A Catholic priest confessed to raping Sadie but the church allowed him to teach at another school
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
After a Catholic priest raped Sadie at school, her parents were told by a senior church official that he would be sent abroad.
But on Sadie’s first day at a new school, the priest walked into her classroom to teach religious education.
Sadie attended a Catholic school in the 1960s. One day she was given detention after school by one of the teachers, a priest called Father Smith.
In the empty classroom, the priest suddenly grabbed Sadie by her neck. He lifted her up so that her feet left the floor, then pushed her down and raped her between the desks. ‘I was 12 but I was quite small for my age’ she says. ‘I can always remember the smell of his robes … old church and incense’ she adds.
She remembers crying ‘I want my mum’ while he was raping her.
Afterwards, the priest told Sadie she would go to hell if she told anyone, and also that he would give her pocket money and sweets if she kept quiet.
Sadie recalls running out of the school and sobbing her eyes out on the bus. As soon as she arrived home, her mother asked her why she was late and what was wrong. Sadie says ‘All I could say was that Father Smith got on top of me’.
Sadie’s parents immediately went to the school, taking Sadie with them. The headteacher told them that Father Smith had already admitted what he had done.
Sadie was left to wait in the corridor while her parents spoke to the head, and she was petrified to look up and see Father Smith looking down at her from the top of the staircase.
That evening, a doctor and the headteacher came to Sadie’s house and spoke to her parents. She remembers being struck at the time that no one ever spoke to her, or asked her what happened. ‘As no one asked me any more, I never said any more’ she says.
She was later told that Father Smith was being sent abroad.
Sadie was sent to a different school. On her first day, she was shocked and terrified when Father Smith walked into her classroom. ‘He kept looking at me, really awkwardly. I couldn’t believe it’ she says. She had to wait the whole day feeling scared until she could go home and tell her parents.
She doesn’t know what action was taken, but she never saw the priest again.
Sadie suffered sexual assaults by two different men in her adult years.
In later life, Sadie learned that allegations of rape had been made by several other girls against Father Smith. As an adult, she went to the police and reported that he had raped her. After waiting eight years, she was told the case would not continue as Father Smith had died.
Sadie feels frustrated and let down by the police who dealt with her reports of rape by the priest and the other men. She says that on one occasion she had to recount her experience at a reception desk with lots of people around.
She does not trust any men and finds intimacy and sexual relations impossible. She feels that her childhood experience of rape made her vulnerable to these attacks. ‘It’s so difficult to feel safe’ she says.
She has flashbacks of the rape by the priest. She has thoughts of suicide and frequently feels she does not want to be alive. ‘Every time a man comes near me, I become that child’ she says.
Sadie thinks that teachers should be given more training about child sexual abuse and should be vigilant for signs it may be occurring. She says the police should be more sympathetic and sensitive towards survivors of child sexual abuse.
She has been attending therapy for many years, and finds writing and art a helpful outlet for her feelings.