Rape, beatings and alcohol (Domestic Violence)

Member Name: Scooobydooo

Product:	Domestic Violence
Date:	13/03/04 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: none

Disadvantages: too many

Domestic Violence can raise its ugly head in any family. I would describe mine as middle class comfortably off. However when my mum got divorced from my biological father, it turned to rape and beatings from him that became physical and mental.

After I had gone through all this, my mum remarried and then started to have a drink problem and boy when they rowed the whole street could hear them. It got really physcial and violent and where as my step father would never hit us, my mum would really have a go at us and beat us and my step father would try to prevent this by telling us to get into our bedrooms and put the wardrobe up against the door to stop her from hitting us. They would go to the pub every Wednesday, come home late and argue and argue and argue all the way to Saturday and on Saturday, they would make up and go back to the pub and argue and fight all the way through till the Wednesday.

I hated my childhood afterall I had the problems with my real father and now this. I tried to speak to my teachers but they ignored my pleas for help. Even though I had once gone to school one day with a bruise on my face the size of an apple. During this opinion I will give you different sorts of abuse.

I was called ugly and fat by my mother who was always on a diet and this is verbal abuse but when it is aimed at someone so young, it effects them. Consequently I started dieting and really got into it and then started on Laxatives and then my frame went down from a healthy 11stone down to just over 6 stone and I wanted to go further. I went to the doctors and eventually over came this and I am now mmmm very big and I do not give a monkeys, I am happy and that is the main thing.

God did my mum have some whack in her slaps and this could be anything from hair pulling to great big slaps and smacks where ever she could get
you. Also the things in the house would be thrown and smashed and if I tried to pick it up, I would get slapped again. Then my step father bless him would intervene and she would start mentally mithering him all night and hitting him, throughout their years of marriage, he never once hit her back....

Then when we started working, it was give me your wage packets and arguments started as she would only leave me with travel money. I did not mind paying but not everything. A girl need things. Then this would lead to her drinking again and she would drag us out of bed saying I could have put you into a home and quite often I would say, I wish to god that you did and one day I said this and boy it kicked off and she pulled my wardrobe down on me and smashed my stereo and broke my jewellery.


Many of you who know that as a child of 5 years old I had happy parents and then from the age of 7 years old my parents split and lived in different parts of the country. I was sent to see my biological father on visits most weekends and at first it was great.

In the early days of visiting him, I would get spoilt rotten, after all I was a young girl with long blonde hair and cute looking. I was showered with presents and money and it was like a holiday when we went over to see him.

My Biological father had always been hard working and had never laid a finger on me, until one day I woke up after falling asleep on his settee and he was on top of me puffing and panting. I started to cry as I was in pain. I won't go into lots of details about this as I have written on this subject before in another site.

The outcome was that over a period of time he hit me if I did not let him do it and I became withdrawn and quiet. His excuse for doing this was "If you let me do this to you, god will see that I am
trying to get back with your mum and it will happen". I know this sounds really daft but as a young child of 7 who wanted nothing else other than this, he continually raped me week after week. Months later when I started to become ill and wetting the bed and signs of psorasis flare ups on my body, I refused and he hit me hard across the head. I cried but could not understand why he hated me so much. I had done nothing but love him.

His threats became violent and abusive and he said if he did not let me do this to him he would report my mum to the police and she would be locked up. I had no reason to doubt him so he carried on. Then one day I could not take it no more and had some pocket money and set out on my journey back to mums 35 miles away. I travelled from bus to bus in different counties. I had done this trip so many times that I could do this blindfolded. I went into Leeds and went into the market and started the last part of my journey home. By the time I got home there was a police car outside our house and I was petrified they had come to lock my mum up and I ran off and my brother found me and he said they were there only to find me.

I kept his secret for so long but at the age of 18, I told my mum and she was really angry and upset but then told me to forget about it. I did for a while then out of the blue it caught up with me and I started in a spiral of depression and taking overdoses. The more I thought about it the more I wanted to die. I was eventually put into hospital as I had lost the plot. They tried to help me and said they did not have the correct facilities and let me go home. I walked straight out of there into the chemist and bought tablets and wine. I walked 8 miles in the dark not knowing where I was going but ended up at the Rape Centre in Manchester. Here they were real
ly concerned that I was going to die. I knew it was now only a matter of time but I was prepared to die so long as someone would listen and try to understand and that when I died they would stand up for me.

Time went on the and the young counsellor was in tears and doctors had now been summoned as the tablets were passing through my system and I was nearly unconscious. I fought with the doctors but in the end they passed a tube into my stomach and pumped it out. I was really lucky they said, another 30mins and it would have been irriversible and then it would have been a waiting game on a life support machine for me to die.

The next morning, I started what became a long time counselling and over a couple of years, I got back on my feet but then at the age of 24 he tried to contact me and I found out he had children with another woman. All around the age of what I was. This petrified me and I found out that I could still take him to court. This was lengthy and tedious and could I really cope with it, but he had kids and what if he was doing it to them. I decided that in their interests if for nothing else I had to do it. His kids were taken away to a centre to be checked and they said there was something wrong but would not tell me.

The court case was looming and I had been geared for them to rip me apart in court and I was ready for this. At the tenth hour, I got a call from the police saying that his 14year old daughter had found him hanging in an upstairs bedroom. I was devestated and he had left a letter but this would never be divulged to me. I started to blame myself and people feared that I would go back into depression but no not all this time I felt so angry that he had got away with it. He had got away with it for so long and now he had done it again.

I then decided that the only redress
that I could have was to go down the criminal compensation lines because if they awarded you, then it would mean they believed you. That is all that I wanted. The time come and all the officers were there on my side and it was awful thing to go through. They asked me a million and one questions and one of them asked me how much it was that I wanted. I looked at the bloke and thought you pathetic person. I had a penny in my hand and said even if you just offer me a penny then I will be the happiest person in the world. By doing so it means that officially he would be recognised as a child rapist. We had to go out while they discussed it and the people told me that I had to move on with my life even if I did not get anything. I told the judges in there that unless they did not acknowledge this, this would be my last chance of moving on.

We went back into the room and said we will offer you £10,000 pounds and if you want anymore we have to wait for some more reports that have to come through. I told them the money was never an issue and I wanted to close the chapter on this part of my life and move on.

I did just that. It seems so long ago this happened and It is easy to talkabout. The money that I got was donated away to the charities that helped me. No matter how I looked at this money it was dirty money and I did not want any part of it.

That day I went back through town and I had a grin over my face, it was like I had won the lottery and I wanted to stop everyone and told them that I had won against him.

Today I am happily married and have helped other families of abuse and it has made me a stronger person.

Then something funny happened a few weeks back, hubby came back from a certain place where he had been and said so and so is there doing this and that. I said yes and the poi
nt is. Well he iwas either accused or a convicted child molestor and he is going forward for a certain position and his posters are up everywhere.

This brought back memories where I had to think, do I tell the people about this or keep stum, afterall he appeared in the paper for this. I slept on it for a couple of days and thought, well if this person has been good, he does deserve the right to get on with his life and whom am I to interefere. However he was giving advice to people who were 17 and older and someone said what if someone comes to him with problems and they have children. You have to do something about this.

This took me back to my abuse and how I thought about my situation and I came to my conclusion, after all Ian Huntley was not convicted and he murdered those poor wee girls. So what is to stop him from striking again. I slept on it over the weekend and then told my husband I was going to do something about it.

I did and I rang the place up and told them everything that I knew. I basically told them the truth and said it is up to you but at the end of the day, my conscenece is now clear. They said leave it with us and we will look into it. A couple of days later, all the posters had come down. I believe that everyone has a right to get on with their lives but certain types of people never change and this is one of them.

Everyone says to me why have you kept in touch with your family after everything that has happened but at the end of the day, life is too short to hold grudges and I love my mum as she is my mum but not as a mum if you see what I mean. I have become a hardened person but not in a bad way. I do not suffer fools gladly.

As for my biological father, I would have liked to have met him and for him to say sorry, or to give me some reason, no matter how pathetic it is, even
if he was having a breakdown at the time. Do I forgive him. Yes, I do now as I have a good life and it no longer affects me but forget, no, that is one thing that will never happen. When I think about it now, I can recall most things about it. But sadly the only things about my childhood that I can remember is the violence and rape. Everything is blotted out and only at certain times when I see something that a long lost memory is unlocked.

Karen :0)

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