Trigger warning - this is about violence and abuse to a little girl

[ScrollingLeaves]

Today on Woman’s Hour Emma Barnett heard the testament of Rachael Watts, a now grown woman, who was abducted off the street after asking the way, raped, strangled and left for dead in the undergrowth of an icy cold roadside aged 7, thirty years ago.

I have never heard anything so harrowing in my life and could barely listen for the thudding of my heart and a deadly feeling of despair and sorrow.

Did any of you happen to hear it?
You can listen here.
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001fmq8
1 min 30 sec in.

If you have heard it please tell me:
Am I being unreasonable to think, after listening to this, that we have absolutely no idea been about the real levels of horror suffered by sexually abused children? That for most of us on the outside they are just statistics, not real voices?

A journalist who originally reported the case anonymously started a go fund me page to build a beautiful garden for this woman who suffers from complex PTSD now, all these years on, and is unable to go out.

Wonder if she has support for her application for pip as people can get it for fibro alone.

Loungingstevens · Today 21:54*
@ScrollingLeaves thank you.

that piece from the sun is quite comprehensive. The Argus is local to the area of the crime. It doesn’t have a big readership

It still seems light to me.

I dont know really. Perhaps I’m losing perspective. As I said, I’m full of feeling and I can’t articulate it. I just feel helpless.
Hearing her say that she can’t get any financial support was so painful to hear

It does seem light. Perhaps at the time in 1990 it was written about without her name.

It is all very painful to hear.

tothelefttotheleft · Today 22:06

^ScrollingLeaves · Yesterday 20:33

^BeanCounterBabe · Today 20:16
I heard it, the interview made me cry. The attack itself was bad enough but the fact she was told everytime he appealed and came up for parole. And he made her doubt herself thinking she may have got the wrong man. What a piece of shit he wa^s.

I agree, then on the Go Fund me page we also read this -

a person who could not have endured greater trauma, and who is now suffering from severe and Complex PTSD as a result of this and all the aftermath, is not eligible for disability benefits.

Rachael is a proud, stoical person and has found it hard to obtain the help she needs and deserves. Now 40, she has developed agoraphobia – a profound terror of the outdoors – and been diagnosed with Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, acute anxiety and agonising Fibromyalgia (sometimes linked to stress). But she has been turned down for disability benefits and received little therapeutic support.

Wonder if she has support for her application for pip as people can get it for fibro alone.

Perhaps not. From what we hear those pips interviews and forms
are difficult.

The fund to support her with a healing garden is still receiving donations. It can be found by looking up Support Rachael - childhood abduction survivor

If there is some money left over perhaps it could go towards help with special psychologic therapy.

This was a powerful and dreadfully sad testimony from an incredible woman survivor. These offences are always committed by males, and although we know perpetrators are often known to the girl/ woman, this shows it is also is done by random males to random children./ women. We must maintain protections for us women and girls, as we cannot tell which one is going to hurt us. Sending love to Rachael and hope her life can be made easier. Full of admiration for her family too

Bumping this because I think this lady deserves all the support she can be given. Her testimony as a child put a monster behind bars and probably prevented other children becoming victims as a result. I am very sad that she has not been offered support or benefits to help her with the trauma of this.

Her testimony as a child put a monster behind bars and probably prevented other children becoming victims as a result

Yes, and and from that young age she had to bear the burden of his conviction because he kept saying he was innocent over the following years, making her doubt herself. Only for him to admit it and belittle her in court when he was finallly caught for the earlier murders.

Daily Mail have picked up on story today. I had avoided the threads on here because of the harrowing titles but couldn't avoid the article. I also missed the Woman's Hour interview.

Dear God what Rachael has dealt with all these years. I can't wish her enough healing, love and happiness from now on. May she build a healing haven, get the very best professional therapy and support and enjoy her life. I'm certainly going to be doing my own 'gardening' for Rachael. I'm glad she reached out to the journalist who organised her fundraiser.

Rachael's fund has jumped up in the meantime so that's good to see.

Livingtothefull · Today 12:45
Rachael's fund has jumped up in the meantime so that's good to see.
That is really good. I hope she’ll be able to access help as well as getting her garden of peace.