‘I spent a lifetime believing it was my fault’

“I was sexually violated by a Roman Catholic priest at a young age. I began to find the courage to deal with it following the documentary Suing the Pope in 2002.

"The journey into, through and beyond sexual violence is the most painful experience I have encountered in my lifetime.

“I sought the support of the One in Four organisation. I availed of group therapy. It was a powerful experience. I was able to share how I felt about my own experience of sexual abuse. I soon discovered and took heart from hearing that other people’s experiences were similar to my own. That was quite a revelation as I had lived in isolation behind my own wall of fear. I was terrorised and entrapped as a child against my will.

“My legal journey was awful. The legal system is so adversarial and incredibly difficult to understand and to negotiate. The system is designed to intimidate and frighten. My legal experience brought me back into the heart and terror of the abuse itself and worked against my own natural ability to heal myself. As the statistics show, few of us take legal action.

“I can now say while I was sexually violated at a young age, I now know it was not my fault. I spent a lifetime believing it was.”