Life After Hell: Surviving Sexual Abuse

"There were people close to you who chose to look away. They failed your victims miserably," the judge said.

Sadly, they still fail us to this day............










 "After being separated from my mother twice in my 10 short years of life, I was more than a little excited at the prospect of being reunited with her again. Unfortunately, my elation was to be short-lived when the visits to my bedroom started. Threatening to send me away again or turn the loaded gun he kept in my wardrobe on us all, he kept my silence.

It was to be another six years until I escaped the abuse of my mother’s husband and another 30 years before I was able to bring him to justice. Ironically, the one person that should have protected me and helped me fight to stop him, my mother, is still with him to this day."



NOW AVAILABLE!!!


After years of writing and rewriting it and waiting to see how the ending turned out - it is actually finished.... It is not fiction this time and not a continuation of The Dream Series, but pretty much my autobiography. The story of my childhood; my neglectful mother and abusive, perverted stepfather.

I sent it off to a NZ publisher a while back and received a letter to say it wasn't suitable for them, but to try other publishers. I have approached a couple over the years and am kind of sick of being rejected - I really want to tell my story and help other sexual abuse survivors to realise it is possible to get justice and live a happy and fulfilling life again.
 
I tried to go down the Trad Pub road to begin with as that was always my initial dream, but it hasn't quite panned out as I imagined, so I will look at Indie as I have done with the others. I felt this story was just too important not to publish.


A lot of my own experiences have gone into my fictional works, especially my first book The Man of My Dreams. I created a vigilante vampire that rescues women and children from rapists and child molesters......

Read for #free on Amazon, iTunes, Sony, Kobo, Nook, allromance, smashwords.....





SEX PREDATOR COPS 7 YEARS JAIL 

   

As a few of you already know by now, I have been trying unsuccessfully to prosecute my stepfather for raping and assaulting me from the ages of 10-16. 30 years ago when I was just 16, I went to police and pressed charges against him. I was naive and relieved when he plead guilty and thought he would be punished accordingly for his crimes. Little did I know, that he had only admitted to having sex with a girl in his care - consensual sex. Only 2charges when I was 16, nothing before and no rape charges. He got a smack on the hand and that was that.




I was left confused and bewildered, wondering why police had believed him over me. I felt betrayed and tried to get answers - only to be told time and time again that the matter had been dealt with and to go back again now would be double jeopardy. I just couldn't get my head around how it could be so as he was never charged with rape or for any of the atrocities he committed against me before I was 16. I guess to be honest, I became a little obsessed with clearing my own name and replacing the consenual sex with a rape charge. It made my stomach churn and my skin crawl to think that people could possibly believe his story to be true.



Finally, after trying and failing for almost 30years, I managed to convince someone to reopen the case and investigate further. It was determined not to be a case of double jeopardy and the wheels were put in motion to start again from scratch. During this time, I contacted a few other people I suspected could have been victimised as well and one of them was willing to come forward and fight along side me to get this monster named and shamed. We thought if we could at least get his name on the sex offender register and known to police, then we may be able to prevent him getting access to other children. Together we fought hard; trial dates were set and postponed and we were disappointed time and time again. But we held tough, stayed strong and united in our quest for justice, we saw it through. In December 2012 he finally realised that there was no escaping and plead guilty to some of the charges. It was a good result; I got my admission of rape and then we just had to wait for sentencing.



Sentencing was the 25th of Feb 2013 and after listening to the defence attorney argue his point about it being consensual sex and not rape, the judge imposed a sentence of 8years - with a 12months concession for the guilty plea. He disregarded the consensual allegations as nonsense; how could they possibly think a 12year old girl (even though I was 10 when it started, he wouldn't admit to anything before I was 12) could be consenting to this abuse? He seemed angry that the matter had been dealt with so poorly all those years ago. He could only go by the sentences that related to the time when the offending had occurred - today it would have carried a much longer prison term, but 8years was the maximum for back then. So the end result was 7years - a good result.



Finally, we have the justice we deserve, we have shown that what he did to us was unacceptable and not ok - we have taken back our power and he has been made to pay for his crimes. After all these years he has finally been held accountable and I have been vindicated. All the hard work that we, his victims, the detective in charge of our case, the crown prosecutor and our wonderful support people have put in these past 3 years, has finally paid off.


It was a good day.....










2 comments:

  1. I am so proud of you for finally getting that monster behind bars. It is terrible what he did to you, but I am glad you turned into a fabulous person despite your turbulent upbringing. <3 And I am also proud of your for being able to talk about it so openly. You are a dear person, Gladys. I know it's hard, but forget about that woman who gave birth to you- you have us. ;)

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  2. Thanks Hun. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done cutting my mother loose, but I needed to do it. It is hard not having a mum around, but worse having a mum around that supported her daughter's rapist over her own daughter :(

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