Sex monster who stole my life

THE children sitting around the room share the gruesome details of their dark secrets. One cherub-faced girl reveals how she was regularly passed around as a plaything for paedophiles. Others tell equally horrific stories. The tales of shattered innocence are shocking, depraved, pitiful and heartbreaking. But these are not ordinary children. They are young girls trapped in the bodies of women whose development through the decades has been so crippled by their defilement that, even at 40-plus, they are still children under the surface. They are broken, lonely, frightened little girls. Here is the story of one of them and how she has, at last, found help.

ADELE (not her real name) was seven when she was subjected to a ritual of abuse at the hands of an uncle.

Her dossier of despair outlines the traumatic, long-term effects of sexual abuse and tells a chilling tale of depression, aggression and introversion.

"One day he just grabbed me, put his hand over my mouth and shoved me under the stairs.

"My dad wasn't in, my mum was upstairs asleep . . ."

She broke off, unable to continue.

There in the darkness under the stairs seven-year-old Adele was violently and sexually attacked.

"It was a terrifying experience," she said.

"Afterwards, I curled myself into a ball in the dark and cried.

"I was hurting inside. There was a lot of blood, which terrified me.

"I kept asking myself 'What had I done wrong for him to hurt me?"

Her uncle blamed her for being raped and warned that, if she talked, the police would take her away from her family.

"I was very frightened of him.

"He was such a big man and I thought no-one would believe me." The horrifying ordeal was repeated over and over again as the sex fiend gratified his own lust at his young niece's expense.

"Often after an attack she would have to chat or make a drink for him. He always seemed to know when my dad was out," said Adele.

"I would have done anything to end it.

"I used to struggle but in the end I just gave up fighting."

Adele, 47, a grandmother from Blackburn, added: "He took away my innocence.

"Suddenly I wasn't the same child."

Violence became her protector, a way of coping with her shameful secret and an outlet for her anger and hatred.

Her despairing family were unable to cope with her.

Growing up, she skipped school, bullied youngsters, stole money, smoked and drank and scratched names into her skin.

"I was totally out of control," she admits.

She was 14 when the abuse ended.

"I picked up a kitchen utensil and said to my uncle: 'If you touch me again, I'll kill you.' I meant it."

But tragically, mirroring her past abuse, she became a "sex machine" for boys.

"To me sex was emotionless and painful," she said.

"I thought sex was all I was good for so I let boys use me."

Throughout her life she has been unable to move on, express emotion and share all the natural feelings of love and tenderness. Her marriage broke down, she has never enjoyed lovemaking and was over-protective of her children, refusing to leave them in the care of others.

Adele said: "I was destroyed as a child and a became a woman with no confidence or self esteem.

"I didn't like or understand myself.

"I'm still frightened of the dark.

"I find it hard to trust people and stop in rather than socialise."

She struggled to keep afloat, fighting overwhelming feelings of sadness, guilt, shame and pure rage.

She was drowning - but in her late 40s she was thrown a lifeline.

She heard of the free female self-help Survivors Therapy/Support Group at The Women's Centre, in Blackburn, which helps child and adult victims of sexual abuse.

Initially she was terrified of shocking people by revealing her story.

"But the survivors' group was to reverse her fortunes and act as a catalyst for change.

"I met other victims and when I shared my secret, a huge weight lifted from me," she said.

"I realised the abuse wasn't my fault.

"Adults should protect kids. That trust was broken. A part of me is lost.

"I can't turn back the clock but I am learning to understand my fears and anxieties.

"I can see a path forward. "My uncle is a perverted, pathetic man who should be caged for life.

"Hopefully he is suffering."

She added: "Victims should not suffer in silence.

"I wish I'd got help years ago.

"I could have been a different person."

Sylvia Strahan, community outreach worker at the centre, said: "One in every four people suffers sexual abuse.

"Emotionally, the grown women have exactly the same negative feelings they had as children.

"These feelings create a pattern of damaging behaviour.

"We help change this by empowering women."

For more information call 01254 583032.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.