Abuse! why would you wait to report it?

Abuse! Why wait to report it?

In this country at the moment we are hearing about and reading a lot about the abuse of minors by some of our best known and most loved celebrities.

We are sat in disbelief as the stories of Jimmy Savile emerged day after day. I sat with my wife watching the story unfold and to be honest my first thoughts were why wait so long to come out and say? Why wait for the man to die before you slander his name.

I couldn’t understand what stopped people from saying anything? Then time after time the story goes that the victim thought nobody would believe them! Additionally they all thought they were alone the only one!

I didn’t think much more about it until a couple of weeks ago. I belong to a group on Facebook dedicated to my old senior school. I hadn’t looked at it for some time but there was a notification that something new had been posted.

Being nosey I decided to see if it was someone new someone I knew, as it turned out someone had posted a group picture of a class at my old junior school! It made me smile so I opened it up to see if I could recognise any of the children in the picture.

As it happened I couldn’t but I did recognise the teacher stood at the end. Underneath someone had re-written the rhyme we had made up about the teachers of the time. There were also some comments about this particular teacher’s racist attitude in the way he conducted himself.

As I continued to read through the comments one struck me right between the eyes. “I wish I knew then what I know now I would’ve got the paedophile Mr XXXX arrested!

I continued down the comments and as I read I realised that something that I had not spoken about to anyone else ever was being repeated by someone else here.

Every morning at junior school it was customary for the whole school to come together for an assembly. This was essentially the headmaster and his teaching team leading hymens (regardless of your religion or lack of) and saying the Lord’s Prayer.   On this particular day (I must have been around 8 or 9 years old at the time) as the assembly ended and we were all shuffling off back to class, the headmaster shouted at me in an almighty voice and lent down off of the stage area and hit me right across the arse, it was really hard in my mind’s eye I can still see him swinging his arm towards me.

I was absolutely mortified, I was stunned with shock. I did not understand what I had done wrong? Because of his shouting it seemed like the whole school had stopped and was looking at me. I was very shy at the time and became very embarrassed to the extent it made me cry!

As quickly as this had happened we were whisked off back to class, nothing was said at all not by the headmaster or by my teacher. I just didn’t know what had happened.

Later on it the day just after the lunch time break I was sent for to go to the headmaster’s office. To say I was shitting myself was an understatement. Because this had happened in the morning it seemed like an age ago to me, but now I thought I was in trouble again.

As I entered his office this time he was very different, His whole demeanour had changed he was not angry anymore, he also had his chair turned to the side of his desk not behind it and he called me over to stand next to him.

As I stood there between his legs he began to speak explaining that he had hit me because I had been talking and not taking any notice, (which was untrue) he did not want to tell my mum and dad and did not want to punish me any further. As he was talking to me however the whole time he had his hand rubbing all over my backside.

Even at that young age I knew this this did not feel right and I felt really uncomfortable, I don’t recall a lot of what was actually said to me and to me the time I was there seemed like an eternity. Once I was out of his office though I just put it all behind me and I never mentioned it to anyone. Initially this was because I didn’t want to get in trouble at home with my parents. After that I then didn’t mention it because I was embarrassed. Then much later I didn’t mention it because and here is the punch line,

I thought I was the only one, and that nobody would believe me!

It has however taken nearly 40 years for me to come to the realisation that it wasn’t just me and I would be believed maybe not at the time but certainly now in this day and age. There are people saying the exact same thing as I am this was his pattern his ploy to get you alone. I am not claiming I was abused in anyway but by todays standards his actions were inappropriate to say the least.

I do realise my situation is not anything close to what has happened to children at the hands of some of these celebrities, or indeed to abused children all over the world, but what it has shown me is that we can be manipulated quite easily and that waiting 40 years to come forward does not mean it did not happen!