What about when MOM is the abuser?

On Monday October 6, 1997 the BBC aired a show called The Sexual Abuse by Women of Children and Teenagers. I wanted to post complete transcripts of the show and this is part 6 of that. Be warned that some of the content can be disturbing and graphic.





Warning: This programme contains explicit descriptions of attacks and the emotional and physical damage they have caused, which some viewers may find distressing.




Children's home

Narrator:
More than 40 people are now alleging abuse including sexual abuse at this former children's home in Aberdeen. The orphanage was run by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth. The complaints the police are now investigating were until recently dismissed as impossible. They range over a period of 30 years in which individual nuns are alleged to have abused.

Boy:
I was about 7 or 8 at the time and she was in charge of our group, and just one day out of the blue she came along and asked me would I like to learn the time. And I just said yes, I'd like to learn the time. She told me that her watch was inside her breasts underneath her cassock which they used to wear. So I put my hand in - obviously I was fondling her breasts to look for the watch and I found it and while I was doing that- pulling the watch out - she would put her hand next to my penis and she would just gently squeeze it and that would get me excited. I could tell she was getting excited cause her face was pure red an d her speech was pretty excited speech.

Narrator:
This sort of incident happened on several occasions but the boy felt powerless.

Boy:
I knew it was wrong to do it, but I just did it because I had to do it or I got punished.

Female abusers acquire positions of trust

Narrator:
Some children aren't just at risk from the people they live with; they are vulnerable targets when they leave their homes. Out in the community female sexual abusers can manoeuvre with even more ease than men into positions of trust with authority over lost of children.



Dawn Read and Christopher Lilley:

Narrator:
Dawn Read and Christopher Lilley worked together as qualified teachers at a nursery in Newcastle. About 120 two to four year olds passed through their classes. Their mothers suspected nothing.

Mother:
I really liked her. She just came across really as a nice person, always laughing, smiling and wanting to talk to you, and just made us feel at ease.

Narrator:
It took two years for trusting parents to find out that their children were being repeatedly sexually abused at the nursery. Lilley and Read were never tried in court, making the parents determined to stand up in public and draw attention to the abuse.

Mother:
My daughter was sitting at the lunch table and said she didn't want her lunch, so Dawn got a knife and fork and took my daughter to the toilet which was in the classroom and sat her on the floor and inserted the knife and fork into her vagina. Chris was there and they were both laughing.

Narrator:
What did your daughter tell you about that, about how she felt?

Mother:
Well she said it hurt and there was blood and that they had to get a towel when she got washed, and the towel had blood on. But they seem to have done it a few times.

Narrator:
This child was one of more than 20 others who went on to tell their mothers what Dawn Read had done to them. At first they couldn't grasp what they were hearing.

Mother:
I'm angry with her. I can't understand where she was coming from when she was doing this to the children. I can't believe, as a mother I trusted her and I can't believe that a woman would let people trust her and then go out and misuse that trust.

Narrator:
Dawn Read and Christopher Lilley persistently misused parents trust at the nursery and at other addresses in Newcastle.

Interviewer:
What were they asking you to do?

Girl:
Pull my pants down. If I had a dress, lift my dress up.

Interviewer:
Did anyone take any photographs of you?

Girl:
Yeah, there was a camera man there.

Interviewer:
Tell me about that.

Girl:
He was just like taking pictures when they were being nasty to her and everything. I was like crying and just a lot of upset like. Screaming and saying I wanted to go back to the nursery and me mam and everything. And they wouldn't take any notice and they'd be laughing at me.

Interviewer:
When you had to join in with them, what did you have to do?

Girl:
I can remember when Chris put his privates into mine.

Interviewer:
And what was Dawn doing while Chris was doing this?

Girl:
Looking at the other children, being rude to the other children.

Interviewer:
She was being rude to the other children? What was she doing to the other children?

Girl:
Making them lift their dresses and take their clothes off.

Mother:
Medically there was tearing of the tissues, bleeding trauma, extensive damage to the hymen. She has since underwent STD tests for sexually transmitted diseases. She has also had an HIV test.

Narrator:
Dawn Reed and Christopher Lilley were never brought to justice because the judge thought the child witnesses too young to be heard in court. There was an outcry on behalf of the children. The parents formed a protest group to support each other and publicise fully Reed and Lilley's abuse. Some children are still showing signs of trauma.

Mother:
She was always trying to make play with herself and I used to think that's just what children do. I did ask the health visitor a couple of times and she said "She's just exploring her own body and a lot of children do this". But as she started to get older it didn't just settle with her. I've had a lot of counselling about it because I've got a fear of her growing up to being an abuser herself. What the therapist said was that a child who comes from a loving home who is being abused doesn't necessarily go on to be an abuser. But that's not to say it can't happen.