled with the effects of his traumatic experiences. He says he got involved with ‘the wrong people … bad people just used to find me’.
He became addicted to alcohol and gambling, and got heavily into debt. He had panic attacks and blackouts, and frequently could not control his anger. He was confused about his sexuality and says that for a time he was ‘anti-gay’ because he connected it with being sexually abused.
Jasper feels he was let down by the local authority and social services. He thinks he had a social worker but hardly ever saw them. He says there should be more careful monitoring at night-time in children’s homes, and that staff should be carefully vetted.
He also feels he suffered from a lack of support when he left the care system, and that improvements should be made to help young people to manage in the outside world.
After a number of difficult relationships, Jasper is now with someone who gives him love and support, but he says ‘it’s difficult to get used to love as I’ve not had it from anywhere.