Malorie says ‘Sometimes I feel so angry; I just want an apology from the local authority’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Malorie spent her childhood and adolescence suffering abuse and neglect while she was under the care of a city local authority.
She says ‘I know it won’t happen, but I’d like them to acknowledge they could have done better’.
Malorie was born in the late 1960s. Her mother was a drug addict and a prostitute. Her father was a drug dealer and a pimp.
She has obtained some of her records from social services. ‘From the few notes I have, I know mum wasn’t good at looking after me, and social services were involved with me from when I was [few] months old’, she says.
When Malorie was three years old, the local authority took her into care. She has a list of children’s homes and foster placements she was sent to. Her notes describe her amongst other things as an ‘angry’ child.
At the age of about four, Malorie was fostered with a couple and stayed with them for a number of years.
Malorie says ‘I don’t remember much, but I have memories of being made to sit in a room by myself a lot. I remember rocking and crying. I remember feeling very, very sad. There were social workers who would come and go and I know from my notes I was attached to them and I didn’t want them to go’.
Malorie remained with the couple until a social worker arrived, packed her things and drove her to a children’s home. Malorie recalls ‘It was dark, I was very scared. There was no conversation about why I was there, or how I felt’.
She describes ‘a lot of touching and feeling’ going on between the girls and boys in the home. She adds ‘The staff would drink and smoke in front of us and sometimes be drunk’.
After about a year, Malorie was moved to another home. Here, one boy used to come into her bedroom at night and sexually abuse her. With obvious distress at the memory of this, she says ‘I never had a voice to say no. I just used to allow it, even though I didn’t want it. I wonder “Where were the staff when these things happened?’’’
On one occasion, the boy cut Malorie with a razor blade but she was so scared of him she covered up what he had done.
Malorie and another girl ran away a few times, and when she was 14 or 15, she was moved to another children’s home.
‘This is where the worst abuse happened’ she says.
Malorie explains that again, the perpetrators were other young people in the home. Boys would come into the girls’ rooms and sexually assault them. One boy took Malorie into the bathroom and raped her.
She adds ‘He forced me to have sex with another boy. I tried to say I didn’t want to but he made me’.
Malorie says ‘There was no care in that home. The staff stayed in the office all the time … no one asked you how you were’.
Sometimes an older girl took her out of the children’s home to a house where lots of men would gather. This girl coerced Malorie into having sex with some of these men.
One man who was old enough to be Malorie’s father would sometimes pick her up from the home, take her back to his house and rape her, with his wife present.
‘The staff never seemed to notice’ Malorie says. ‘I was a complete wreck. I never felt safe; I was not protected.’
One or two years later, Malorie’s dad made contact with her and social services allowed her to go and live with him and his girlfriend. ‘He was just someone else taking advantage of me’ she says.
Her dad was dealing drugs and his girlfriend was sleeping with men for money. Malorie relates ‘I was just left in the house to fend for myself. I rang social services and asked to go back into care’.
Malorie was later sent to another children’s home, then to a hostel.
She describes some of the ways she has been affected by her early experiences. She remembers feeling embarrassment about her background at primary school and says ‘By the time I went to secondary school I’d realised I could get suspended and that was the perfect solution so I didn’t feel the shame of feeling different. They just saw me as a very bad child, not emotionally disturbed as I was’.
Malorie has traumatic memories of case conferences where ‘everyone sat round and made decisions for you … no one asked you what you wanted or needed’. She recalls the fear of being told she would be moving again.
She has trust issues and suffers with panic attacks. She says she has allowed herself to be abused by men throughout her whole life. ‘I think I look for abusive men because it’s what I know.’
Malorie feels strongly that children need to be listened to, and to have consistency. ‘I had so many social workers – there was no consistency and I’m still trying to learn how to form bonds.’
She adds ‘Children deserve care and to be kept safe. Don’t just look at their behaviour and see them as “naughty”. Find out the causes’.
Malorie has been having therapy for several years, and says it is only recently that she has stopped putting on a ‘smiley face’ and pretending she is ok.
‘It’s nice to have a voice’ she concludes.