The Egg Man
2002-06-16 || 9:56 a.m.

Well, I think this will probably be my last Diaryland entry, because in all honesty I only write this for other people to read. Clearly it is not interesting or stimulating as no-one is reading it, so I think I should take the hint and go!

Anyway, before I do vanish for evermore I have something to write about that has been on my mind for a while.

Lately paedophiles have had a high profile in the media over here. There's been a lot of vigilante action and 'outings' in the press. Especially papers such as the 'News of the World' who will print picture, address, age etc in the interests of public safety. This has now begun to filter down into fictionalised drama on TV and made up part of a storyline on 'Casualty' last Saturday. I was talking with some people about this and I said that I didn't think it was right to take the law into your own hands, that what we should strive for as a society is to help these people and to try to ascertain why it happens, why they do it and what we can do to get them back on track so to speak.

Well, I was on my own on this opinion.

Virtually everyone else I was speaking to is of the 'cut off their balls and hang 'em' brigade. So why don't I feel like this?

I don't know how many people who have an opinion on this actually speak to child victims of this particular crime. I also don't know how other child victims feel about what happened to them and I would imagine that it varies, especially depending upon what actually happened to you.

When I was 9/10 years old, I was sexually abused by a man known to my family. I was unwittingly left alone with him and he then took advantage of me and the situation. He manipulated my mother so that he could be alone with me. I would dread having to be anywhere near him. I knew that what he was doing was totally wrong but I didn't know what to do about it. I never blamed myself for what happened (or anyone apart from him, for that matter) but I did feel utterly helpless and I just wished that I knew how to stop it. From the minute it began happening to me I compartmentalised it away. I detached myself totally from the action and in my head I split my mind from my body and abandoned my body. I've never spoken to anyone professional about this, but I would imagine this is a normal coping mechanism. Its the sort of thing you would do if you're having sex with someone you don't particularly want to and so you lay there and do the shopping list in your head instead! And hell, I can make a flippant observation if I want because it was me it happened to.

It didn't go on for long because I avoided being alone with him. That was easier said than done because of course I had to have a reason and I couldn't give the real reason. I actually ended up getting into trouble because I wouldn't help this man with the things I was meant to but I couldn't satisfactorily explain why. All these other complications arise from the initial exploitation.

When I was ill he even came into my bedroom and bought me a present. That made me feel really sick. The only thing that was funny about this was that he had to stand in the door with my mum next to him and the present he bought was a 'Blue Peter' annual. Who did he think I was? Some fucking stupid middle class Enid Blyton child who would start cooking and making fucking mobiles for her bedroom? Hmm, if I was ever going to be like that, he made damn sure I never would be again.

He never had to threaten me or even ask me not to tell. No, he was clever. He spotted a likely victim and knew he was safe. He could see I was horrendously shy. He could see I had a bad relationship with my mum. He could see that despite my being intelligent and articulate, out of the four of us, I was the least likely to say anything. Sarah would have screamed blue murder. Claire and Lindsay would have not gone alone with him in his van in the first place and anyway they were too young at the time. He liked girls just as they were coming up to puberty. So that left me!

A few years later when I was 14 I came home from school to find my mum was upstairs in her bedroom. She called to me to come up. I went upstairs and saw that she was crying. She asked me to sit on her bed and told me not to worry but that I was to be honest when I answered her question. She then went on to tell me that she had read in the local paper that the guy who used to come to our house had been convicted of sex attacks against children. She asked me if he ever did anything to me when I was in his van with him. I felt sick. Everything began to go black in my head and I couldn't focus. I felt myself split and the 'control' me take charge. I heard myself saying 'no, he never touched me'. She asked me again and again and I just repeated the same answer. I could see her face getting visibly lighter and happier.

How the fuck could I tell her the truth? How could I tell her that, without meaning to, she had put her child in danger? There was no way I could do that to her. She didn't need to know and she never will.

I felt bad about what had happened once my mum had spoken to me. I felt selfish and nasty. At the time of the offences all I wanted was to get away from him and for him to stop doing it to me. I NEVER thought about others. Now I was confronted with the consequences of my actions. My not speaking out had meant subsequent girls had suffered. I don't think this was actually my fault but had I told someone, he would not have had the chance to do it to others. I had to face that fact.

I don't know what happened after this. I know that when I was 17 he drove past me in his van so I would guess he served two years maximum in jail.

The reason why I've been thinking about this lately is also because I read an article in the Guardian on Tuesday about a innovative centre for child sex offenders. It has an 80% success rate but it is closing because the land on which it stands has been sold to a private land developer. No new home has been found and so the offenders currently there will be shipped off to different jails. What a tragedy. We need to be opening places like these, not closing them.

You know, it may not be a popular thing to say, but everyone has more than one aspect to them. You cannot write someone off because you don't like one socially unacceptable thing about them. Of course you can't let them carry on regardless either. I don't have the answers and I'm not telling anyone what to think. This is what happened to me and this is what I think. Nothing less, nothing more.

So farewell for now Diaryland and farewell to my loyal punters.