To ask the police for details about me? (TW: child SA)

[Sophiehoney]

I may have been sexually assaulted as a young child (when I was too young to remember). Someone was definitely arrested and questioned for it but I don't know if they were ever charged or found guilty. The person accused is now dead. There is noone else I can ask to be 100% sure.
Am I entitled to view police records about this? How would I go about it?
At the time, my parents used a name for me that was never my real/legal name so I can't prove it was me. I also only know the area we lived, I don't know the address.
It would have been early 1990s
I really need to know the truth. What can I do to find it?
I'm sorry this isn't a proper AIBU but I don't know anywhere else I can post that is anon and has so much traffic
TIA

Not sure if it is the same, but you can do a Subject Access Request to the police force to ask to view the records they hold about you (this is certainly the case if anyone has had dealings with the police as a suspect / perpetrator, so may be the case about a potential victim as well? You would need to check. More importantly, I think you would need to prove that it is you (if you are applying on behalf of someone else, eg your child, you need to provide birth certificates and driving licence etc. Not sure how you would prove it was you, if you are not sure of the address, or of the name, or exact details of the crime? I am just a lay person, but have been reading up about Subject Access Requests recently.

Surely your parents would have given your legal name to police? If it got as far as him veing arrested and questioned your real name would have been documented, they wouldnt have put a parents nickname down on legal forms?

It wasn't a nickname, my surname was changed, although never legally. My mum told everyone this name was my surname and all my primary school records are in this surname but it was never my actual name and isn't on any legal documents such as my birth certificate.

If she told it to the school and they accepted it, I am certain she said so to the police as well.

I began using my real surname again through choice when I started secondary school and kept it until I got married

With all due respect, if the person is dead what can possibly be done?
id hate for this to come across as insensitive, have you tried to seek some professional help to help you manage how you are feeling?

As terrible as this is, i think learning how to live with it with the right support might be the better option? I do hope that doesnt come across rude. Sorry for what you may have been through.

Then just tell them that? Surwly you can prove your date of birth and parent details when they reported it?

So you remember nothing of the incident OP? I'm not sure police records will fill in many gaps if your mum is determined to be obstructive.

I have my reasons.
All these years, I have wondered why other adults in my life failed to protect me and why this person continued to be part of our lives for many years (indeed, continuing to abuse me in other ways, not sexually,throughout my childhood) after this incident was reported as far as going to the police.
I need to see for myself what the evidence was, what was said, what he was accused of, so I know if people I love really did let me down or not. I need to look at it all and decide whether or not I would allow that person to continually be around my own daughter. I need to ask questions of other adults in my life and I hopefully need to be able to forgive other adults in my life.

And quite frankly, I sincerely hope that's the last time anyone asks me to explain myself.

You could contact Victim Support and ask them to help you with making the request. Victims of crime do have some rights.
Don't worry if you don't get names exactly right or are a bit vague about dates.

If you have his full name, it'll be easier to trace.
I'm sorry the adults in your life failed to protect you. Have you spoken to your parents about it?

I would contact the local police HQ to begin with. Ask for an appointment with someone appropriate, then they can maybe get you past down the line a bit to the best person who can deal with your enquiries. Or I’m wondering if maybe a solicitor would have some proper information to allow or show access of any files they may have. Difficult if you don’t have dates or names, but hey you gotta start somewhere right. Good luck.

Hi OP, I’ve always wanted to do the same. Everything was such a blur back then, I was in a constant state of dissociation and freeze response. I completely understand the need to piece those parts together, it’s very difficult to make peace with experiences we don’t remember/was not given all the information. I’ve been in years of therapy and I’m really proud of the progress I made. That still does not take away my drive to know what happened back then. It’s absolutely okay that you want to know too. Wishing you the answers and healing.

I remember being examined.
trigger warning
I thought at the time, and I thought for years after, that a dcotf was examining my place where wee comes out because I used to wet myself a lot as a child and he was finding out what was wrong.
As an adult, I now realise this was something else entirely because you don't examine a child like that, in that area, at that age, because they wet themselves.
But no, I don't remember any actual abuse.

Thank you xx and I wish you healing too xxx

Are there any safe adults or relatives who could sign a statutory declaration stating that your legal name and childhood known name are for the same person?

Might make it a lot easier when applying for a subject access request.

There's a teacher still at my old school who might be able to. It would be an awkward conversation though.

Hi op. I might be entirely off the mark here but my...I don't know... privates... Were examined as a child. I had frequent urine infections. I do vividly remember this. I'm not doubting you at all but just perhaps those examinations can happen?

I was also examined as a child, so I went to my GP surgery and requested access to my medical records. I also contacted social services.
Some information did exist, the rest had been destroyed and could not be retrieved. I was able to accept that. Is worth thinking in advance about how that might affect you, and maybe get some support while you do it.
The process was nerve wracking but in the end it helped me. Just knowing that it did really happen and I hadn't made it up.

I hope this is the case and that it was an innocent examination. But I have nothing wrong down there and I would have been around 3 or 4 years old. I can't see them examining a child that young for anything other than something serious that I would know about.

I don't want to have been abused. Please don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to join some special club or get attention or anything.

But this person was not a nice man, and there would have been a reason for him to have been arrested and for a couple of other things to happen after he was arrested which I can't go into as it's too outing, and I would like to know the details of that.

Thanks for sharing, how did you start the process and was it straightforward? How long did it take?

Closure for the op maybe?

I hope you get answers op xx

Have you tried looking online for newspaper articles? Find My Past has a lot of old newspapers and its likely you would need to search by the perpetrators name not yours. It might give you some clues

Yes, I have tried this, thank you. Nothing coming up xx

I was also examined in the nurses office at school with several other adults there, i was maybe 5 or 6 years old, I remember telling my friends as I thought everyone was having it but they hadn’t. I was also interviewed in depth about my family by someone claiming to be a student teacher. There were serious issues in my family at the time, I can only surmise this is how they were trying to find out. There were no records of it anymore, it’s all been lost. I totally understand wanting to know what’s happened. Good luck OP. There are organisations that support adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse, I’m sure they would be able to signpost you as well.

If social services were involved you can't request your case notes

I think it's down to trust. You don't trust your mum by the sound of things. She allowed this person to be abusive to you that you do remember. You might feel better for going low/ non contact with her.