Ok, here goes....

I’m going to “cut to the chase” and give you the headline as it were and then I’m going to give you the background surrounding the whole situation.

You will have to bear with me as this will no doubt flick back and forth through time as I recall it, but all the facts will be here.

On April the 11th last year, I finally faced the demons that had haunted me for 30 years and confronted/revealed the fact that I was sexually abused as a child-by my dad.

I had long kept hidden this secret for various reasons- fear of not being believed, fear of the pain it would cause to everyone around me and had never breathed a word to a living soul having convinced myself long ago that it would never ever come out.

Ever since it happened, I have harboured nothing but contempt and hatred for my dad and have always taken every single opportunity I could to take digs at him as I always felt that would be my only way of getting at him as I was convinced I would never reveal the real reasons why.

Those close to me have often quizzed me on why we don’t get on and all I could offer in return was lies and had to just carry on feeling that people would always somehow consider me to be an unreasonable son who just didn’t like his dad, but the truth was something very different and one that I had decided would be suppressed forever and that I would try to live a “normal” existence.

The abuse happened between the ages of 11 and 13. I remember it clearly and can remember exact details of where I was and what happened as if it happened yesterday. I won’t go into the actual gory details of what physically happened, suffice to say that the events were everything that could happen between two males. Now I look back, a lot of things make much more sense-I have always been what I consider to be a very angry person (as my close friends, family and work colleagues will I’m sure agree with).

The only way I can explain this is that most people have anger levels that go from 0 to 10 (ten being complete rage), but mine started at level 5, so when any situation started to escalate I was well ahead of everyone when it came to anger levels and would frequently fly off the handle long before everyone else. I lived with this for many years, often ending up apologising for being “unreasonable” and simply taking the blame for any situation that I was involved with that may have gotten out of hand. I think this stems from the fact that I carried with me a sense of guilt over what happened, having long since (since a very early age, long before the abuse happened) always having been made to feel like I was to blame by my dad for anything that ever happened, or any (normal growing up) trouble I got into as a boy, as all he ever did as a parent was criticise me (criticism is something that I still find hard to take to this day as a result). I lived with the guilt and shame constantly, wondering if somehow I was to blame and feeling such a sense of shame in what I had done and been involved with.

Never once did it occur to me that I would (or indeed would have the courage to) reveal what happened, even though I have always (up until recently which I will come to later) had an absolutely fantastic relationship with my mum. My mum is Italian and as such places a very strong emphasis on family values and that was drummed into me from a very early age. For example, I was always made to write thank you cards for Christmas & Birthday presents. It was something that I loathed doing as a boy, but can look back and see that it was just something that was right to do (and is something I continue to impress on my son). I will also say for the record, that it was my mum that brought me up and raised me and taught me as my dad took no interest in me at all and invariably spent his time asleep on the sofa at any given opportunity.

The input from my mum paid off as I have always considered her to be my best friend and she has always been my first port of call on any many subjects for advice, whether it be job related, parenting advice, you name it I would talk to my mum about it-everything except the one thing that I kept hidden. As I’ve mentioned, my relationship with my dad has always been at best strained as I have struggled to come to terms with what he did and the fact that at no point did he ever show one single shred of remorse. Far from in fact as his treatment of me at times was diabolical saying poisonous things like “I was doing fine until you came along” during arguments. I have always taken every opportunity I could to have a dig at him or humiliate him in some way to get back at him, knowing he knew the real reason and for years I thought this would be my only way. I was also aware that because no one knew what had happened, it must have seemed strange that I was so unrelenting towards him and I became ever more conscious over the years that people would think that I was indeed the bad guy and that I was out of order for treating my “poor old dad” in this way. Pretty much my whole family know that my relationship with my dad has been awful for many many years and what became hard was the fact that I had to lie to them to cover up the real reasons for the regular fall outs over the years. This became harder and harder as I became to resent myself for A) lying and deceiving people and B) covering up for an individual that was about a low a form of scum and evil as you could get. This went on for many years, from about the age of 13 when I think I first truly realised what had happened and just how wrong it was.

I carried on trying to lead a normal life and developed a very “bolshie” and aggressive character to cover up the turmoil that was within (I know that most people who are reading this that know me will recognise that person, but in reality that person was nothing more than an imposter created by me to conceal the truth). As I have said, I took every opportunity to dig at my dad, even being over for Sunday lunch at my mum and dad’s I would read out loud articles from the newspaper about sexual abusers and paedophiles that had been caught/arrested etc in full knowledge that he could hear just to let him know that I had not forgotten what he did, again feeling that this was my only way of getting back at him, yet still he showed no signs of remorse or humility (quite the opposite in fact as he became more aggressive and hostile towards me in varying arguments over the years). I lived with the fact that I was deceiving those close (and not so close) to me over the years and it became (I’m not sure if this is the right word though) easier to lie.

The problem was that I became ever more conscious over the years that people would think badly of me over my treatment of my dad and although no one ever said anything, I knew people were thinking that I was unreasonable and that I was in some way a bad person for being totally unforgiving to my dad over the regular arguments that took place over the years (normally on a weekly basis). These arguments would stem out of nothing and I would seize every opportunity to humiliate him and make him look foolish and would then subsequently have to accept the “fact” that I had behaved unreasonably. My ex wife had to witness this on a regular basis over the years and was fully aware that there were issues between me and my dad. Even though I was married to her and had been with her since the age of 18, there was still no point in my mind where I had considered telling even her as my mindset was still that no one would believe me and that people would somehow blame me for what happened and judge me as some form of lowlife myself.

The arguments continued over the years (often arising out of nothing) until October 2007 when things came to a head. By this time I had remarried and become a “different” person, I was stronger inside and that confidence was given to me by my wife ("M"). Not by anything she particularly said or did, just by the fact that she showed unconditional love and support for me and this started me thinking that I might at last be in a position to reveal to her what had happened. There were various times I had “decided” I would tell her, but in reality I think I was just kidding myself and it became apparent that I still hadn’t cleared that barrier of feeling somehow responsible for what had happened and worrying what she might say/do. The other thing that I have carried as a result of my dad’s treatment of me over the years is one of feeling that I was somehow to blame for causing hurt, pain or difficulty to other people, so even though I desperately wanted to tell my Wife I also didn’t want to be “responsible” for causing her any pain and suffering. She and I have some history-we met when we were 15 years old as we worked part time after school in a supermarket in Richmond! I was shelf filler and she worked on the checkouts.

We became boyfriend/girlfriend for 7 or 8 months when our relationship came to an end (I don’t really remember why to be honest), but at 16 these things happen. In August of 2003 I was having a nose around Friends Reunited and spotted her, so I dropped her a line and the rest is pretty much history. I knew quickly that I had strong feelings for her (I think we exchanged the “L” word in September of 2003!) and I moved in with her in November 2003 (having been pretty much living with her in the preceding couple of months anyway). I knew I had a bond with her that I had never felt before and then we bought our own place together. Looking back, it’s no coincidence that my behaviour then started to go downhill rapidly after the abuse, with me even ending up getting expelled from school following school trip to Switzerland (in reality, I had actually not been guilty of any great crime on that holiday, but I think it was just the excuse they needed to expel me as I had been a troublesome pupil). The years then rolled by and I moved out of my parents home and into a flat with my then wife to be in Kingston (still knowing that I would/could never reveal the truth).

We had a son and I continued to lead a “normal” life, going on to have a Son in February 1998. My general anger continued over the years and I continued to feel that I was unable to be the person I really am. That brings me pretty much up to date. My son's mum and I divorced some 8 years ago and in August 2003 I met up with my wife to be..

Back to October 2007... My mum’s arthritis had been getting progressively worse and she was finding the stairs at home more difficult to get up and down. They had looked at getting a stair lift installed, but the gap at the bottom of the stairs was a couple of inches too narrow so that wasn’t possible. I suggested that moving house was an option (they had no mortgage so finance wasn’t an issue) and they seemed to agree. Weeks and months went by looking at different properties in different areas and then one Sunday everything changed. We were having our usual post lunch arguments over houses, when my dad pulled out some leaflets on very small cottages. At this point I began to lose the will to live and could feel my blood boiling in a way I had never felt before and made the point that if they couldn’t get a starlet in a good sized two bedroom house in Kingston, what hope did they have in an oldy worldy cottage? I totally lost it, standing up and throwing all the paperwork on the table and saying that I could no longer do this and it was all just waste of time. My mum, wife and my son all looked at me in a very shocked fashion as I don’t think any of them could believe I was behaving this was “over a cottage leaflet”. My dad then stood up and we were pretty much toe to toe and suddenly 30 years of rage flowed through my veins and I thought I was going to go for him. At this point my son burst into tears and my mum grabbed hold of him to console him. My wife grabbed hold of me and pulled me away from my dad as I’m sure she sure what was about to happen. My dad (as he always did), walked away muttering something offensive (he never had the balls to stand and say anything, it was always while walking away, or just before he would hang up the phone, or he would leave the house and go for a walk rather than ever sit and discuss anything). My wife and I went outside for a cigarette to calm down and we then went back in pretty much got our stuff and left.

The worst part about that day was that my son got to see a side of his dad that he had never seen and that upset him hugely as all he saw was his dad going to toe with his grandfather and that hurt me deeply. At this point due to the ferocity of the argument, I thought I had at last finally found a “legitimate” reason to step away and sever ties with my dad. I felt that I had a reason that other people wouldn’t perceive as unreasonable that I had no contact with him (it was always important to me what other people felt and still is to this day) and that people would understand that I didn’t want contact with him after nearly having a punch up with him. Life carried on between me and my mum. I continued to see her and ring her every night or every other night as I had always done and for a couple of months she tried to act as a mediator between me and my dad, trying to “patch things up”. I knew this was never going to happen in reality and kept saying to my mum that I was done with him and his arguments and that there were billions of people on the planet, so the fact that two don’t “get on” is fairly likely somewhere along the line.

This continued until early in the New Year (my mum had been invited to spend Christmas lunch with us, but declined to spend it with my dad. It should be noted that my dad has (literally) no friends in the world. He has deliberately alienated anyone over the years that have been able to offer an opposing point of view, so he rows with them and never speaks to them again. This is a classic sign of a manipulator, his logic is that if there is no one to tell him he is being a prick, then (in his mind) he simply is not being a prick. He does have family (he even has 2 daughters from a previous marriage), but there is no contact whatsoever with them apart from his eldest daughter who initiated contact with him a few years ago after being estranged from him most of her life (more about that later). My dad will not tolerate/allow anyone in his life that can make either him or my mum see that he is in some way out of order/wrong, etc so he has created this bubble where it is just him and my mum (again, a classic manipulative trait of a sexual abuser).

After Christmas, I felt my mum had finally accepted that my “relationship” with my dad was over and she began to stop mentioning it when I spoke to her, but I became ever more conscious/aware that although she was not mentioning it directly, she was still making me aware of it. I would ring her as usual and ask her how she was, only to be met with “how do you think I am?” and various comments like that. This became more regular and things began to become slightly strained between us. This began to eat away at me constantly as my mum played such a important part in my life-I think it’s true to say this is true of all boys and we are all mummy’s boys at heart. I became ever more aware of the situation with my mum and started to feel huge guilt (nothing new there) and that I was causing her pain and suffering and that’s when I began to feel that the time to reveal what had happened may finally be approaching.

In April of last year it was my dad’s birthday and my wife had said to me that she was going to send him a card (obviously she still knew nothing of the truth at this point), so when she told me I said clearly not to put my name on the card (she replied jokingly that she was planning to put my name all over it!).

I rang my mum on my way home from work (as I always did) by coincidence the evening of my dad’s birthday (April 11th) for the usual chinwag etc. All of a sudden she said to me “Hold on your dad wants a word” and handed the phone to him. He then came on the phone and without any hint of an apology or any remorse about the fact that we had not seen each other or spoken one word to each other for the last 6 months (I specifically didn’t send him a Christmas card or buy him a Christmas present), he said “Thanks for the card”. My heart stopped and I felt physically sick and I realised that my wife indeed must have put my name on it and here he was pretending that everything was ok and behaving as everything was ok. I was shocked, but I said something like “Ok, can I speak to mum again please?” and he passed the phone back. We continued to chat for a few minutes and I made the point to her that he had some front just coming on the phone like that as if nothing was wrong. A few moments later she handed the phone back to him and he came on and said “Would you like to go out for lunch next week?” to which I replied “No thanks”. Her then (as usual) became agitated and said aggressively “Oh, perhaps you need more time” implying that I was the one with a problem and he had no issues or problem whatsoever (again, absolutely atypical of him), to which I replied “No, I don’t need more time, I just know I don’t want to spend any time with you”. He then did his usual mumble something offensive or derogatory and handed the phone straight back to my mum (obviously before I had the chance to say anything). To say I was fuming would be the understatement of the decade, I felt sick that he could come on the phone as if nothing had happened, without any mention of the fact that I had chosen to stay completely away from him for the last six months, or any hint of remorse for what had happened and what made it worse was the fact that he clearly thought I had chosen to send him a birthday card. I pretty much ended the call with my mum and finished my journey home whilst realising that this could not go on any longer. In the run up to his birthday, a couple of other things had happened that made me see that the lies had to stop once and for all.

My ex wife had sent me an email the week before (completely innocently in fairness) asking me if I was taking my son to see my dad for his birthday, she said that she “knew we weren’t talking again” and that if I didn’t want to she would take Dan over. Again, people’s perception of the situation with my dad came into my thoughts and I couldn’t stand the thought that people were thinking that it was “just a silly squabble” when I knew the real reason. The other issue was that I became aware how bad I felt lying to Dan when he asked me when we would be going back to my mum and dad’s for lunch and I knew I couldn’t go on bare faced lying to my own son. I also think his age played a part in it as he was only a few months off being 11 years old, which is the age I was when the abuse started. So all these things happened in the lead up to his birthday and I began to realise that the time was approaching to reveal the truth (although in reality I had no idea how I was going to do it).

So after the “thanks for my card” incident, I drove home in a trance, not knowing what to say or do-I couldn’t be angry with my wife as she had acted with the best intentions, but I also couldn’t go on any longer feeling a fraud. I got home and saw she was at the cooker making dinner and the first thing I said to her was “Did you put my name on my dad’s birthday card?” She turned around and with a look of regret said that she had (I knew this was the point of no return). I said to her “Do you know how much I despise him?” to which she replied “Yes I do”, only for me to then say “No you don’t, he sexually abused me when I was 11 years old”.

I can’t describe the feelings and emotions that ripped through me at this moment, other than to say that suddenly after 30 years the lies, deceit, hatred, guilt and shame were suddenly lifted from my shoulders. That is a moment that will stay with me forever I suspect as it has become such a pivotal moment in my life. She just grabbed hold of me and hugged me for what seemed like an eternity, while all the images of the abuse, the arguments, the lies, the deceit, the guilt and the shame flooded through and out of my veins. Once we settled, I told her everything that had happened, what he had done to me and when. I didn’t hold anything back and gave her the full gory details. We sat and talked and eventually she asked me what I wanted to do next, telling me that whatever it was I had her full support. This was a moment I had been waiting 30 years for, someone to support me in not feeling dirty and shameful and understanding what I was saying-and for that I can never repay her.

We discussed the various options: Tell my mum. Not tell my mum but confront my dad. Not tell anyone. Go to the police. We went through what we thought was every eventuality of every option, but the overriding feeling for me was that I needed to tell my mum. We went through what could happen when I told her, but I knew that whatever the eventuality, I simply had to tell her.

We had a trip planned the next month to New York for our 40th birthdays, so we decided to not tell her before that as I didn’t want to tell her and go on holiday leaving her to deal with it. We arrived back on Saturday 31st of May knowing that the next day was “The Day”.

I rang her on the Sunday morning and told her all about the trip etc then said “I need to talk to you about something”. She jokingly replied “You’re moving to New York (knowing my love for the place!), but I just replied “No I’m not and it’s not that simple”. Her response to that was “Don’t give me any stress”, which didn’t exactly fill me with confidence, but I reminded her that she had always said that she was my mother and that I could always talk to her about anything, so she said “Ok what do you need?”.

I said I would go come and pick her up in a while. We went to pick her up (we didn’t go in for obvious reasons) and I just sounded the horn to let her know we were outside. The journey home was awkward to say the least, we all knew there was something waited to be said, so it was strange. We got home and had a bite to eat and then I said “Ok, we all know there’s something to talk about, so shall we sit down?”

We sat on the sofa and said to her “You know I’ve always hated dad don’t you?”. She acknowledged that she knew (a shame she later came to lie about that under oath in court). I then said to there that there was a specific reason and that it wasn’t just that he was an unlikeable ar$ehole. I cut straight to the chase and said “The reason that I hate him is because he sexually abused me when I was 11 years old”. I will never forget the look of shock on her face. She then listened patiently while I described (in detail) what had taken place and the timescales. I remember the timescales quite clearly. I remember being at school in Victoria (I never have found out why I had to go there when all my friends went to school locally) and I remember clearly sometimes rushing home for the “experiences”. I think one of the reasons was that I had just a torrid time getting bullied at that school was that I needed some TLC and as I had never had that from my dad in the preceding 11 years suddenly I felt he was showing me what I perceived to be love and affection and that was a good thing. One really hard part is that I have always been honest right from the start and said that I was a completely willing participant in the sexual activities that took place.

He never forced me or threatened me and I “enjoyed” it at the time. My mum asked lots of questions such as “Where was I when this was happening”, to which I replied that she was simply downstairs watching TV as it took place after I and my dad had gone to bed (he always went to bed quite early). There really wasn’t much else to tell her, I described the acts that had taken place and the timeframe in which they happened.

It’s very clear to me when it happened as I remember being at that school when it started (and I started there in September 1979) and it happened in my parent’s bedroom at their house (and we moved there in November 1979, so it couldn’t have happened before that). I had a really bad time at that school with all the constant bullying and so I eventually persuaded my parents to let me change school to the one in Acton where all the friends I had grown up with had gone.

My mum was well aware of the bullying as she had to go up several times to see the headmaster about it (more of that later). The change of schools took place in the spring of 1981 and I don’t recall any abuse happening after this-I was 13 by this point and a little more “worldly wise”, so I began to realise what had happened and how wrong it all was. After a few hours of going over the very limited facts, I asked her what she wanted to do next, to which she replied that she was going to confront my dad as soon as she got home. As far as I was concerned, I had done what I needed to do, I had told the people that were most important to me-my wife and my mum and that was pretty much all I needed to do (or so I thought). We took her home and when we parked up I got out of the car to go round and help her out as she is arthritic. When she got out, I said to her “Are you going to be ok, do you want me to come in?” (To support her). She looked at me and said “Do you want to come in?” Then it hit me, I had not considered confronting my dad as the only thing I felt I wanted to do was tell my mum, but right at that moment I realised that I had the two people most important to me standing by me and supporting me right next to me, so I said yes I did want to go in.

We rang the bell and my dad answered, he could see by the look on my mum’s face that something was wrong and we all went into the front room. "M" was looking a bit apprehensive as she was aware of what was about to happen, but I was determined not to lose my cool. I said to my dad “I’ve told her” and was very clear not to elaborate on what it was I had told her, I just kept saying over and over “I’ve told her”. As expected and predicted, he became agitated and aggressive saying things like “Well you’d better tell me what you’ve told her because I don’t know what you’re fcuking talking about. Again, I was very clear not to say what I had told her and just kept saying “You know what I’ve told her”. He then paused and suddenly said “I did no such thing”, I asked him what he meant and what it was that he “didn’t do“ and he replied “You’re saying I sexually abused you”

I pointed out that I had not mentioned anything, so of all the subjects he could have picked, why did he mention him sexually abusing me? I then started to berate him for a few minutes, not letting him speak and pointing out to my mum what he had said, when Michelle told me to shut up as he was trying to say something. I paused to let him speak and he said “Well there’s actually another part to this story”, I replied saying “this will be good, let’s hear it then”, to which he replied “Actually, you climbed in to bed with me and interfered with me” Knowing that was a complete lie (I expected nothing less), I asked him why, if he was such a loving father and husband had he never told my mum as surely any parent would if their son/daughter had done that to them, he simply replied “We don’t talk about things like that”.

He then got up and walked out of the living room and on his way out said “And anyway, we know what you were like at 11 years old with all your dirty magazines” I asked him the relevance of this and pointed out that all boys have porno mags, but I certainly didn’t have any aged 11 (I was more like 14 or 15).

He went off in to the back room and started to shuffle some paperwork and do some general tidying up, so I followed him telling him that running away won’t help him this time and the then went in to the kitchen and started to make a sandwich. I carried on berating him telling him that his bullying days were over and that he would go to prison for what he had done as he is evil, his reply (to my mum) was “I suggest you get him out of here before there’s a punch up”, to which I simply replied “Good luck with that”. He carried on making his sandwich before going to the hallway cupboard (where we were all stood) when he said “And anyway I couldn’t have done it as I was impotent because I was diabetic”.

Knowing full well that he was neither at the time, I turned to my mum and asked her when his diabetes was diagnosed and she said “15 or 20 years ago”. I pointed out that the abuse occurred 30 years ago, so his comments were nothing short of desperate (a point that was later to be proven in court as there was no mention of diabetic symptoms on his medical records until 1991), coupled with the fact that there is no link between type 2 diabetes and impotence, so again-another desperate attempt by my dad to conceal the truth).

Lastly, my mum said to him "He's had counselling over this and his reply was "That's his problem, not mine" At this point he said “I’m not staying here to listen to this and I thought he was going to do his usual going out trick to run away from everything, instead he went upstairs and locked himself in the bathroom. I know he wasn’t going to the toilet as we were standing at the bottom of the stairs and it was pure silence from upstairs, so I imagine he was just standing/sitting there literally not knowing what to do next as he had been exposed for the pervert he really is. We waited for about 15 minutes and then I said to my mum “I’m done” and my wife and I left.

I cannot describe the feeling of finally having told my mum and confronted my dad (especially as the latter had not actually been part of what I had set out to do that day. What was especially interesting was a comment that my wife made to me in the car on the way home of “Do you think your dad is gay?” I must be honest and say that it wasn’t something that had ever crossed my mind, but how right she would turn out to be.

In the days that followed, the real pain was to begin as my mum became very argumentative, even at one point when I said to her “He will go to prison for what he has done”, saying (and I quote) “Oh you think so do you, with a good lawyer.......” I was dumbfounded and replied by asking her if she remembered OJ Simpson? When she asked me what he had to do with anything, I reminded her that he had a good lawyer, was as guilty as sin, but still got found not guilty (this paragraph is especially ironic/poignant as you will discover later on when we get to the trial.

In the months that followed I can honestly say my mum was the cause of a “meltdown” for me, I would class it as a nervous breakdown as such, but my whole life fell apart as it became apparent that the one person that I needed to tell, would not acknowledge anything she had seen or heard on the day of the confrontation. As the weeks went by I even suggested to my mum that my dad take a lie detector test to prove he is innocent.

I acknowledged that these weren’t admissible in court, but that if nothing else he would be able to come home head held high and say to my mum “There you go, I told you I was innocent as these things are something like 98% accurate”. The weeks went by and the excuses as to why he hadn’t taken it kept coming. My mum would say “I don’t know why he hasn’t taken it”, to which I would reply “Why do you think he hasn’t taken it?” and “Why would any man not jump at the chance of proving his innocence so quickly?” We both agreed that only guilty men would not take lie detector tests. The final straw came some 7 or 8 weeks later when I again asked my mum if he had taken one yet (he hadn’t of course) and when I again asked her why not, she said “Well he says everyone thinks he’s guilty anyway, so there’s no point”.

Despite it being more and more obvious that my dad had something to hide, she still would not acknowledge it and she kept simply saying “He just vehemently denies it”. On Sunday the 8th of June, my Aunt (my mum’s sister) and Uncle rang me (they live in Spain) as she had spoken to my mum and my mum had told them (her version) of what happened that Sunday. My mum started what was to become a theme in the way she “told” people, telling them that I had made this allegation and that my dad of course denied it (a set of evenly balanced scales if you will). My Aunt said that she had just spoken to my mum and my mum had asked her to ring me and see if she could talk me out of going to the police, but she just said “I’m not ringing you to do that, I’m just ringing you to see how you are, make sure you are ok and to see if there is anything we can do to help, you are my nephew and we want you to know we are here for you”.

I described to them all the details of the day of the confrontation (something that my mum had “accidentally” omitted) and we spoke for about an hour just talking things over. The really fortunate thing is that my wife saw and heard everything my dad said and did, so it could never be a case of me simply making it up. The next day my cousin rang me (having spoken to my aunt, who is her mum) and was crying over what she had heard. I told her not to be upset and that we would go over and see her the next night. We did go over and after explaining everything, we learnt from her that when my mum met my dad (circa 1961) she was married and living with a guy called "K" and they lived in a big house on Richmond Hill (nothing too exciting there then), but that they let the top floor out to a gay curtain make called John Carter and my dad had turned up there living/staying with him (suddenly, my wife’s suggestion 2 months or so ago of my dad being gay was looking to be ever more accurate).

We spoke some more about it as she just presumed I knew about my dad’s homosexual past, but I explained that I had no idea). Over the next few weeks, things got worse between me and my mum, to the point that I had to stop ringing her as I couldn’t bear to have the identical conversation of “I don’t understand how you say it happened when I was in the house” and “He’s adamant he didn’t do it”. I had to get away,

My wife had a trip to abroad planned with some friends, so I took the opportunity to go and stay with my Aunt & Uncle who also live abroad. My work was suffering, everything was suffering as I struggled to come to terms with the fact that the most important person in my life would not even acknowledge what happened the Sunday of the confrontation (“Oh, I don’t think he did say that” and “I don’t remember him saying that”), let alone what I had told her he did to me all those years ago. Spain was a godsend, my aunt and uncle looked after me and it was nice to simply get away (they have been true rocks throughout all of this and I can honestly say are two of the key people that helped me keep my sanity.

My aunt remembered two key things-1) She seemed to remember my dad changing his name at some point (he was in the theatre and this was allegedly the reason, for a “stage” name) and 2) My godmother (an age old friend of my grandmother on my mum’s side) remembered going with my mum (in the run up to her marriage to my dad) to the doctor’s to enquire about “The implications of marrying a (as she puts it) “Bio” (a bisexual) guy.

Suddenly the pieces started falling in to place and I think I realised that my dad wasn’t in fact a paedophile, but instead his sexual abuse of me was in fact a gay thing (not that it makes it any better).

Late July I became conscious that my wife was carrying this burden on her own as she had not spoken to anyone about it and told her that she should maybe speak to someone and that she shouldn’t feel any guilt or shame for me as “those feelings were now long gone”. She spoke to an old friend and told her everything that I have just described. This friend is married to a police officer and told me if I wanted to speak to him he was there for me. They came over one Saturday night and I again told details of the abuse and the details of the confrontation.

The next day this police officer rang me and said to me “I’m at the police station, do you want to come and make a statement?” I actually hadn’t really considered doing it at that point, but it suddenly dawned on me that I should. I asked myself what I was waiting for and realised that it was for my mum to simply acknowledge what I had told her and help me deal with it, but it then occurred to me that whether she did this or not, the next (and right) thing to do was to tell the police. I went to the police station the next morning and he met me but said (rightly) that he was too close to me to take the statement and handed me over to another PC.

I again went through everything that I have described here and left the police station feeling that I had (at last) done the right thing. I then went on to give more statements to the Detective Sargent of the Child Abuse Team about everything that had happened. In August my dad finally relented to “enquiring” about a lie detector test and went to the local Police station to ask about it. When they asked him why and his name, they entered it on their computer and told him that I had already made the allegation and given a statement.

I spoke to my mum that evening and was met with a tirade of abuse, with her saying things like “You’ve charged him how could you?” and “If he goes to prison, I’ll lose his £500 per month pension, have you thought about that, are you going to give me £500 a month?” I didn’t really rise to the bait, I simply told her that he had long enough to own up to what he did and that I wasn’t going to sit by and watch him lie anymore.

My dad was arrested in August 2008 and went to his local Police station to be interviewed under caution (“You have the right to remain silent” etc) and this is where it becomes clearer. The DS from the Child Abuse Team asked my dad if he was or had ever been gay, or had any gay tendencies, to which my dad replied “No of course not, I’m a married man with children” (that last part is certainly true). He was then asked (remember this was in a taped interview in the presence of a duty solicitor) if he had a criminal record, to which he replied “No” and then the bombshell was dropped. The DS had already discovered my dad did indeed have a criminal record-he was arrested in September 1963 (3 months before he married my mum) for “Public Indecency with another male” in a public toilet in Ravenscourt Park (near where he was living at the time.

He was tried at West London Magistrates Court, found guilty and fined.

My dad then (after a break forced by the duty solicitor) suddenly “remembered” the incident, passing it off as nothing more than “Only having happened as I’d had too much to drink”.

Now anyone knows my dad knows he doesn’t drink (and maybe that is why!), but to be that drunk (especially at 3pm in 1963 when licensing laws were very different) is nothing but yet another lame and desperate excuse to conceal his guilt.

I don’t know about you, but I have been blind drunk on several occasions (some to the point where I couldn’t walk) over the years, but never ever have I then felt the urge to go to a public toilet and perform sex acts on/with another man, yet m dad seems to think his excuses will somehow sound true (despite being wildly varied). I couldn’t tell my mum about this and had to endure weeks and months more of her telling me how he keeps saying he’s innocent and “what a good man he’s always been to her”, but I had to bite my lip knowing what I knew that she didn’t about his toilet arrest and the continuing arguments and complete lack of acknowledgement of what I had gone through and was going through from my mum (I was in counselling by this stage).

Eventually, after more statements to the DS from the Child Abuse Team , he contacted me to say that the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) were going to charge my dad with 5 charges (2 of buggery and 3 of indecent assault on a minor aged 13 or under).

Following his arrest in August, he was bailed to appear back on November 5th 2008, which he did and was charged with the 5 offences. He did go home and tell my mum he had been charged, although he had “forgotten” to mention to her in August that A) he had been caught out lying to police in a taped interview, B) he had a criminal record and C) the criminal record was for getting caught performing a sex act on/with another man in a public toilet 3 months before they got married (must have slipped his mind).

In fact, when he got home and my mum says she asked him what had happened, she said he replied “Oh they mentioned something about masturbation”, yet she never queried it (perhaps because she knew?) There is no doubt in my mid she knew he was gay/bisexual from the moment she met him, the rest of my family confirm this, so I know my mum is just lying (as usual) when she says he wasn’t (despite having a gay criminal record of course).

Once he had been charged and everything was therefore public record, I told my mum about the toilet incident (I do honestly just want to refer to it as his “George Michael" incident!) and went to pick her up and brought her home to our house and told her. She again looked shocked, but not angry that he hadn’t had the balls/decency to tell her about it in August and she still clearly couldn’t grasp what a lying deceitful individual he was, with a gay history and a clear history of lying.

I also mentioned to her that the guy’s name on the arrest sheet was “Don Carter” (who I presumed was “John Carter” the gay curtain maker that my dad turned up living with in Richmond) and suggested to my mum that I felt it was fairly clear that my dad was in some kind of relationship with John/Don Carter behind her back that had continued when he left the flat in Richmond to live in Hammersmith (down the road from the Ravenscourt Park toilet) and was clearly still in full effect when he was arrested with him 3 months before he married my mum.

There really wasn’t much else to say, I felt I had finally proved to my mum what a lying/deceiving person my dad was and that if he was willing to lie to the police in a taped interview room about his past, he would clearly be willing to lie to her and tell her that he was innocent of what I had said he had done to me (can you see a lying/homosexual pattern forming here?). Despite this, I still felt my mum would simply say “He said he didn’t do anything sexual to you” and ignore what she had subsequently learned about him.

I spoke to my mum the next day on the phone (I could hear my dad in the background) and she said to me in a very defiant/cocky manner “He says it wasn’t John Carter in that toilet”. I said to her that I couldn’t actually see the relevance in that statement and that I felt it actually made it a bit more seedy in that if it wasn’t someone he knew, then by definition it must have been someone he didn’t know, meaning he simply went to that toilet to meet a random guy. Despite all of this, my mum still kept playing me. Telling me that she loved me and that she believed me, yet her actions (of not ever publicly condemning my dad) said differently.

This went on for months and I continued to sink into a deeper spiral of unhappiness purely because my own mother was deceiving me and treating me like I was the one in the wrong, with comments like “Well you started this ball rolling when you went to the police” (charming). I had to stop contacting her (I didn’t want to because I always felt that she would “come good” and finally acknowledge that I had no reason to lie, had never lied to her and didn’t now have all the lies and deceit behind me that my dad has. Just before Christmas, I decided I wanted to contact one of my dad’s daughter’s (my half sister) from his first marriage, so via the DSD from the Child Abuse Team, I got my number to her and she contacted me and we then arranged a day to meet.

The reason I wanted to do this was to simply tell her the truth.

I knew that they had been going out for lunch on occasions (funny how my mum can manage that, but can’t manage to help her own son) and I also knew that they had been deceiving her about what was happening and I couldn’t bare that. So we met and it was good to meet her (I would have like better circumstances admittedly) and I explained to her that although I couldn’t prove the abuse, everything else that I was about to tell her was provable (my dad’s gay conviction, the excuses on the day of the confrontation, him getting caught out lying to police in a taped interview etc). I also learned that my dad had not only changed his surname, but his Christian name as well and that she felt it was done to “escape” from his ex wife and (then) young daughters. We had a good time and I explained that I simply wanted her to know the truth and not be led on by my mum and dad (they had “accidentally” forgotten to tell her that he had been charged with 5 offences the last time they met). I wasn’t there to convince her of anything (I had spent long enough trying to do that with my mum), just to give her the facts.

I got home after meeting her (the Monday before Christmas) and there was a Christmas card from my mum. Now I know this had only been sent as my mum had discovered the week before that I would be meeting with my half sister (she had rung my mum and dad to tell her that I was trying to get in contact with her) and my mum knew that I would be telling her the truth so she thought that she had better send me a card.

The reason this is poignant is that anyone who knows my mum will tell you how organised she is and that getting a Christmas card 3 days before Christmas day is unheard of and would never happen, so I know for sure that she had decided not to send one (otherwise it would have arrived a week or two before Christmas), but changed her mind when she realised I was meeting with Angela (my mum denies this, but as you may have guessed I don’t believe anything my mum says anymore).

We (my wife and I) had Christmas at home with my son and it was nice to spend some quality time with him. I hadn’t sent my mum a card nor had I contacted her, but she rang Christmas day evening and the same old conversation took place, she rang again on about the 3rd of Jan (we had the same old conversation again, with her saying “Of course I love you, of course I believe you, of course I support you” and the old gem of “I’ll never let you go”.

On the 5th of Jan my dad had to appear at Court to plead. I didn’t need to be there, but I wanted to go to see him squirm, but the biggest shock I got was when I learned that my mum was there with him (so much for loving and believing me eh?) She didn’t know we were there, but got a bit of a shock (to say the least) when we came out of the court as she was sitting there with my dad. All he could manage was “Hello” (I think if I was facing someone who had falsely accused me of sexually abusing them I would have a few more choice words than “Hello”) and all my mum could do was stare at me in embarrassment as it had become clear that she had indeed been lying about believing me/supporting me etc-why would you turn up to court with a man that you “believed” had sexually abused your son??

I don’t say anything, instead we just walked away and went and stood around the corner while we waited for a trial date to be set. A couple of minutes later my dad had to go to an interview room that was located past where we were standing and so they had to walk past us to get there and my mum walked past me (about a foot away from me) , looking down to the floor as if I wasn’t even there.

A couple of months passed and I continued counselling, trying to understand why my mum was behaving like this towards me (I had known for 30 years that I had an evil dad, but now I was realising that my mum simply cared more about herself than anything). Mother’s day came and I decided to send my mum a card. It wasn’t a great “You’re the best mum in the world” card, but simply a “Happy mother’s day card”. I wrote inside “I’m hoping that you are still a good person, simply caught in a bad place” She rang me the day before mother’s day to say thank you for the card.

We chatted and I told her I didn’t want any more of her lies or deceit and she agreed that she had let me down over the last year or so. The conversation that then took place will stay with me forever. I asked her to tell me what she thought had or hadn’t happened, honestly and openly and without telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. She replied (and I quote) “Well, I think something happened and that he (my dad) responded inappropriately”

So I knew then that she knew full well that I was telling the truth, but couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it for fear that if he went to court and was found guilty she would end up without him and without his all important £500 per month pension money.

I had tentatively agreed to see my mum a couple of weeks later as I had my son with me for half term, but when the time came I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear to let him near her and I knew I wouldn’t have been able to stop myself from saying to her “Look at him mum, he’s 11 years old (the age I was when I was abused), what are the chances that he could get into bed and sexually interfere with me (as my dad had suggested I had done to him)?”

Like any 11 year old boy, all he is interested in is Chelsea and his XBOX.


So the time passed and the court date approached. My mum had always been very adamant about appearing in court (“Don’t ask me to testify” she would angrily throw at me, knowing that legally a spouse can’t be forced to testify). But testify she did and lie she did as well. The defence barrister produced father’s day cards (that my mum had dug out of the loft) from me to my dad saying “Why would you send cards like these to someone that you hated?” I replied saying that you do what you need to do to get by and as I had already long decided not to tell anyone he had abused me, it was easier to that than not send cards and try and lead a “normal” life”.

My mum also lied about my relationship with my dad, saying in court “He’s always had a fantastic relationship with his dad”, but as anyone who knows both me and my dad knows, that is far from the truth.

The other little gem she came up with was describing their house as “miniscule” and implying that nothing untoward of any nature could ever happen there as it is simply to small and everything gets noticed (again, anyone who has ever been there knows it is in no way “minuscule”. She also lied about constantly running up and down stairs to do chores, saying that she would have seen anything sexual that was happening-why would you notice?? If you had gone upstairs to hang washing up and thought that your husband and son were in their own beds, why would you do anything except go up and do whatever it is you needed to do and then go down quietly so as not to wake them??

The simple fact of the matter is that she was downstairs when the abuse took place-end of. The same as any mother whose child gets abused by their father-they don’t do it in front of them for a very good reason, it’s done in secret and that’s why mother’s don’t know. She trusted him (the same as she did in 1963 when he was trawling public toilets for gay sex just before they got married), why wouldn’t you trust your husband in those situations? Yes, she knew he was bisexual from the moment she met him that’s for sure, but why would she think that would lead to child abuse? You wouldn’t and that’s why she never knew what he was doing to me.

The other interesting points in the case were my dad was proven to have lied about him being diabetic in 1979 and also the subsequent “impotence”. They proved (via his medical records) that there was no mention of diabetic symptoms until 1991 that there is no link between type 2 diabetes and impotence, so he was again shown to be a liar making up desperate excuses that he thinks people will fall for. Also worth noting is that my mum confirmed that he wasn’t impotent by telling the barrister that he and my dad did indeed have sex at the house in Kingston, so impotence was nothing but another lie.

The sad thing that then happened was that before the trial actually starts, the barristers and the judge sit down and have what’s called “Legal Arguments” where they argue the toss over what should and shouldn’t be included and the defence barrister managed to convince the judge (although he does have to agree) that my dad’s gay criminal conviction should not be included (as it implies that gay men interfere with children) and then obviously the fact that he was caught out lying to DS Jones under caution in a taped interview was also not to be revealed. So the jury never really got to know that he is the type of person that knowing breaks the law for his own sexual gratification.

-He decided in 1963 to go to that toilet for gay sex, knowing it was illegal but clearly disregarding it. -He also decided to lie to police about it last year in a taped interview, while under arrest and under caution.

This to me sums the man up-a sexual pervert who thinks nothing of breaking the law for his own kicks and nothing about lying to police about it.

On the day of summing up (where both barristers address the jury direct), my dad’s barrister absolutely assassinate me telling the jury that I was a “liar and a deeply disturbed individual” (despite there being no proof, history or evidence of either-unlike my dad). My mum sat right behind me and listened to him say that and must have known it not to be true, instead she chose to continue in her quest to protect the £500 per month pension money.

That evening, I was a little despondent having been accused of all sorts and made out to be a liar (why would anyone make up something like this??) and DS from the Child Abuse Team rang me to see how I was. I explained I wasn’t overly happy that I had made out to be the bad guy, yet I cheered up when he told me of his conversation with my dad’s defence barrister.... He said the barrister had said to him after the summing up that he didn’t have a “hope in hell’s chance of winning the case” and that he “had nothing expect for smoke and mirrors” to defend my dad with.

So if my dad’s own defence barrister knows there is nothing, then hopefully the jury would.

However, as the jury never got to find out what type of man my dad really was (all they saw was a doddery old man and his wife on the stand), they returned a verdict of not guilty on all 5 charges.

Now, some of you might have been expecting me to implode at this point, but I can honestly say that I haven’t.

I have had the absolute 100% support of all my friends and family and the difference is-they know the truth.

They never needed a guilty verdict to know my dad was a lying pervert who did nothing but offer desperate excuses to cover his guilt. They knew I was telling the truth and they know that my mum lied under oath to help him get off (if it’s any consolation, I don’t think my mum lied to protect him as she thought he was innocent, I think he did it to protect herself, so that she didn’t end up alone and without the precious £500 per month pension money.


So now life has to go on, my mum will have to live with the fact that she lied to protect herself and keep the man that sexually abused her own son out of prison. She will have to look at herself every morning in the mirror knowing that the reflection is nothing short of a liar who decided to abandon her son.

She will also have to live with all the lies that she told me and the way she actively deceived the few people that she actually confided in. She made out that things were very evenly “balanced”, telling people that I had basically made an allegation and of course my dad had denied it (she “accidentally” forgot to mention everything she saw and heard on the day we confronted my dad and everything we subsequently learned about his sordid, deceitful past).

She was silly really, as she must have known that I would tell those people the truth and point out all the missing bits from my her version and that people would ultimately see through what she was saying.

The irony here is that my mum has become my dad in the way she manipulates people to get the answers she wants. What she wanted when she told people was to get a “Poor you” and “Wow, that must be really difficult for you being caught in the middle” type answers, rather than telling people the whole truth and let them decide for themselves who is lying and who has lied against who is telling the truth and has not lied once (I’ll leave you to guess which is which out of me and my dad.

My mum has become the “victim” in this whole situation, never once coming to see me just to put her arms around me and say “It’s going to be alright, we’ll deal with everything together”, which was all I ever needed and wanted from her.

She used to tell me how ill it had made her and how her arthritis “prevented her getting past the front gate”. It’s funny then that in April this year she managed to go out for lunch with my dad and his daughter….

When I challenged her on this she said “Well it was his birthday”…. I asked her if she made a habit of going for lunch with men that sexually abused their sons, but her reply was only “His daughter wanted to take him out for lunch”, but when I asked her why she “had” to go she had no answer.

She has also never acknowledged what has happened, always greeting me statements to her with “So you say” and “If you say so”, always avoiding directly answering questions.

I asked her once what she would do when my dad was found guilty but wasn’t sent to prison.

The issue for me was that if anyone else ended up with a conviction for sexually abusing their son their whole world would collapse-friends/family/work etc would just implode on you, yet for my dad that wasn’t the case-he has no friends whatsoever (I mean literally not one) and no family to speak of (other than my and his daughter Angela), so if were found guilty but not sent to prison he could literally just walk home and carry on his lonely existence reading the paper and watching the TV, proclaiming that it was a miscarriage of justice that he had been found guilty, so no real punishment for him at all.

When I asked her what she would do in the event of a guilty verdict, she simply said “He won’t come home-he has said he will leave the county”. When I pointed out that my dad didn’t have the courage to move elsewhere and what would she do when he wandered home with a guilty conviction, but she wouldn’t say anything else, just that he said he would move out.

It was clear that she would not to commit to doing the only right thing in kicking out my dad and was prepared to live with a convicted paedophile rather than live alone (again, that precious £500 per month pension money).

My dad will no doubt continue to live the lie and tell my mum he was innocent all along, but my mum is not stupid-she knows a couple of key facts:

1) There is a HUGE difference between a jury finding you not guilty when they didn’t know key information about you and being innocent. 2) She had to lie to get that verdict, so how hollow is that? 3) She knows I am not “deeply disturbed” and that I am not a liar (she has been close enough to me for 40 years to know that for a fact), yet she chose to go along with lying on the stand.

Although I don’t sleep particularly well, I can sleep with a 100% clear conscience know that I told the truth, I did the right thing by telling the police and that I can’t control the legal system that we have.

I knew from the beginning known (the DS was very clear) that historic abuse is very hard to prove and that it may not even get to court, let alone a guilty verdict.

Yes I could have lied and made things sound a lot worse (if a father abusing his son isn’t bad enough), I could have said that he forced himself on me and threatened me, but the simple truth is that he didn’t. I was a willing 11/12 year old participant who thought he was finally getting the love from his father that he hadn’t had for the previous 10 or so years for whatever reason.

Had I lied and he had been found guilty, would I have been any better off? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

I spent 30 years lying and deceiving and taking the rap for the way things looked between me and my dad (I “knew” people thought it was me being unreasonable in my unrelenting attitude towards him, but I had to just accept being the “bad guy” as the only alternative was to tell the truth and until that moment on April the 11th last year I had always felt that was never going to happen.

So a not guilty based on the jury not knowing the facts about him, but with me having told the truth, or a guilty with me having lied?

No contest, this was always about me telling the truth and I wouldn’t change that for all the guilty verdicts in the world.

Was I naive in thinking that just because he was guilty he would be found guilty? In hindsight-perhaps.

I never expected my mum to turn up to court (as she had always told me she wouldn't), let alone for her to testify and lie, so I genuinely believed from day 1 that he would be found guilty, but that’s the legal system we have and I have to accept it. I don’t have any anger towards it, not the judge/jury/barristers etc-even when we came ouy of court after the verdict, my dad’s barrister just looked at me, raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders as if to say “What can I say?”.

He knew my dad was as guilty as sin, but had a job to do and he did it very well.

So as I said, life goes on and I owe it to myself, my wife and all the friends, family and work colleagues that have supported me so much and during this last 14 months or so-without them things may have been very different (you know who you are).

I’m not really sure what else to say, but I wanted to get this off my chest and “out there” so to speak.

The verdict is the verdict and I can’t do anything about it, but as I say-the people that matter know the truth and that is more important to me than anything else.

My counsellor summed it up pretty much spot on, when she said “He may not have been punished in the legal and human sense, but he certainly will be in the divine sense”

And that about hits the nail on the head for me.

So where do I go from here.....?

Well life simply has to go on. It would be very easy to play the “woe is me” card and become the one thing that I have deliberately tried to avoid becoming and that’s a victim (go I hate that expression).

I have to find that middle ground of acknowledging what has happened, but not letting it dominate my life any more, but by the same token not ignore/suppress what has happened, as it will certainly come back to haunt me at some point when I’m least expecting it if I do that.

I have come through this a better person and that is thanks to me, some great friends and some great family.

I would not be writing this now had it not be for key people-my wife, the HR lady at work (who shall remain nameless), my Aunt & Uncle (who have provided me with the most unbelievable emotional support over the last 14 months and been nothing short of phenomenal in their support and patience-this despite my mum turning on my aunt (they are sisters) as my aunt had the balls to do the right thing and support me.

Last but not least, all of my friends, my wife's friends (who again have been nothing less than 100 supportive), work colleagues.

This may sound weird, but I worried for years what people would think of me. I spent years thinking that people would think badly of me, despite knowing what they know. That was just simply a result of my dad’s manipulation and conditioning-that’s what he wanted me to think and worry about , as the longer I worried about it and was fearful of what people would think of me, the longer I would hold on to it and not tell anyone.

Well unlucky dad, your spell is broken, your bullying days are over and everyone knows (or will soon know) exactly what you are and what you did to me and guess what, I'm not carrying any more guilt and shame or lies (unlike you and my mum who stood in court and lied under oath), so good luck with living with that.

I've no doubt my dad will be able to live with what he's done (he has not show a single shred of remorse, far from it in fact), but whether my mum will ever realise (and acknowledge) what she did over the last 14 months is another matter.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, I know it’s been long and drawn out and maybe even emotionally draining, but the truth is now out there (at last).


Update 07/10/09

So I thought I would take some time to update this blog...

Where am I currently?

Work is still difficult and life is still difficult. I'm still left with feelings of anger and rage, but these are more towards my mum than my dad.

I've known for 30 years what my dad was (admittedly I didn't know he was a closet bisexual who sought his kicks in public toilets in the run up to his wedding, but I knew he was a child abuser), but my mum has abandoned me and lied in court about me to protect a man she has told me (in front of my Wife) that she believes did "something inappropriate" to me all those years ago.

I haven't heard anything from my mum since the court case. I can't say I'm overly surprised after what she said and did (how could she ever explain why, after over a year of saying to me "I love you", "I support you" and "I believe you" justify her behaviour in court (she can't)?

Let's not forget that her perjury in court was not some figment of my imagination, she sat and told those lies in front me and my family.

Supplying father's day cards from me to him to the defence barrister as if to prove that I was lying about the abuse and that I loved him dearly, hardly suggests that she ever believed what I told her (despite constantly telling me that she did) does it?

No, my mum clearly made up her mind a long time ago, that she was going to defend my dad at any (my) expense. Not because she believes he is innocent (I truly believe she feels he is guilty and that I am telling the truth). But because she cannot "afford" the risk of him going to prison and losing his pension money (I hope it's worth it).

I'm sure my mum has been very quick and smug to tell people that he was found not guilty, but I'm willing to bet my life that she failed to divulge that the jury only heard half the facts about my dad.

Let's not forget the FACTS the jury didn't get to hear:

• He has a criminal record for a homosexual act, when he was caught in a public toilet with another man.
• He was a known bisexual-known to my mum and the rest of my family.
• He made a pass at my Uncle, groping him (clearly the desire for male sexual contact was continuing).
• He was caught LYING to police in a taped interview last summer about his homosexual conviction and then changed his story (again, all taped) of his 'recollection' of it.
• First of all, he tried to convince the police that he had "forgotten" about it and that it was nothing more than a "drunken caper".
• After the interview break when he was exposed as a liar, he then said he did indeed remember it and it was the reason he has avoided public toilets since (since 1963).

So either it was a drunken fumble that he had forgotten, or he remembered it every day since as he has consciously avoided public toilets since, but either way he was caught lying to the police and had the jury known what a lying sexual pervert he is, I am sure they would have seen a completely different man to the one they saw on the stand in June and would have thought to themselves "This isn't just an innocent old man, this is a proven homosexual liar and if he is willing to lie to the police whilst under arrest in a taped interview in the police station, he is clearly willing to lie in the court room" and would surely have found him guilty.

Not forgetting I suggested to my mum daily for about 6 or 7 weeks last year, that he takes a lie detector test. He never did, preferring to keep bullshitting my mum and even offering the pathetic reason for not taking it as "People already think I'm guilty, so there's no point".

I made the point to my mum so many times, that if nothing else IF he was innocent, surely he would jump at the chance to prove it-if only to my mum??

He could then come home, head held high and genuinely say to my mum "There you go, I told you I was innocent and this proves it".

But no, he carried on his usual bullshit and kept avoiding it (there is also a train of thought that asks why my didn't INSIST he take one, but I guess she knew what the outcome would be and that's the reason she didn't push him to take it.

One thing that I have learned is after such a long time almost defending my mum and her lack of support (last year, before the trial that is), is that I always blamed my dad for my mum's reluctance, feeling that he manipulated her and I almost understood why it was difficult for her.

However, it is clear that people do not 'get' manipulated, they allow themselves to be manipulated-this is a point that all the counsellors I have spoken to have made and that's no coincidence.

As I have said before, there is a big difference between being found not guilty and being innocent (a fact that my mum clearly has trouble understanding).

Let's not forget his lies proven in the court case:

• He was not impotent at the time of the abuse-despite claiming in front of me, my mum and my wife that he was.
• The prosecution barrister proved he had lied about it and showed there was no mention of impotence/diabetes until somewhere in 1991.

So where does that leave me?

Well, clearly I need more counselling. Not regarding my dad, because as I say I have no confusion or anything over what he is, but to try and come to terms with what my mum has done to me-a whole year of lies and deceit from her. Not only has she deceived me, but she has deceived everyone she knows, by telling them her version of events-that I made an allegation, he denied it and the court found him not guilty, end of.

I can't get any more counselling through work as Occupational Health/BUPA (who we get our healthcar through) have said that I need long term counselling, but they only offer short term counselling.

How any mother could do this to her own son to me is unfathomable, yet here I sit with a child abuser for a father and a mother who not only knows what he is and what he did to me, but one that went out of her way to lie to me and protect him for her own benefit.

I wonder if when she looks in the mirror each morning (if she can bring herself to do it that is), if she inwardly acknowledges what she has done (I doubt it).

She has become my dad-building a facade around her by telling people what she wants them to know to gain their sympathy-because let's not forget-according to my mum SHE is the victim in all of this (a point that she has not only made to me, but made in front of my cousin Sharleen, so again-not a figment of my imagination).

My mum will have to live with what she has done, in the same way that my dad will. But seeing as my dad has lived his life as a lie, he's used to it.

What about my half sisters?

Well I had arranged to meet up with the one I met last Christmas again post trial and go and meet the other one (who Ihave never met), but I haven't heard anything from her since the trial.

I can't say I'm not disappointed and hurt and the thing that really gets to me is that she may just believe for one moment that I am a liar and made the whole thing up.

I appreciate that the only info that she has she has gained from my mum and I'm sure my mum was very smug in telling her that he was found not guilty, but I simply cannot bear to think that there is even one person on the planet who thinks that of me.

When I met up with her last year, I told her that I simply wanted her to know THE TRUTH. I knew I couldn't prove the abuse, but I wanted her to know everything else about his lies and his past. What she did with that info was up to her. Believe me or don't, but she would do it knowing THE TRUTH.

I am going to contact her, because she deserves to know the truth and not some version of events that my mum has chosen to describe to her, in some half hearted way to justify her own actions.

Contacting her will be one of the hardest things I have had to do, yet I cannot stand the thought of even one person being deceived at my expense.

I don't know what she will say, perhaps she will tell me to fcuk off and leave her alone and that's fine, but I need to tell her the truth.

One thing that having just re-read this blog is that I forgot to mention that I even paid for my mum to go and see a counsellor last year.

She kept on saying "I just don't understand why you never said anything before now", so I suggested to her that people holding on to things like this was 100% common and that if she didn't understand (or didn't want to?) that she should speak to someone qualified to help her understand.

The weeks went by with her reluctant to see a counsellor. I was met with varying excuses from “I went to the doctor to find out about it, but there is a waiting list". I asked her if she had put her name down on the "waiting list", but she simply said no and said to me "Do I really want to be discussing my business with other people?", so in hindsight it was clear she didn't want to go for fear of what she may find out.

Eventually, she agreed (only after I had found her a local counsellor that was easy to get to).

You'd think that a mother would be chomping at the bit to get a better understanding of a situation like this, but not my mum-it had to be local to her or not at all.

So I went and picked her up (even though it was in the town centre, somewhere she has easy reach to by either walking or getting a taxi) and still the reluctance continued when she saw there were stairs to climb at the rear of the building to get up to the counsellor's office.

It's very true what they say-that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

I paid the counsellor and left them to it, in the hope that she would help my mum understand that revealing sexual abuse having been silent about it for 30 years is very common.

The other weird thing my mum said (as if to justify my dad's abuse of me) is that she told me she had read an interview with Billy Connoly, who had revealed that he had also been abused by his father but that he didn't feel it had done him any harm!

Having read up on this, somehow I don't think Billy Connolly's version of what happened ties in with my mum's....

"Billy Connolly has revealed that his biggest regret is not confronting his father about the physical and sexual abuse he was subjected to as a child.

The Glasgow-born comedian and actor was abused by his father William from the age of eight. However, he never spoke of his ordeal until after his father’s death, in 1989, when he opened up to his wife, the psychologist Pamela Stephenson.

Connolly said he was haunted by a sense of guilt over the abuse, which he believes could have been resolved by forcing his father to explain his actions.

He added that he thought the pain of his childhood experience would lessen with time but had, in fact, worsened.

“I felt so guilty, and then the last guilt is, when your father dies, or the person dies and you haven’t confronted them about it,” he said.

“And you think time will heal it, but time doesn’t heal it. It actually gets worse.”

Connolly speaks of the lasting impact of his childhood trauma in a new film, What About Me?, in which celebrities such as Stephen Fry and the REM singer Michael Stipe reveal their thoughts on a range of issues — including childhood, relationships and fame — against a musical soundtrack.

The 65-year-old first revealed his ordeal publicly in his biography, Billy, written by Stephenson, which was published in 2001. Connolly, who starred in the films Mrs Brown and The Last Samurai, explained he had kept the abuse secret for 40 years because he felt complicit.

During an emotional interview in Los Angeles recently, he told the film-makers Duncan Bridgeman and Jamie Catto that he wished he had spoken out earlier.

“I was abused by my father when I was younger and I carried it around, I didn’t tell anybody,” he said.

“It’s the weirdest thing because it’s one of those events that makes you feel . . . it’s a crime that makes you feel you committed it, when you’re the victim.

Charities working with children who have been abused said Connolly’s experience showed how important it was for victims to speak out".

(The bold highlighting above was put in my me as I felt it hugely relevant to my own situation).

I was again shocked by my mum's apparent attempt to ignore what was happening in front of her, but I suppose there was a theme beginning to appear that I didn't want to see.

Actually, it was not long after that when she came up with one of her most priceless gems, when she asked me if I was worried about myself with regards to my son!

.
She made the point that most abusees go on to become abusers (I do believe my dad was abused) and did I feel my son was safe with me??
I was completely outraged and reminded her that this is about my dad and his lies and abuse, not something that I have never done, nor would do.

Yet ANOTHER attempt by my mum to deflect the spotlight from what was happening on to someone else (I'm not sure now whether she learned this from my dad or vice versa, as when we confronted him he made various counter allegations to avoid the issue).

Even the prosecution barrister made the point, asking my dad why if (as he had described/alleged) I had climbed into his bed and interfered with him, why on earth did he not say anything to anyone about it??

His reply of "He seemed ok afterwards" was met with derision by the barrister who then said to him "But surely, by definition if an 11 year old boy climbs into his father's bed an interferes with him, he surely cannot be ok"

Yet another attempt by one of my parents to deflect the spotlight from the fact that one of them is a sexual deviant and the other has lied to protect him.

I don't really know what else to add, I'm sure there will be more, but for now I need to try and work out what my next move will be.

I owe it to myself and the friends and family that have supported me through this whole ordeal to just move on, but at the moment I just can't see past what my mum has done.


Thanks again for taking the time to read this.


*Very quick update 08/10/09*


I was just browsing through my MP3 collection and noticed a song with lyrics that struck a chord.

The song is "Cleaning out my closet" by Eminem and the lyric that grabbed me particularly was this one:

"I got some skeletons in my closet and I don't know if no one knows it, so before they thrown me inside my coffin and close it, i'ma expose it"


"I'm sorry mama, I never meant to make you cry, but tonight I'm cleaning out my closet"

Actually, I offer no apologies to my mum whatsoever after what she has done to me.
If you support a paedophile, you are a paedophile.


As far as I'm concerned, anyone that does anything that she has done belongs with all the other evil men and women that have ever walked the earth.

Or perhaps she knew what he did to me, but couldn't bring herself to condemn him as to condemn him would condemn her (even if only inside).


But for that to happen, my mum would need a conscience, and after just abandoning, sweeping me under the carpet like I never existed after the trial to hide their dirty little secrets, it is clear she doesn't have one.


Update 13/10/09.

If you are wondering just how any mother can just completely ignore pleas to help, that vile piece of evil scum Vanessa George has finally admitted what she did was "vile & disgusting" but still refuses to help police by naming the children she and her cohorts abused:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8303461.stm

On her victims:

Officer: "Help the families who are out there now. Stressed, worried, concerned for their children..."

(Silence)

Officer: "Please help us and tell us who you took pictures of."

(Silence)

Officer: "Vanessa, please. For them."

(Silence)

Officer: "As a mother you'd want to know. Don't you care?"

VG: "No comment."

Officer: "You clearly don't. I can't believe you can sit there and not care."

Seeing this woman completely remove herself emotionally just makes me see my mum after her cold hearted display of lies in court:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8303538.stm

I cannot bare to think of my mum deceiving one more person. I have emailed my half sister and explained this to her (my reasons being no different to when I met with her last Christmas, I simply needed to tell her the truth as I knew my mum and dad would be actively deceiving her.

As it turned right, I was spot on as they had "accidentally" forgotten to mention to her at a recent lunch date that my dad had been charged with FIVE sexual offences against a minor under 13 (must have just slipped their minds.....).

It is this deceit at my expense I cannot bare and I will do all I can to let EVERYONE I can think of that I suspect has been/is being deceived by my mum and dad know the truth about everything that happened and how my mum continues to ignore me and behave as if I never existed.

All actions have consequences and this is just something I have to do. My mum made a conscious decision to support the sexual pervert/paedophile that is my dad. She chose to do it knowing how it would destroy me and knowing what it had done to me for 30 years.

She also chose to do it by lying to my face from the moment I told her what he did to me, to the moment she stepped into the witness box.

And I'll bet my life that the people that will read this will also learn what a liar and deceiver my mum is because I am certain that she has been far from truthful with the handful of people she has told.

I also wonder what my dad's brothers knew/know about my dad and his sordid past-time will tell about this as I intend to contact them to find out and to tell them the truth.

Another Update 13/10/09

Jesus H Christ - ANOTHER woman has been charged in the case of the nursery children who have been abused and photographed: http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Vanessa-George-Case-Leads-To-New-Arrest-Woman-Charged-With-Three-Offences-Against-A-Child/Article/200910215404506?lpos=UK_News_First_Home_Article_Teaser_Region_4&lid=ARTICLE_15404506_Vanessa_George_Case_Leads_To_New_Arrest%3A_Woman_Charged_With_Three_Offences_Against_A_Child__

This bit was unfortunately too familiar:
Sky's David Bowden, who watched all the interview tapes, said: "She went from cooperative, bubbly nursery worker who everybody said was good fun to cold, potential convict saying: 'No comment, no comment, no comment.

Another thing that reading those articles has reminded me of, is that when I was trying to help my mum understand why I had never said anything about my dad sexually abusing me, I bought her a book to that was recommended by several of the sexual abuse support websites that I used.

The book is called "Mothers of Incest Survivors: Another Side of the Story". She told me she read it and acknowledged that what was in the book mirrored what I had told her about my feelings towards my dad, my anger-in fact everything that I had told her tied in with what was in the book, yet she STILL lied and deceived me, turned her back on me and lied to protect her paedophile husband (my father).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0253207371/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

The other book that was recommended by many people (not just in the UK) was one called "Victims No Longer: Guide for Male Victims of Child Abuse" which was a huge help for me in trying to come to terms with everything that I had carried for 30 years.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/074931656X/ref=ox_ya_oh_product

EVERYONE that I have spoken to and told is just DISGUSTED by what happened to me and believes every word I have told them, yet the one person that I wanted/needed to believe me has simply dropped me like a hot coal rather than lose my dad's £500 per month pension money.

Let me be clear on this-I have not made ANYTHING up and unlike my mum & dad I have told no lies in this whole sorry saga.
• I had/have nothing to gain by inventing this story.
• I was not discovered to have a homosexual criminal record (from a conviction 3 months before I got married) that I hid from my wife.
• I was not arrested and caught lying to police in a taped interview denying that I had a homosexual criminal conviction.
• I was not the one that even once I was caught out lying to police in that taped interview about my criminal record, that then didn't go home and tell my wife (remember it was me that told my mum about my dad's conviction as he NEVER at ANY point had the balls to tell her).
• I'm not the man that then tried to pass off my homosexual criminal record by saying that it was a "drunken caper that I had forgotten about".
• I'm not the one that eventually did acknowledge my homosexual conviction, but changed my story to say that I did remember it and it was the reason I didn't ever go to public toilets (either he had "forgotten" about it or did indeed remember it every day and avoided public toilets-I know where my money is).
• I'm not the man that made a sexual advance to my brother in law.
• I'm not the man that in front of my wife, son and his wife made varying excuses to deny child abuse, then turned that into a counter accusation and when I realised I had run out of excuses went and locked myself in the toilet (oh the irony).
• I'm not the man whose whole family knew I was gay when they met me.
• I'm not the man that has a perverted past that clearly followed a homosexual theme.
• I'm not the man that clearly has no boundaries when it comes to sexual issues-and will go to a public toilet to have sex with another man (despite being 3 months away from marrying a woman).

I use the term very loosely when it comes to describing my dad as a "man". If he were a real man, he would have acknowledged what he did and apologised instead of trying to come up with ever changing excuses and lies to cover up what he did. He is nothing more than a liar, a manipulative bully, a pervert and a child abuser.

I never expected my dad to say or do anything else to be honest, but I did expect my mum to support me in this, the worst time of my life.

Instead, she chose to lie to my face, lie to and deceive her friends and family, lie in court and support her paedophile husband.

I need to step away from this document for the moment, but thank you for taking the time to read this.

I'm sure some of this blog is repetitive and I'm sorry for that, but as I'm sure you can appreciate it's a lot of information to try and out down.

A quick update 20/10/09

I discovered yesterday that my mum has been telling people that I am bipolar....

Nice try mum, but it's just another desperate attempt to yet again try and cover up the fact that your husband (my dad) is a paedophile that sexually abused me.

If she had done even a little research, she would have known that Bipolar Disorder is basically manic depression and not some affliction that suddenly makes youtell lies about your father.

Here's what the NHS has to say about Bipolar Disorder:

Bipolar disorder - previously known as manic depression - is a condition that affects your moods, which can swing from one extreme to another. If you have bipolar disorder you will have periods, or ‘episodes’, of depression and mania.

Depression and mania

The depression and mania that are associated with bipolar disorder are characterised as follows:

depression - where you feel very low, and
mania - where you feel very high; slightly less severe mania is known as hypomania.
Both extremes of bipolar disorder have a number of other associated symptoms (see the symptoms section). Unlike simple mood swings, each extreme episode of bipolar disorder can last for several weeks or longer. The high and low phases of the illness are often so extreme that they interfere with everyday life.

The depression phase of bipolar disorder often comes first. Initially, you may be diagnosed with clinical depression before having a manic episode some time later (sometimes years later), after which your diagnosis might change. During an episode of depression, you may have overwhelming feelings of worthlessness which often lead to thoughts of suicide (see complications).

During a manic phase of bipolar disorder, you may feel very happy and have lots of ambitious plans and ideas. You may spend large amounts of money on things that you cannot afford. Not feeling like eating or sleeping, talking quickly, and becoming annoyed easily are also common characteristics of bipolar disorder.

During the manic phase, you may feel very creative and view mania as a positive experience. However, during the manic phase of bipolar disorder, you may also have symptoms of psychosis (where you see or hear things that are not there).

How common is bipolar disorder?
Bipolar disorder is a relatively common condition with around one person in 100 being diagnosed with the condition.

Bipolar disorder can occur at any age, although it often develops in people who are between 18-24 years of age. Both men and women, and people from all backgrounds, can develop bipolar disorder.

The pattern of mood swings in bipolar disorder varies widely between individuals. For example, some people will only have a couple of bipolar episodes in their lifetime, and will be stable in between, while others may experience many episodes.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Bipolar-disorder/Pages/Introduction.aspx

So we have yet another lie, no surprise there.

What is even more interesting is the fact that I discovered more lies from my mum.

She has a neighbour who she has been friends with for many years (20+ I think) and this poor lady went through a similar sexual abuse situation with her husband, who was also arrested but comitted suicide before he was in court.

Last year I pleded with my mum to speak to her as she more than anyone would understand what my mum was going through and would help her see not only through all the stuff we had discovered about my dad and his gay life, but also the lies he had told to everyone.

My mum assuered me 100% she had told this lady EVERYTHING about my dad, his gay conviction, the lies, etc etc, but I discovered yesterday by speaking with her that in fact she had done nothing of the sort.

This merely supported my thoughts that my mum has indeed been deceiving and manipulating people by telling them what she wants them to hear, so that she will get back a response that she wants.

She is as evil as my dad, if not more so and I will NEVER forgive her for not only what she has done, but what she actively continues to do and this is why I now have to contact EVERYONE that my mum knows and tell them THE TRUTH, because I can bet my life that she will not have.

14/11/09-A quick update.

A couple of interesting articles in the news this week.

• The story of a wife who showed no hesitation whatsoever in shopping her husband to the police when she realised he was a paedophile: http://tinyurl.com/yzow2yu.
• The story of a woman with no legal training whatsoever who successfully won a court case: http://tinyurl.com/yhjxd5l

Not much else to report really, I'm back in counselling which is a good thing as it gives me somewhere outside of home and work to discuss my problems.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday the 18th of October 2013

I felt the need to update this.

Where am I today, well I thought I was doing ok, but I think I always knew that I wasn't.

The last few weeks have been VERY difficult, with all the jimmy saville news coming out.

I got to a point about a week ago, where I began to wonder what my mum would be thinking reading all about the relevations and wondering (hoping) if she was beginning to realise what a huge mistake she had made.

Although I had vowed to myself I would never had contact with her again, I wondered if I should somehow open up a channel of communication (thorough a friend or family member).

There were also a couple of gaps that had been bugging me, that I decided to try and fill.

My mum had always told me that her ex husband had suddenly kicked her out and that here own mother and her sister & brother in law had just turned their backs on her at the same time.

She said that he kicked her out to gain ownership of the house that they lived in and I never really queried it-until recently.

I decided to try and track down my mum's ex husband and his wife and speak to them.

I found out they had since divorced, but went to see his wife (let's call her "V").

She told me that she remembered that my mum's husband ("K") had causght my mum and dad in some kind of 'situation' and had then beaten the living daylights out of my dad and thrown my mum out.

This suddenly began to make sense, K had not just thrown my mum out for no reason, he caught her cheating and threw her out.

It would also account for the fact that my grandmother (my mum's mum) and my aunt and uncle (mum's sister & broother in law) did the same.

People like my dad are masters of manipulation and spotting people who are weak and vulnerable and what he then proceeded to do was to begin 45 years of brain washing and manipulation of my mum to make her believe that everyone around her was evil and he was the only one she could trust.

The thing that hurt me the most after the court case was the fact that my mum I had always thought of as a superhero who would tackle anyone or anything, but it turns out that I just don't think now that my mum was that person.

I think she was actually a very weak and vulnerable person that my did spotted and realised he could manipulate.

I have mentioned that my dad had no friends or family in his life and that was by design, because abusers don't like people who can point out to people like my mum that something is wrong, so they spend their time slowly eroding contact with anyone, until the only person my um had left was my dad.

So, after I found out this information and filled a couple more gaps, i felt a little better.

Fast forward to last Thursday (11th October) and I was working at home when the home phone rang. It's very unusual for our home phone to ring as everyone rings us on our mobiles and if it wasn't for the fact that we needed it for our broadband connection, we wouldn't have it.

Anyway, I looked at the display and it was a mobile number that I didn't recognise. I picked it up and a voice said "It's me" and it was my dad.

I just said to him "What the fuck do you want you pervert" and he replied "this is important, your mum's in hospital, she's had a stroke".

I took a moment to digest it and asked him what hospital she was in and when he'd finished giving me the details I said to him "This is on you, all your years of lies, bullying, manipulation and perversion have caused this", he hung up.

I stood there for a while wondering if I should go to the hospital and thought that I wouldn't after what she had done to me, but then decided I was a better person than that and went.

It was a mild stroke and her right side of her face and body was 'saggy'. She was still able to converse and was fully aware of everything that was happening.

We spoke about what had happened and eventually she said to me "I'm sorry I let you down, I should have supported you".

She stopped short of acknowledging that my dad was a perverted, manipulative liar, but I don't think that will ever happen.

So that brings us up to date and I'm wondering what to do next.

A friend of mine made a very good point, that people like my dad thrive on the control they have and he's right.

The day I cut contact with my mum 3 years ago, my dad must have danced a jig inside, as the last person that my mum had direct contact with that was trying to convince her how evil he is was gone.

I'm wondering if I should make contact with my mum and therefore break that spell that my dad currently enjoys by having her completely to herself?

I have a dream that I get her into a room, with friends and family of hers and just tell her that these are people that love her and that she doesn't need to be afraid as she is in a safe environment, where my dad cannot bully and manipulate her.

Is that the right thing to do, I don't know. My mum is clearly in such a state of denial, I'm not sure she will ever be able to function away from my dad, but surely it's got to be worth a try?

All of the counsellors I have ever seen, all made a common point that people fall into 3 catagories:

• Victim.
• Persecutor.
• Rescuer.

I've always been the rescuer where my mum is concerned, I've always made sure that I've been there for her and sorted out anything that she needed doing and I guess (in hindsight) that my mum was the 'victim' as she needed things doing for her.

In the last 3 years, my mum's perception of everything that I told about my dad made her the victim in all of this and (in her mind) I became the persecutor.

So I guess what I'm struggling with is whether to once again take up the mantle of rescuer and try to make my mum realise that there is life out there away from my dad and there are (despite everything that she has said & done in the last 4 years) people that love her and understand why she did some of the things she did.

I'll update again as soon as I have something else to add.

Thanks for reading.