Katelyn says ‘A lot of women are in prison because they weren’t protected as children’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Katelyn’s troubles began when her mum married a man called Kaine, who was from a Traveller family. Katelyn says her stepfather ‘was a bad man’.
He sexually abused her when she was about 11, and possibly before that. Katelyn remembers her mum asking her and her sibling ‘if anything had happened’. But later, when she did disclose the abuse, her mother threw her out of the house.
Kaine had been in prison. He used to beat Katelyn’s mum, and he hit the children. He took drugs, but Katelyn says they lived in ‘a clean home’ and anyone walking in wouldn’t believe that ‘anything would happen there’.
Her earliest clear memory of being sexually abused is from when she was 11 years old. It was her first day at secondary school, and Kaine groped her and ‘did things’ that put her into shock. He then said he was sorry.
Katelyn remembers her mother coming downstairs and asking what was happening. She hoped her mum would look at her and know, but she didn’t.
She was often left alone with Kaine and he continued to sexually abuse her. Sometimes he slapped her and threatened that he would kill her mum and her sibling if she said anything. Sometimes he gave her money, she says, to ‘shut me up’. She says the whole family were frightened of him.
Katelyn had always been an active child, but being sexually abused put her into shock and she felt quite suppressed. At school, Katelyn was unable to concentrate. She lived on what was known as a ‘rough estate’ and she was often picked on by other kids for being dirty. Lonely and troubled, she began taking drugs and harming herself.
She describes how she used to avoid bathing to try and put Kaine off coming near her. But he continued to molest her. She adds ‘He knew what he was doing’ because he hit her ‘where it wouldn’t show’.
When Katelyn was in her early teens the police came to the house and said that they had arrested Kaine. Katelyn doesn’t know who had reported him, but she was asked about the abuse, and she told the police what had happened.
Katelyn was not given any support, and her mother accused her of lying and told her to drop the charges. She remembers screaming at her mum. When she got back to the house she was locked out and her things were outside in a black plastic bag.
She tried to get help from social services, but was turned away. For a time she stayed with a friend, but began to feel uncomfortable about ‘eating her out of house and home’.
Katelyn described herself as ‘a mess’. Looking back, she says, she thinks she was probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown. She still attended school – her mother told them she had run away from home, but no one at school approached her about this.
Katelyn was forced into sex work so that she could afford essentials to live on. She has spent time in prison and still lives with the effects of her traumatic experiences. She cannot control how she reacts to things, and believes she has post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She is married, but finds relationships a struggle.
She did seek help for her mental health problems but was unable to continue with it. However, she has found her own ways to cope.
Katelyn comments ‘No one can see my pain, I am good at masking it.’
She feels strongly that social services and the system need to support vulnerable children. She adds ‘Listen to the women in prison … they have a lot to offer these types of inquiries’.