Yes a senior social worker actually said that to me.
He said that to me as I was questioning if I should let their father see them whilst the disclosures were still ambiguous.
I wish I could see that Social Worker now. I could tell him about the self harm, threats to jump off a bridge, one banging their head against a wall. The vapeing, the risky behaviour.
And it says it all. If that is the voice of a senior Social Worker then is it a wonder we hear time and time again of the children who have died because the Social Services haven't listened?
Over the first few months of the girls disclosures I felt like I was living in 'Sleeping with the Enemy'. The girls told me more and more, they draw pictures, they acted out what he did and every time I would report new developments I was told to stop.
We went through a chain of Social Workers. We had one lovely one, amidst some utter terrors. The feeling of helplessness, that these people had such control over our lives yet they didn't have the capacity to listen or to help, causing more damage.
I was told I was emotionally abusing the children. That I was the abuser. That if I didn't stop they would take action. I was sleeping no more than 4 hours a night, the only benefit was i dropped about 2 stone (which I know shouldn't be a benefit!) so I could wear Tesco and Primark clothes and they still looked good.
Lola wrote a book, every night she would draw what happened compiling it for other children so they would have the courage to speak up if it happened to them.
One escorted me around the school playground, she spent 20 minutes with the girls and then said that she categorically knew they hadn't been abused and she would testify to that effect. All the reading I was doing suggested that the girls needed time, and a place where someone would understand them. It took me so long to decipher what they were saying; sperm - in a child's mind is something quite different as is masturbation.
The last one, the worst. She would ask the girls questions and as they started to disclose she would say she had to leave. She delivered the first Section 7 report, that the children would come to no harm if they had unsupervised access. I never forget that day, when my solicitor rang me and said we were screwed.
Comentários