Kallum says ‘It’s too late for me, but we’ve got to stop this stuff’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Kallum was sexually abused by an older worker when he was an apprentice.
He has tried to access therapy but there is a long waiting list and he would like to see more support available for victims and survivors.
Kallum describes himself as ‘already a wreck’ at a young age. He didn’t like being at home because his stepfather was an emotional bully. He also remembers a teacher giving him a humiliating beating on his bare backside, in front of his class in primary school.
Although he enjoyed secondary school at first, and worked hard, he was often called ‘stupid’ by the teachers. He was targeted by bullies and began truanting. He left school with no qualifications, and remembers a teacher telling him, ‘You’re nothing but a waste of space’. Years later he discovered he was severely dyslexic.
Kallum began an apprenticeship when he was 16 years old. The apprentices were encouraged to go drinking with the older staff in the local club. Kallum says this was a regular event every week, and it made him feel ‘manly’ to drink and mix with the older men.
At some stage, he began to be invited back to the house of a work colleague after the club shut. This man sexually abused him.
Kallum’s memory of the abuse is fragmented but he knows he went several times to the man’s house. He believes it probably happened to other apprentices as his friend asked him if the man ‘had tried it on’, but Kallum denied it.
He adds that he had not had any experiences before and wouldn’t even have been sure at the time what sexual abuse was. ‘I wasn’t educated in the ways of the world … I didn’t know anything about life then.’
As a result of the abuse Kallum gave up his apprenticeship.
Kallum suffers with anxiety, panic attacks and has PTSD. He has been referred by his GP for support but there is a long waiting list.
He feels guilt and shame about the abuse and doesn’t feel he can tell any of his friends or family about what happened to him. ‘What would they think?’ he asks.
He feels that sports personalities talking about their experiences of abuse has helped to ‘lift the taboo’ around child sexual abuse. He would like to see more mental health resources to support survivors and more research into why abusers abuse.