Abstract
Today we believe that children have a right to grow up without being sexually abused. In Britain, when such abuse is uncovered, those in authority, and indeed, most of society, react vigorously. Such unacceptable behaviour is not tolerated, however powerful, celebrated or popular the perpetrator.
Sadly, this has not always been the case in Britain, and we are discovering more and more cases of sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults which were not dealt with appropriately at the time they occurred. Why did this happen? In many instances the victims were unable, through age or disability, to articulate the abuse. That problem remains today. In others the victims were silenced by threats from the perpetrators, which is also true today. Most disturbing of all are where complaints were made by victims but either disbelieved by the adults in whom they confided, were trivialized by them or condoned for a variety of reasons, most notably the power or money wielded by the perpetrator.
John Stewart writes very frankly and movingly, in The Times of 3 January 2013, of his childhood experiences at a boarding school. He went to Hawtreys School near Marlborough in 1967, at the age of eight. The headmaster appears to have enjoyed using the cane, which he did with sickening regularity. John had “special” poetry reading lessons. They included gross sexual abuse, compensated for with two squares of chocolate.
When John eventually told his parents about this his mother was shocked. But his father ranted at him, saying “It happened to me every day at my school.” The matter was brushed under the carpet.
I had a patient who wrote a brief memoir for me. During World War II she went to school daily on a train with compartment carriages. Soldiers, away from their wives, would flash their penis at her and her older sister. They were aged seven and eight. They learnt to dash to the next compartment when the train stopped at a station. She writes “We were not traumatised; we accepted that it was normal behaviour and did not bother to tell our parents.” Nevertheless, although not physically or psychologically damaged, now in her seventies she writes that she has a sense of shame about this.
Between 10 and 20 years ago I became aware of a number of people in responsible positions in society who openly admitted that they felt people were overreacting to the increasing concern about the sexual abuse of children. They included senior teachers and clergy. I do not think they were bad people, they simply could not believe that another adult would treat a child in this way. I am fairly confident that nobody in such a responsible position today would be so dismissive.
Hopefully our society is moving forward on this issue. Time has shown that in many cases, complaints which were not acted upon have turned out to have substance, and that timely, prompt and thorough investigation could have prevented more abuse. Our society is becoming more aware of the dangers of predatory paedophiles, and I would like to think that the situation is better now than it was 20 years ago. However, there is no room for complacency, and we must all do our part.