Juliette says ‘With my mental health history, no one will believe me’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Juliette was traumatised at a young age by sexual abuse.
This caused her mental health problems, which she feels have made people doubt her account of further abuse she suffered.
As a young child, Juliette lived with her parents, her brother and his wife, who was like a sister to her.
Looking back, she thinks she probably didn’t get a lot of attention or support at home, because other members of the family had health problems. This was known at her primary school.
She went to music lessons at lunchtime in a temporary building that was separate from the main school. The teacher was very popular with all the children.
Juliette was often alone with him for lessons, and he began sexually abusing her. She says she didn’t understand what was happening but remembers feeling that because he was so well-liked, his attention made her feel important and special.
The sexual abuse became more frequent and Juliette says it hurt more and more. The teacher assaulted her with the musical instrument and made her bleed. At home she would hide her knickers and steal sanitary towels to hide this. She knew that she hadn’t started her period and didn’t tell her mum about the abuse because she didn’t want to cause her mum any more worry.
‘As an adult it hurts me to think of the things I had to do’ she says.
Juliette remembers how unhappy she felt, and that she didn’t want to go on with the lessons.
When she was about 10, she tried to get close to another teacher she liked – a woman. ‘I felt safe with her so I wanted to be with her all the time.’
She began buying the teacher presents and writing her letters, and the school decided that Juliette was behaving inappropriately. ‘I know now it was because I was desperate for help’ she says.
She was seen by an educational psychologist, and Juliette now knows that it was noted in her report there was something else behind her behaviour, but this was not explored.
A report of her ‘obsession’ with a female teacher followed her to secondary school and she was only allocated male teachers. She started to self-harm and her behaviour deteriorated but no one asked her if anything was wrong.
Juliette didn't tell anyone about the abuse until a comment made by a male pupil caused her to speak out. She managed to speak to a female teacher who reported it to the police.
She was given a medical examination and the music teacher was arrested. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was not enough evidence for a prosecution.
Juliette found it increasingly difficult to engage with school. She hated being there and started to truant. When she was in her early teens, she met a man who offered her a place to go during the day. She agreed, and over time, other friends and relatives of this man began to appear at the house when she was there.
The man started hurting Juliette and then trafficking her. She was taken to different parts of the country and sexually abused by men. She says she did whatever she was told to do because if she tried to resist they would hurt her and threaten her.
She describes how frightening it felt never knowing what was going to happen next. On one occasion the police stopped the car Juliette was in with four older men. She says she was drunk and half-dressed but the police just told the men to ‘have a good night’.
Juliette recalls the police visiting one house and taking a girl away, but she was left. In other encounters she had with the police, she felt she was never believed, and assumptions and judgements were made about her.
When she was 18, a professional involved with her said she had chosen a promiscuous life. She says ‘I started to think it was my own fault and I was a horrible person who couldn’t cope’.
Juliette is clear that she has suffered with mental health issues and she says she has been sectioned. She feels this is the reason she has never been listened to or believed. She feels very let down by professionals who have labelled her and not tried to understand what caused her mental health problems.
This has made her wary of engaging with the police and health services. ‘It’s such a real thing all the time … that fear it has instilled’ she says.