Institutions and Child Sexual Abuse

What role do institutions play in childhood sexual abuse? Are they always on the side of the person who experienced the abuse… or is it more often that they choose to cover up, which can often mean siding with the abuser? Is anything being done about this? Join Sophia (she/her) and Human Rights Lawyer Wren (she/her) as they discuss the criminal justice system, work, schools and reports that are trying to change this.

DEFINITIONS

During the episode, Wren uses some legal terminology which we will define here:

Issued proceedings = The issuing of proceedings involves filling details of the claim, such as the Claim Form and Particulars of Claim, at court. The court will then serve this on the defendant for them to answer to. (Scott Rees) This usually costs money.

Settled out of Court = In law, a settlement is a resolution between disputing parties about a legal case, reached either before or after court action begins.

Actual knowledge = Actual knowledge is direct and clear knowledge where the relevant party knows of a particular item of event that causes a breach. In Wren’s case, this was that her school had seen harmful messages sent to her from her abuser.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES MENTIONED 

The Independent Inquiry Into Childhood Sexual Abuse

“In December 2021, the Home Office published a study into the costs relating to children whose contact sexual abuse began or continued in the year ending March 2019. The estimated cost to society exceeded £10 billion.”

The Truth Project

If you would like more information on reporting and handling your own situation, head to the ‘resources’ section of our website.

Key Messages from the CSA centre about Insitutional Childhood Sexual Abuse

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 1:18 Talking about child abuse at work
• 3:08 Independent Inquiry in to Child Sexual Abuse
• 8:52 Wren’s School experience
• 17:27 The criminal justice system
• 25:23 Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority
• 29:05 End

Transcript

00:00:04:14 - 00:00:07:16
Wren
I personally feel horribly let down by my school.

00:00:08:06 - 00:00:15:00
Sophia
Even if I was just a smidgen more prepared that the institutions I was talking to might not have my best interest at heart.

00:00:15:09 - 00:00:20:10
Wren
I went to a criminal trial when I was 15 years old. You went through a criminal trial as well?

00:00:20:21 - 00:00:21:19
Sophia
I was a bit older, though.

00:00:21:19 - 00:00:27:03
Sophia
Please never say that! Welcome to Secrets Worth Sharing, a series

00:00:27:03 - 00:00:41:00
Sophia
all about having more supportive conversations around child sexual abuse. This particular episode is about the role of institutions in child sexual abuse. I’m Sophia, a designer, and also a survivor of child sexual abuse, and I’m joined by my friend. Do you want to introduce yourself?

00:00:41:24 - 00:00:43:04
Wren
Yes, I will.

00:00:43:05 - 00:00:48:19

First, I'm going to introduce this guy because he keeps interrupting us. This is Buddy.

00:00:50:01 - 00:01:00:20
Sophia
As an emotional support animal, buddy’s been here for you. Absolutely. Yeah. It just also might mean there's ever so slightly a couple of changes in sound or video quality and stuff like that.

00:01:00:22 - 00:01:02:11
Wren
Yeah. Or just a random tail.

00:01:03:19 - 00:01:05:18
Sophia
But, you know, now you know, you can work with it.

00:01:05:19 - 00:01:18:21
Wren
I'm Wren I am a survivor of child sex abuse. I'm also a lawyer and have worked a lot supporting vulnerable people. I also run and founded a charity supporting adult survivors of child sex abuse.

00:01:18:24 - 00:01:20:01
Sophia
We worked together.

00:01:20:02 - 00:01:20:18
Wren
Yeah, we met at work.

00:01:21:04 - 00:01:23:16
Sophia
Yeah, we've known each other for about a year now.

00:01:23:17 - 00:01:25:23
Wren
Yeah, it feels longer.

00:01:26:01 - 00:01:27:03

Yeah, definitely.

00:01:27:08 - 00:01:33:12
Sophia
I remember really vividly because one of the first times I met you, I just disclosed to the whole team.

00:01:33:21 - 00:01:34:12
Wren
You did!

00:01:34:14 - 00:01:47:21
Sophia
We were working a lot on diversity and especially communities that had been minoritiesed. And a huge part of that is looking at trusting authority and trusting government. I was really determined to build a workplace culture that felt genuine.

00:01:47:22 - 00:01:48:09
Wren
Safe.

00:01:48:18 - 00:02:03:23
Sophia
And safe. Yeah. And then I just said, “look, like, I'm not going to dwell too much on it, but I'm a survivor of child sexual abuse. I've had a lot of like mistrust in different services because of it. I say that because it helps me to understand how some people have a distrust of health care.”

00:02:04:14 - 00:02:27:18
Wren
It's interesting. We're talking about institutions because I instantly felt very fearful for you. My experience of the role of institutions in protecting individuals who've experienced abuse has not always been very positive. I felt very worried about you, and I worried that that could be weaponized against you in a workplace, which is really tragic. But that's something that we have to worry about in this day and age.

00:02:27:18 - 00:02:47:00
Wren
But I.did. I think sometimes when I think about child sex abuse, we think about the weight on the NHS, for example, as a long term consequence. But actually the impact of it on the workforce is huge. There's been an estimate that those whose abuse commenced or was carrying on in 2019 - the cost to society will be around 10 billion.

00:02:47:04 - 00:03:07:09
Wren
And a lot of that is not what you think. It's long term health issues that are related to mental health, time off work, from employment, the way it manifests itself, it's very, very wide ranging. And you don't just have that divide where you leave the consequences at home, and even if you try to, there might be occasions when it comes up at work.

00:03:08:15 - 00:03:17:09
Sophia
We've both had some sort of experience with the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse, which we are going to start referring to as IICSA.

00:03:17:22 - 00:03:47:15
Wren
Yeah, so IICSA is set up, I think it was in 2015. It was when Theresa May was still Home Secretary and it came off the back of Jimmy Savile and it was decided to give it a statutory footing, which meant that the inquiry could compel evidence and compel witnesses. It concluded in October, I think of 2022, something like 3 million pages of evidence... it was a phenomenal thing, like huge.

00:03:47:16 - 00:04:09:14
Wren
And as part of its set up, there was The Truth Project, which I think you were involved in, hearing the stories of survivors, and they've come up with a bunch of recommendations, I think 22 and a lot of it is looking at the role of institutions in child sex abuse, and they've made various recommendations around that. Some of the key common themes were that response organizations were... cared more about their reputations.

00:04:09:14 - 00:04:25:23
Wren
They were actively involved in cover ups again and again and again. Children weren't believed, children weren’t listened to and I’m conflicted, because I think all progress is good progress and that we're finally being listened to. I also don’t think it should take millions of pounds and eight years.

00:04:26:09 - 00:04:28:11

To come to the conclusion that children aren’t really listened to.

00:04:28:12 - 00:04:33:07
Wren
So although I'm very glad, I'm very glad of the recommendations, I don't think they go far enough.

00:04:33:08 - 00:04:47:15
Sophia
My biggest fear with a lot of the report, I mean, the reports didn't tell me anything particularly new. If I'm honest, I was impressed with how they collated the information. But my biggest fear is it's like you have these reports, honestly, like so many of them in so many different spaces as well.

00:04:47:16 - 00:05:07:03
Wren
Yeah, you see it in health care as well. Everything else. Inquiry's recommendations to make things safer. Is it safer? Even since it started, we've had the MeToo movement, Everyone's Invited, we’re at a very different societal shift, I think. But still, yeah, I share your concern is wholeheartedly.

00:05:07:03 - 00:05:22:10
Sophia
The mean age of people who took part in The Truth Project were 50. Yeah. And to think that - and for a lot of them it was the first time they told anyone about what they gone through. Institutions, by repeating these mistakes, just only delay the prolonging that people can come out about it, right?

00:05:22:11 - 00:05:47:13
Wren
Yeah. What I was glad for is that even in the executives summary, I think the report highlights that the physical and emotional mental health impacts - the lifelong impacts to relationships and work in most cases are pretty bad. In some cases, they’re unsurvivable. People do not always come back from this. Like it - It's killing people and it doesn't just destroy one person's life.

00:05:47:23 - 00:06:03:11
Wren
So I am glad that we have evidence now. I think it's a lot harder for people to say this isn't happening, this is a problem, and I do think that we're starting to see a shift. That yeah, I don't think the recommendations go far enough. And even if they did, we don't know if they're going to be enacted as legislation.

00:06:03:11 - 00:06:09:11
Sophia
Yeah. So we talked about IICSA, and all these recommendations. Yeah. You know that for love nor money

00:06:10:05 - 00:06:11:04

I’m not the best reader - you’re not going to read it

00:06:14:16 - 00:06:18:12
Sophia
Could you just provide a bit of a summary for us about what some of those recommendations were?

00:06:18:23 - 00:06:36:22
Wren
The report recommends that people have a legal duty to report abuse to authorities. So, for example, if - I went through what I did at my school today, they would have had a legal obligation to tell the police. Now, so the finding is very nuanced. So the disclosure has to

00:06:36:22 - 00:06:37:14

be from

00:06:37:14 - 00:06:51:00
Wren
the child, which is problematic, that it's just caveated in all sorts of very problematic ways. But it would bring the UK up to kind of international norms. A lot of countries have mandatory reporting. It's kind of weird that we don't.

00:06:51:00 - 00:07:12:24
Sophia
I have to ask you a bit more about this because... I’m in... I'm in two minds so much about this particular question. When I was at school, we then did a voluntary thing where we looked after some children in care groups, and took them on different trips and stuff. And as part of the safeguarding training they were talking about, you know, not necessarily child sexual abuse, but what happens if a child tells you something that puts them in harm?

00:07:13:14 - 00:07:29:17
Sophia
And the training at the time for us was very much, “if a child is about to tell you something and you suspect that it's going to be that they're going to tell you about abuse - before they even get to telling you, you have to say, “I'm going to stop you there. If you name any specific names, I have to take that to the police.””

00:07:29:18 - 00:07:39:12
Sophia
And that question actually happened to me. I was emailling the NSPCC. Yeah, not to slant on them. I think some of the work they do is really good. But I remember with my fake email

00:07:39:12 - 00:07:45:06

address emailing NSPCC -Olivia. olivia @hotmail.com.... Literally though!

00:07:45:21 - 00:07:58:24
Sophia
And then they replied and was like, “Yeah, before you tell us anything else, if you name the person who abused you, we're going to report it straight away.” And then I just logged off. Shut the computer, logged off, wiped off my history and was like “I hope they never find it”. That was all I took away from the conversation.

00:07:59:01 - 00:08:16:20
Wren
Yeah, it's really interesting. And, and that is one of the debates in favor of not having mandatory disclosure is what if it puts children off from coming forward? So the research that's been done suggests that 88% of survivors are in favor. Because they have this already in Australia, for example, that it doesn't put people off coming forwards at all.

00:08:17:04 - 00:08:41:02
Wren
And what it does instead is eases some of the guilt of the person that's being confided in about whether they should disclose to the police or so on and so forth. It's aimed at churches, sports clubs, schools. That duty wouldn't fall on random members of the public, for example. And actually, again more of the the recommendations look into the various way we pick up on abuse.

00:08:41:02 - 00:08:52:02
Wren
And there should be so much less obligation on the child to come forwards and so much more information about what to look out for instead. 

00:08:52:02 - 00:09:12:09
Wren
I personally feel horribly let down by my school, catastrophically let down by them, which is sometimes a cause for debate because my abuser...abusers weren’t employed by my school, they weren't teachers, but I personally felt like they willfully turned a blind eye and failed to protect me massively.

00:09:12:15 - 00:09:38:17
Wren
But to the extent that I ended up bringing legal action against my school as an adult. And one of the things that really struck me in that is I approached a few law firms. I'm a lawyer. I have a good idea of the kind of firms that could help in this. Not a single one, would touch the case because they thought the chance of success was so slim because there is no legal duty for mandatory reporting involving the police or social services that doesn't exist.

00:09:38:17 - 00:09:58:02
Wren
So I ended up doing the case single handedly on my own. I felt the neglect was so compelling. It's easy for outsiders to say, “Oh, were the signs are really there? I don't think they were.” And that's indeed what my school said to me. They said “You’re misremembering, we’d do the same if it happened again today.”

00:09:58:02 - 00:09:58:24
Sophia
Oh goodness.

00:09:59:00 - 00:10:00:16

No, you want to hear it is it? No...

00:10:00:18 - 00:10:21:21
Wren
I could not believe it. Some of the things that happened to me, for example, was I was often taken out of lessons by my abuser... I became pregnant when I was about 13 years old. The school nurse regularly prescribed me the morning after pill. She was aware of my termination as well, obviously the health care services, I was forced to have.

00:10:22:17 - 00:10:46:15
Wren
I frequently self-harmed. I often had bruising. I displayed, I think, pretty much every single symptom of childhood sex abuse. And on top of that, I myself disclosed and shared text messages from my abuser with teachers. My friends parents came in and raised concerns about what was happening to me, and no reports to social services or police were made.

00:10:46:15 - 00:11:11:19
Wren
My abuser actually wrote a letter to the school saying that I'd been telling lies and I needed to move tutor groups and the battle to get that information from them was immense. I mean, I could not have done it without legal training. I had to take them to the information commissioner to get my own records. I think there was a time where I missed over a third of the school year - and they didn't see any of the signs -

00:11:11:19 - 00:11:45:13
Wren
- they say, I strongly believe they did. And I think part of that reason is because. So I was on a scholarship at a private school, but a lot of institutions have a reputation to protect. Stories that we hear time and time again tell us that the reputation is prioritized every time, almost every time, over assisting the child. And so any institution where they are running a business or whatever it might be that they're doing, especially a reputation that they are in some way better than others.

00:11:46:00 - 00:12:07:03
Wren
So whether that's because they're private school, you know, we've seen a lot lately about the Catholic Church and the Church of England. Politics is another one. We see politicians, their existence is in a way premised on them being ‘better’, I'm going to say. That is protected at all costs and certainly protected at the expense of the child. I was at school in the kind of 2000s period.

00:12:08:06 - 00:12:09:15
Wren
Well, I don't know what you call that decade.

00:12:09:19 - 00:12:11:06

What you call that? the noughties?

00:12:11:07 - 00:12:23:20
Wren
So I was at school in the noughties. But to this day I concluded the case against them... last year. It was still the cover up. So yeah. So I'm not sure that - how much it's really changing.

00:12:24:09 - 00:12:27:23
Sophia
What happened with the case in the end ? They settled.

00:12:28:13 - 00:12:58:04
Wren
So initially they - the school denied everything. And then eventually after years, and I really mean years, of campaigning for my own records, I got the press involved. I had to go through various different systems. I initially wrote to them saying, “Hi, what happened? I don't understand. I'm starting to have therapy. What are your safeguarding policies now?” The response I got back, was it it incited so much anger in me that I started to take it further.

00:12:58:04 - 00:13:16:08
Wren
And further. I had to pay £600 to issue the claim form, which would not be open to everyone - wouldn’t be open to anyone, I don’t think, without independent legal advice - which wasn't on offer. And eventually they settled out of court. But to this day, no apology, no acknowledgment of wrongdoing. I have letters saying that they’d do the same again now.

00:13:16:12 - 00:13:39:10
Wren
For me, any child seeking the morning after pill or termination, I also had sexually transmitted diseases. They were aware of all of that actual knowledge, plus the actual disclosure, plus the actual text messages from the abuser, plus him coming into school - I was often raped on school premises... for them to say that that isn't enough was... it made me angry.

00:13:39:21 - 00:13:42:24
Wren
I got angry. Of course. Yeah.

00:13:42:24 - 00:13:50:00
Sophia
And it should have just been the case anyway that you were believed, regardless of that proof, but you even had it. Yeah.

00:13:50:16 - 00:14:09:05
Wren
Yeah. And I think as well at the time that was so lonely, I had nowhere to go. No one, believed me. I remember a nurse, I had to have a surgical termination because it was discovered too late because, well, I had no idea that I was pregnant. I was very skinny anyway, and I don't think it always shows.

00:14:09:20 - 00:14:41:04
Wren
So by the time I realized what was happening, I was forced into having a termination. It had to be in a hospital. It's a very surgical procedure. I remember the nurse saying like “where’s your mum?”. I feel strongly that there was so many steps along the way where someone could have intervened. And what upset me most about the school is that the text messages they had sight of and my asking for help came before the first rape.

00:14:41:04 - 00:14:56:19
Wren
And so if they had intervened then, if they had gone into social services, the grooming, would still have happened, abuse still would have happened, but it could have been stopped before what was then ... years of abuse. Yeah. Diseases, pregnancy, awful things.

00:14:57:03 - 00:15:08:04
Sophia
The absolute strength that it just takes to even get through that. And I'm not even just talking about to fight a school to then also have to show up in that institution again after all that time.

00:15:08:04 - 00:15:31:01
Wren
Yeah, the reason it came about actually was I was having a private psychotherapy session and my therapist said to me, “Where were all the grown ups?”. I can't remember if he was saying it in the context of my parents or hospitals or schools, but it really got me thinking, “yeah, there was no one like where were they?” And that's when I wrote to the school and said, “What really happened?”

00:15:31:01 - 00:15:38:15
Wren
Because I always was questioning myself. I was like, “There must have been someone I could go to? There was no one.

00:15:38:15 - 00:15:59:03
Sophia
I remember when we talked about doing this episode, one of the things we're both concerned about, is obviously it's been a while since we were children and there's a different environment now. But the fact that they're still writing, saying that they would do these things again, it just makes me think, has anything changed? My school were not exactly the most welcoming place - I didn't have to go through

00:15:59:04 - 00:16:24:01
Sophia
anything you were through, thankfully. I had told one friend, one friend about this whole abuse thing. And I just was looking for a moment where I could plant that seed somewhere else, almost like just crying out for someone to talk to. We had, like, this pastoral care office, and it was literally like where all the detentions were. It'd be where girls came to have fights about their attendance.

00:16:24:08 - 00:16:36:21
Sophia
And it was also where people came to collect stuff from the cloakroom. And then there was this like really grumpy older woman who was so unapproachable and whose other role at school was just to tell you off about the length of your skirt.

00:16:36:22 - 00:16:37:19

and I just remember

00:16:37:19 - 00:16:41:18
Sophia
thinking “like hell, am I going to go and be like, ‘I need to have a word. this is what’s happened’”

00:16:41:19 - 00:16:48:24
Wren
Oh, yeah. I mean, when I self-harmed, I was put in isolation. I was put in the sick ‘wing’ in isolation.

00:16:48:24 - 00:16:53:07

for a week as punishment. And I did my work from in there because they didn't want me to like...

00:16:54:07 - 00:16:54:20
Wren
I dunno.

00:16:55:10 - 00:16:56:23

Frighten the other kids?

00:16:57:22 - 00:17:13:17
Wren
Yeah. And I think that is a common response is to identify the child as a problem. The more vulnerable you are, the more vulnerable you are. So we know that children who are disabled, for example, are more likely to be abused. If you're in care, I think four times more likely to be abused. It might even be more than that.

00:17:13:21 - 00:17:25:06
Wren
And abusers know that. And they look for that. They look for children that are already the problem children. And that's even more reason that we should be supporting difficult kids even more

00:17:28:01 - 00:17:32:01
Sophia
I should probably flag that we both went through some form of court experience.

00:17:32:10 - 00:17:51:20
Wren
Shh. Buddy is unhappy about that. Yeah. The criminal justice system? Well, not just the criminal justice system. There’s also the civil justice system. But I think when people think about legal proceedings, they're often thinking about the criminal court and I went through a criminal trial when I was 15 years old. You went to a criminal trial as well?

00:17:52:06 - 00:17:57:22
Sophia
I was a bit older, though. I was 18 and I just tried to have as little to do with it as possible.

00:17:57:22 - 00:18:09:03
Wren
Mine was...Yeah, in a Crown Court, I gave evidence over video link. It's a weird thing to say.... I guess I was ‘lucky’ and I secured a conviction which is very, very, very rare.

00:18:09:03 - 00:18:10:00
Wren
oooo Buddy’s angry at the legal system in the uk.

00:18:10:06 - 00:18:13:13
Wren
He's really angry. And I don't blame him.

00:18:13:24 - 00:18:38:04
Wren
That experience was awful, deeply traumatic and that was dealing with a case where it wasn't historical at the time it was ended by the police. There was a wealth of medical evidence, there was text messages, and a lot of people don't have that. It's very deeply flawed. My main abuser was my mum's partner, so he was at least 30 years older than me and was going to be my stepdad.

00:18:38:04 - 00:19:07:23
Wren
It was still prosecuted as a consensual relationship with a minor. It wasn't prosecuted as a rape. So I think the charges brought were indecent assault against the girl under 16, sexual intercourse with a girl under 16 and anal intercourse with a girl under 16 and I really remember that the defense team arguing that I had seduced him because I was jealous of my mom, like this seductive child argument was still being used.

00:19:07:23 - 00:19:15:18
Wren
And I was asked if I orgasmed with him. And even to this day, I'm like, “was that really abuse? was it abuse?”

00:19:15:23 - 00:19:20:08
Sophia
I actually wasn't in the courtroom for my abuser’s is conviction.

00:19:20:08 - 00:19:21:13
Wren
I wasn’t in the courtroom for mine either.

00:19:21:23 - 00:19:25:18
Sophia
Okay yeah. Actually I'd love to compare and contrast.

00:19:25:18 - 00:19:37:11
Sophia
My family told me that my abuser, but they didn't know at the time that he was my abuser, but then they said “Oh, you know he's being investigated”. I was like, I have to say something now.

00:19:37:11 - 00:19:37:23
Wren
Yeah.

00:19:38:07 - 00:19:43:08
Sophia
...or that’s my moment gone. And eventually built up the disclourage - the

00:19:43:22 - 00:19:44:14

Disclourage? The Disclourage!

00:19:46:09 - 00:20:10:02
Sophia
To tell them that weekend. I already knew it was going to really break them. The family. I knew there was going to be a lot of conversations and questions and I think for me it was just building up that initial ‘rip the plaster off and tell them’ that moment. My mum said, “Do you think you would be comfortable to tell this to the police?”

00:20:10:02 - 00:20:27:15
Sophia
And she was very much of the mind of “I think you should because this happened to you and I think that form of justice should be reflected in the investigation”, whereas for me - and I feel differently about this now, but at the time I was very much like, “you know what? if that's what you think you need, so I'm really happy to go for it.”

00:20:27:16 - 00:20:42:23
Sophia
I wasn't too bothered, honestly, which way. And that was my entire response throughout this whole court case is like “I’ll do what’s the absolute literal bare minimum. I went and did my statement in a safe.... I think it's called a safe house?

00:20:42:23 - 00:20:44:01

Yes. Same. Yeah.

00:20:44:05 - 00:20:48:22
Sophia
Where they like really sweetly, but very tragically try and make it look like a living room?

00:20:48:22 - 00:20:54:08

And there's a lot of like teddy bears around. So not appropriate. When you were a teenager, yeah, been there. Cuddly toys.

00:20:55:16 - 00:21:13:16
Sophia
And then wrote victim personal statement and all of that kind of thing, but very much didn't want to be there in the court room. In fact, there was actually a lot of drama with that because we weren't told the date of the case until the morning of it happening, deliberately, so that my mum couldn’t come. The abuser doesn't live in our area, we we had to, like she had to really drive.

00:21:13:16 - 00:21:25:04
Sophia
But again, I wanted nothing to do with that. I've been brought up to think, at least from my school point of view, that like if something's wrong, the police will protect you. Oh, my God. Yeah.

00:21:25:04 - 00:21:35:21
Wren
And that's from the point of view for me as a white woman as well. Like, he was ingrained to believe that the police were there to help me. Imagine if you're from the community that - that is not your experience.

00:21:35:21 - 00:22:08:22
Sophia
Yeah. My abuser ended up getting 18 months. It was for - one crime against me that he should have got minimum five years. Let alone the other two people that we know of that he abused. My abuser, was white, went to boarding school from a family who paid for a great defense lawyer. His lawyers rang my mum and said, “if you drop x, y, z charges about Sophia, we will consider dropping x, y, z charges and maybe he'll maybe he'll plead to these certain things.”

00:22:08:23 - 00:22:16:20
Sophia
She was like, “are you trying to blackmail me?” I very much recognize my privileges in this in that I had a parent -

00:22:16:20 - 00:22:20:21
Wren
What an ironic statement, by the way, and carry on..

00:22:20:21 - 00:22:46:23
Sophia
But it's true, though, isn't it? Like I recognize my privilege in that I had a family who were supporting me. My mum was doing all that paperwork and covering that side of it for me, so I didn't even have to think about it. We are two people who luckily got a conviction, which was so rare in itself to think that even after all of that, your experiences of a child were painted in such a way to make it look like you were seductive?!

00:22:47:01 - 00:23:04:21
Wren
That word was used a lot and slut, and there was a lot of comment on the way I dressed. I mean, not that it matters how I dress, but my stepdad actually bought me a lot of the clothes in the first place. I think about this a lot because it was in therapy that my therapist said to me, (Can you tell I love my therapist?)

00:23:06:00 - 00:23:07:18

Finally, I had a lot of bad ones, but...

00:23:08:04 - 00:23:36:14
Wren
I'm that vulnerable is not the same as responsible. And I, when my abuser came into my life, was pretty vulnerable. He preferred me to my sister, which for me was - I experienced that as a novelty. So that for me was really exciting. I was having a very, very difficult relationship with my dad. After my parents got divorced, he told me, I don't have to see my dad anymore, that he would protect me.

00:23:36:24 - 00:24:06:21
Wren
He helped me with my homework, he got me my first ever CD, and so I felt a lot of warmth towards him. I was very excited by him. And so this argument of like being seductive was so corrosive to me because I wanted his attention and then to have that, the fact that I wanted that attention weaponised against me, that I had all this on myself ... I'm not over it now ,like I won't I don't think I'll ever get over that.

00:24:06:24 - 00:24:30:10
Wren
I wanted his attention and that is not the same as wanting to be abused. I was a person it happened to and it took me so long to get my head around that it wasn't my fault and then to hear it back from people in positions of power that it was is - it was soul destroying. And to this day, I feel if I get unwanted attention of any kind, I will automatically assume it's because it was my fault.

00:24:30:10 - 00:24:33:19
Wren
I smiled at them or... I like them more. And that stayed with me for life.

00:24:33:19 - 00:24:56:20
Sophia
At least when I was first coming out was “Oh, but that that happened. And that happened in the past. Just forget about it, now. Close your book and move on.” And I've literally had those words said to me so many times, it's so difficult to move on when you're so often reminded of the structures that failed you. So much so that I have actually found it arguably more difficult since disclosing.

00:24:56:20 - 00:24:57:06
Wren
Oh yeah.

00:24:57:15 - 00:25:13:16
Sophia
Than I did when I was keeping it to myseld. Well, obviously when I was keeping it to myself, I was suffering. I was really unhappy. But now I'm suffering and everyone knows about it and everyone around me is suffering too. But, the feeling that I have now, that I've just got it off my chest is for me worth it.

00:25:13:16 - 00:25:14:04
Wren
But yeah.

00:25:14:10 - 00:25:19:20
Sophia
Is a chance to now like almost push back and be really critical of those time institutions failed us

00:25:19:21 - 00:25:21:01
Wren
Yeah, massively.

00:25:23:21 - 00:25:39:01
Sophia
So. To end on something positive. We want to move to a section now about ‘So what?’ As someone who'd gone through the court and justice system, no one had even mentioned this to me, which really shocked you, but do you want to talk more about the compensation scheme?

00:25:39:07 - 00:26:00:18
Wren
Yeah, So- and actually this was something IICSA touched on. So, at the moment, and this is for any type of crimes, it isn't just sexual abuse, and it's something called the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. And it's a fund. It doesn't work like insurance or like clinical negligence. It's a fund set up for people who've been victims of crime to compensate them for arguably failings by the state.

00:26:00:19 - 00:26:29:19
Wren
And you can make an application to that fund for compensation. You don't even need a successful prosecution for that. At least it was when I went through it on a banding system. So you've got a disease - tick, this amount. You've got this - tick, this amount. So IICSA is saying that doesn't go far enough. It's not suitable for survivors. It doesn't acknowledge the lifelong impacts of this stuff, but it is there and I went through it. You know, it's weird and I don't know if my memory is failing me because there’s a lot

00:26:29:19 - 00:26:49:12
Wren
I don't remember. I didn't know that I was going through it. I think someone did it on my behalf and then I got told about it and I was just told about the money. And I think maybe that's because I was 15 at the time of the trial, and that money for me was a way to run away and escape and also supported me to go to uni and study law.

00:26:49:17 - 00:26:51:09
Sophia
Just creds to you as well, isn't it?

00:26:51:17 - 00:26:54:03
Wren
Thank you. I will try and take that - as a -

00:26:54:14 - 00:26:59:04

Well, I will try and take it. Thank you, Sophia. Yes, I am fabulous!

00:27:00:03 - 00:27:03:15
Sophia
And if people wanted to know a bit more about this. What would they Google?

00:27:04:04 - 00:27:27:05
Wren
It's abbreviated to CICA, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority, so I would look that up. I wish I knew more about it, but I was younger when I went through it. And it will be interesting to see if the recommendations in IICSA for, dedicated kind of lifelong support will come through and specific compensation. And there’s also an idea that institutions will voluntarily

00:27:27:05 - 00:27:31:22

contribute to this fund? So we'll see. Hopefully.

00:27:31:22 - 00:27:39:01
Wren
But yeah, There are certain services or compensations from charities out there. You have to fight so hard for them.

00:27:39:06 - 00:27:46:04
Sophia
And you have to know about it. You have to know about them. What about any advice to protect yourself from institutions when disclosing?

00:27:46:04 - 00:28:06:23
Wren
For me, for example, when I was suing my school and a lot of people tried to dissuade me from doing it with my best, best intentions. But the anger fired me and and I needed to do it. And I'm so glad I stuck with it. I truly believe that deep down, people know what they need. They they do know what they need.

00:28:06:23 - 00:28:14:16
Wren
And maybe they've never had the chance to listen to that or to ask for it. And so it can be really, really hard. So if you're able to trust yourself, do.

00:28:15:00 - 00:28:36:24
Sophia
Looking back in my case, even if I was just a smidgen more prepared, that the institution I was talking to might not have my best interest at heart. I think I would have acted very differently. And that's not to say I wouldn't have disclosed. I still would have written my personal statement, my victim personal statement, which is the piece of paper about how your abuse has affected you.

00:28:36:24 - 00:28:56:19
Sophia
Essentially, I still would have written that exactly the same. I still would have disclosed exactly the same at the safe house. But I would have just been aware of like, don't expect to be updated on anything. You're going to have to find the energy to chase that if you want that. You need to figure out what you want and ultimately how to ask for that and be ready for - that

00:28:56:19 - 00:29:05:24
Sophia
You might not get that. I don't want us to end on that negative note. But even to just have people in your life that are aware of that and willing to take up that energy for you.

00:29:05:24 - 00:29:09:22
Sophia
Well I think that wraps it up for today, you'll be happy to know.

00:29:09:22 - 00:29:11:13
Sophia
Oh!

00:29:11:13 - 00:29:22:05
Sophia
thank you for listening. This is my one ask of this series that you tell someone that you've listened to this conversation and used it as a seed to start conversations of your own, and you will be surprised what the feedback will be.

00:29:22:05 - 00:29:35:01
Sophia
It might not always be negative, it might only be positive, but I think I can speak for both of us in saying that it's actually that practice of having these chats more regularly that's got us to sitting in these chairs right now. Yeah, I'm going to process.

00:29:35:04 - 00:29:36:05
Wren
Feed that dog.

00:29:36:05 - 00:29:37:16

Feed, this dog. This poor

00:29:37:20 - 00:29:58:05
Sophia
support dog Buddy, and we'll see you in the next episode. Thank you. Bye.

00:29:58:21 - 00:30:00:19

Never say this please never say.