At first Reilly felt safe with his mother’s new boyfriend, because he wasn’t violent like the others
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Reilly was sexually abused by his mother’s partner, who was a convicted child abuser.
Social services later visited his mother to warn that her younger children were at risk, but did not remove them.
Reilly’s parents separated when he was three years old, and his father played no part in his life.
His mother drank heavily, neglected Reilly and physically abused him. She had a succession of relationships with men who were violent alcoholics.
Reilly relates an incident when his mother and one of her boyfriends were drunk. They woke him up and made him come downstairs to watch a violent film that showed a child being raped. He relates ‘They found it hilarious. My mother said “If you play up, this will happen to you”’. Reilly was nine or 10 years old when this happened.
Sometimes when Reilly’s mother wanted to go out, she left Reilly with an uncle, Joe. Joe would masturbate in front of Reilly, and this escalated to him making Reilly masturbate him. This abuse began when Reilly was five, and continued for about seven years.
During that time, Joe started giving Reilly money when he abused him. Reilly adds ‘He asked if I had any friends at school who wanted to earn money. As I got older I realised this isn’t normal … not what families should be doing to each other’.
The abuse by Joe ended when Reilly and his mother moved to a different area. But he says ‘the neglect got worse. She dated a lot of new guys, she was not being a mother in any sense or doing anything a mother would do’.
Reilly was often locked in his room and had to urinate out of the window. He was not given adequate food and never had clean clothes or bedding.
He belonged to an activity club that was run by a youth charity, and he learned some life skills there. He says ‘That’s the only reason I survived’.
Around the time that Reilly started secondary school, his mother met a man called Steve, who she later married. Reilly describes Steve as ‘soft and kind … he was quite effeminate and would make a point of talking to me’.
The first time Steve stayed over, he came into Reilly’s room and rubbed his genitals through the bed covers. Reilly says he tried to convince himself that Steve didn’t realise where his hand was.
Steve then started to take Reilly out in his car and would touch him, saying he was massaging him. He bought Reilly things. Reilly relates ‘I now understand this was grooming’.
Sometimes Steve would take Reilly to his flat to sexually abuse him. The abuse involved masturbation and oral sex. Steve told Reilly stories about other boys he abused. At Reilly’s house, Reilly would often bathe Steve, and Reilly’s mother was aware of this.
At one point, Reilly says that he did suggest to his mother that Steve was not a good person, but she became angry and aggressive.
He describes how conflicted he felt about being sexually abused by someone who treated him better than his mother’s previous boyfriends had. ‘With Steve, life was getting better. He didn’t drink so mum didn’t drink so much and there was less violence. I had things like carpet on the floor, clean clothes and regular food. … So I justified it to myself, that’s how I lived with it until I grew up and started to see what it was.’
During the years that Steve abused him, Reilly would sometimes stay at his flat for weeks at a time. No one at school asked him why he had been absent; he says the school was in crisis with its poor performance and high numbers of pupils.
Also during this time, Steve was harassed and abused by neighbours, who called him a paedophile.
Reilly left home when he was in his mid teens. One day when he was visiting his mother, who by this time had young children with Steve, two social workers arrived. They advised her that Steve was a convicted child sexual abuser and that her children were at risk.
His mother said she didn’t see what the problem was. The social worker seemed shocked, and commented that Reilly’s mother didn’t realise how serious it was, but the children remained in the house.
Reilly broke off contact with his mother after this. He says ‘Going there was doing me a lot of damage. It was making me feel crazy and violent towards them, so I stopped’.
When a family member told him that they had seen images of child abuse on Steve’s computer, Reilly decided to report him to the police. He made a statement, which included the abuse he had suffered. He says ‘I was very emotional … they wanted graphic details. I had never told my story out loud’.
The police told him that he needed help but did not do anything to assist him in getting any support.
They arrested Steve, but by that time he had got rid of his computer and the family member who had seen the images refused to give a statement.
For several months Reilly heard nothing from the police. He chased them up several times, and was then told the case was not going to proceed.
Reilly suffers with depression and has attempted suicide. He has no faith in the justice system, feels let down by authorities and finds it impossible to trust them. He feels very concerned about his half-siblings and is taking steps to try and get the authorities to protect them.
He says that the police need to show empathy and care towards people who report offences, and keep them regularly updated. He says when he was chasing them about his case, he felt he was ‘a drag on resources’.
Reilly adds that agencies should ‘own’ the issues that are reported to them and meet their responsibilities.
Although he left school without any qualifications, he completed a training course and built a successful career.
Reilly feels it is a positive development that people are more aware of sexual abuse and that they are joining together in social movements to talk about it.