Why did it take you so long to speak up? It’s the question many people ask when reporting or talking about sexual abuse years after the event. Recently, the writer and actor Dame Meera Syal spoke about the assault she suffered in her twenties (she is now 65) when an older man tried to rape her. It was, she says, an experience that “completely changed my life” when she, having never officially reported it, spoke about it in an interview.
She is not looking for sympathy. When it happened, she sought solace among a group of actors, and her career has blossomed ever since; her life healed. But scars inevitably remain, and talking about, or reporting abuse, can take years, even decades. There are many reasons why – I would know.
It took me 45 years to officially report to the police a teacher in my secondary school who abused me. I was just three days past my 16th birthday when it began, and it continued for years. It was – and is – something that blighted every relationship I attempted to have thereafter. Unsuccessful. All of them.
Shorts
I broke my silence after the story of Clive Hally was reported in 2019. Hally was a teacher at the school I attended and where I was groomed – he committed suicide on the day he was due to answer police bail regarding his sexual abuse of male pupils.
