Here's what happens when you tell the police you were abused as a child - Part One
"Can I ask why you waited so long to report the alleged offences?" The police officer asked me.
It was one of the most difficult phone calls I've ever made. I phoned the police to tell them what my dad and other 'adults' did to me when I was a kid, several decades ago.
Here I am as a kid in England, fancy-dressed as the cult-leader that the British called The Arch Bishop of Canterbury:
Everyone now knows that the UK sexually abuses its children on an industrial scale1, so I expected a straight-forward process with the police where details would be recorded and added to the growing database of information for cross-referencing. But just a few questions in, I got this from the officer:
"Can I ask why you waited so long to report the alleged offences?"
I let the words hang naked in the air. The police wanted to know why I waited so long to report the alleged offences.
Well, let me see now.
A few reasons; I suppose. Perhaps small but significant ones were:
That the entire country from the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher2 downwards was enabling the rape of children. That many major TV presenters at the time were raping children3. That the previous Prime Minister was raping children4. That the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) was running a paedophile ring5. That teachers at my school, King's House in Richmond, London were raping children6. That the Scout leaders at my scout hut were raping children. That the people who ran the local swimming pool, The Brentford Fountain Leisure Centre, were raping children. That many politicians were raping children7. That my dad was raping his children. That several of our family 'friends' were raping children. That our local church was raping children.
It was almost as if a whole society was committing a crime and covering it up...
Yeah, I think those are some of the reasons why I waited so long.
Also, the people who abused us said that the police would come and take us away when we were kids. To stop us talking about the sexual abuse. The police were not our friends.
It also felt, well, a bit strange when, later, the country gave Margaret Thatcher a state funeral8 (although they pretended it technically wasn't one). It would have been more reassuring if they had posthumously stripped her of her title and seized her estate to compensate all the children she facilitated the rape of.
But, instead, a lot of people seemed to endorse what she did.
Jimmy Savile endorsed her, and he sexually abused over one thousand children:
It was enough to make a rape survivor feel a bit strange. It felt almost as if everyone thought it was just fine to rape children in the UK. It was almost as if raping children was an innate part of British culture. It was almost as if child rapists like Jimmy Savile were part of a network of abusers, intimately entwined with government and state. Protected and denied.
As Thatcher demonstrated, you'd literally get a street parade and a "gun salute fired at one-minute intervals from the Tower of London" in honour of your service, if you facilitated the rape of children in Britain. It was almost as if child rape was acceptable in the UK. You could almost imagine serial child-rapists like Rolf Harris being invited to hang out with the Queen.
No, no. That would be absurd.
Maybe I'm too sensitive to these things. But, in England, when I was a kid, it felt a bit like everyone had gone fucking insane.
I also got the feeling that telling the British police about being raped as a kid was a bit like telling a Nazi Officer that I was somewhat concerned about the concentration camps. It felt absurd.
"Concentration camps you say? Oh dear. Yes, yes, we will thoroughly investigate for you."
After all, the police already knew what was going on, because many of them were raping children too9, and covering up for those who rape children10.
The police even 'lost' the dossier containing the names of all the politicians who were raping children.11.
"Can I ask why you waited so long to report the alleged offences?"
I wonder, on reflection, if the police should leave this question off the list of things they ask sexual abuse survivors in the UK?
In Part 2 (coming soon) I will report on the rest of my experience of making a formal statement to the police about childhood sexual abuse. Hopefully this will help other survivors understand what they are dealing with when they confront the profoundly dysfunctional state apparatus of the 'United' Kingdom.
Footnotes
1https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_sexual_abuse_in_the_United_Kingdom
2http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tory-child-abuse-whistleblower-margaret-3849172
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11323146/Thatcher-confidant-raped-boy-and-police-covered-crime-up.html
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/thatcher-was-warned-of-tory-child-sex-party-claims-9631657.html
3https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Yewtree
5http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-bbc-savile-idUKBRE89N0T320121025
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/490169/Dando-alarm-paedophile-ring-BBC
7https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm_Guest_House_child_abuse_scandal
11 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_paedophile_dossier
Wow. This is just... I can't find the words.
It takes someone that has gone through the experience to understand how not to ask these questions. To them, they're only just doing their job (to make you feel bad because it's not like they'd have done anything if you reported earlier).
Thanks for reading :)
I agree. I'm a long way down the road of recovery, so I was fairly resilient in the face of the questions I was asked, but I can imagine that many survivors would be deeply hurt and confused by the way that the police deal with these crimes.
Of course, in a place like the UK, the entire society is in collusion with the abusers (through enabling or denying); and the systems of 'justice', including the police, will be dysfunctional.
This is, sadly, both a symptom and a cause of the repeating cycles of trauma in a culture that abuses its children on a massive scale.
You are brave !
Is it possible that the question was asked out of concern for you and other victims? Your answer is magnificent and they may have wanted to hear it. Why do you think they asked?
I'm not sure why they asked. They asked again even after I answered. It was the only question they repeated.
Perhaps they were really asking themselves the question: Why have I waited so long?
A lot of people in the UK were victims of sexual abuse in childhood. Many have hidden the memories from themselves.
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