I’ve name changed for this. I should possibly warn that this post is about child grooming/sexual abuse.
For some reason I looked up a man online who attempted to groom me between the ages of nine and fifteen. This happened around thirty years ago and I have never spoken to an adult about it. This scumbag was a friend of my parents and used their and my naivety to his advantage.
We lived abroad at the time and I spent quite a lot of time alone with this man. Fortunately he never actually raped me or seriously assaulted me, but I recognised later that I was being groomed and a lot of things happened that should not have happened to a girl of my age. He told me that he had had sex with two girls my age that I knew, but I don’t know if this is true or if he was lying to try and further his cause. He also had a daughter who didn’t live with him that I later wondered about, having heard from him that she suffered mental health problems and had attempted to take her own life 😞
When I was fifteen the man’s wife moved to the country we were in, and he left me alone, which I was very happy about. However, after my family came back to the UK, my parents learned through friends still there that he raped his wife and lost his job. We never heard from him again, and I tried to put it all out of my mind because I felt so ashamed, dirty and guilty. All of which I now realise are common for children who have been groomed. I assumed that he would have gone to prison, and hoped he had died an early and painful death, if I’m honest.
Anyway, I have looked him up online and found that he has a photography website - this was his hobby when I knew him. There are photos on there that he took of me all those years ago amongst all the other portraits in his portfolio. Nothing dodgy, but he has retroactively photoshopped me and made me look more attractive than I was 😱 It is incredibly creepy and has knocked me for six - these are photos of me in my early teens. I recognise some of the other girls in the photos too, including one that he claimed to have had sex with.
In hindsight I don’t think any of his misdeeds have caught up with him. When I think about it, the rape of his wife would not have been reported to the local police in the country we were in for political reasons, but maybe it was never reported to the UK police either, or didn’t go to trial etc as so many rapes don’t 😡 He could have just been sacked and shipped quietly back to the UK.
Part of me thinks I should try to pursue him, but I have no idea if anything would come of it. I can’t remember exact dates or even the last names of other girls who may have been involved. Some of the things he said and did will be seared into my memory forever though 😣 And obviously I don’t want him to hurt anyone else! There are more recent photos of people on his website, and he has clearly been travelling around and having fun in the last few years. My parents are both dead and never knew what he did to me, about which I have mixed feelings. I, as a young girl, thought I was protecting them 😞
I really want those fucking creepy photos off the internet, but is there anything I can do? The thought of contacting him and asking him to remove them makes me feel sick. Seeing them there makes me feel sick.
Does anyone have any thoughts? Anyone been in a similar situation? I think I just needed to tell someone about this, please be kind to me, and thank you for reading.