Jemima felt she had left other children to suffer when she escaped her abusive foster home
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Jemima suffered extreme cruelty and sexual abuse by members of the family who fostered her.
When she left, she was tormented with grief and guilt that they were still abusing other children.
Jemima was taken into care when she was five years old. Her father had died and her mother was neglecting her.
She was placed with foster parents, Mr and Mrs Smith, who fostered many other children and also had some of their own.
Jemima related ‘For the first 24 hours it seemed fine. But it changed quickly … I became aware that every child in there, apart from their own, was being abused’.
Mrs Smith was severely physically and emotionally abusive to the children she fostered. She never called them by their names. She did not feed or clothe them adequately and she cut their hair crudely.
The bedrooms were overcrowded – often Jemima had to share a bed with one or two other children and the sheets were ‘disgustingly dirty’. She says ‘At one point there were more than 25 children there – it was like a cattle market’. She adds that she had no toothbrush, no toys and there was no lightbulb in the bedroom.
Mrs Smith frequently hit the children, often causing them to have nose bleeds. But Jemima says ‘If she gave us bruises, she kept us off school’.
Mr Smith worked and was out of the house all day. ‘He never did anything to any of the children, but he sat back and watched it all’ says Jemima.
Once, after suffering for several weeks, Jemima told Mrs Smith she had threadworms. Her foster mother said ‘What a dirty disgusting child’ and her husband agreed.
The couple were very religious and they would invoke the anger of God to threaten the children. Jemima says ‘We were all frightened to death. She told us if we told anyone no one would believe us and also we would die early and burn in hell’.
Mr and Mrs Smith had an adult son, Paul, who came home after working away. He began sexually abusing Jemima. The abuse began with him touching her, and trying to make her say it was nice. He encouraged her to play with his erect penis and he ejaculated.
Jemima didn’t realise what was happening at the time because she was so young. The abuse continued for the next seven years. She describes her confusion. ‘I looked on it as affection, perhaps he was being nice to me.’
The abuse escalated and Jemima realised he was abusing some of the other girls. She says ‘He would come into the bedroom at night and pick who he was going to take into his room that night. I don’t know why, but more often than not it was me … we were all absolutely petrified’.
At school the foster children were ostracised and ridiculed by the other children and even by some of the teachers. ‘We were treated like freaks because of our clothes and terrible haircuts’ Jemima says.
She did discover years later that the headmaster once reported concerns about the children to social services. She remembers that one day the food at home suddenly improved. Within a few days the social workers visited and saw the table laden with food.
Jemima says ‘I remember one asking “You have this all the time, do you?”, and we all nodded. The foster mother didn’t tell us we had to say that, but we knew we did’.
During the time that Jemima lived with Mr and Mrs Smith, she occasionally saw her mother. She told her that the couple were abusive, but her mother would not listen or help.
When Jemima was about 12 something happened in the foster home, and Jemima knew that Mrs Smith was going to punish her. She suddenly ran from the house, and managed to get to a relative’s place in great distress. Her relative’s partner called social services and Jemima was moved to temporary foster care, then to a children’s home.
She stayed there for the rest of her childhood, and says that her behaviour deteriorated and her problems increased. She was tormented with thoughts that Mrs Smith was still mistreating children. She says ‘The biggest regret was, I left them all to suffer. I knew nobody would believe me … it killed me’.
She began drinking heavily and says she became promiscuous, using sex to try and find love and affection. But she was never able to enjoy intimacy. She suffered from mental health problems and insomnia, and tried to take her own life.
As an adult, after hearing about cases of abuse on the news, Jemima thought ‘I have to do something’.
She reported the foster parents to a former social worker, who told the police. But the police said nothing could be done as the abuse happened too long ago.
Eventually there was a police investigation, involving more victims and survivors of sexual abuse by Paul. At first he pleaded not guilty and Jemima was told she would have to give evidence in court with no screen. On the day of the hearing, the abuser changed his plea to guilty and was given a very short prison sentence.
Jemima says she ‘fell to pieces’. By this time she had children and she began drinking heavily again. ‘I went from a normal hard working mum to an alcoholic in four months.’
With the help of a very supportive GP and Alcoholics Anonymous, Jemima is recovering.
She emphasises that it is really important for professionals to notice children and carefully investigate if any abuse is suspected, and they must look beyond the appearance on the surface.
She would also like there to be support readily available to victims and survivors going through the court process. She says that non-recent child abuse should be taken seriously and investigated properly, with no time limits to investigations.
Jemima is relieved that at last she knows that Mr and Mrs Smith are not fostering any children. She is proud of being a good mother to her own children. She says ‘I’m so glad I turned out to be a loving, warm protective parent’.