R4 interview with woman raped by her father

[RoyalCorgi]

Did anyone hear PM today? Evan Davies interviewed a woman who had been repeatedly raped by her father from the ages of 11 to 21. She gave birth to her father's child. This was in the 1990s. (The interview was ahead of a documentary about children who were the result of rape.)

It was one of the most horrific things I've ever heard. I don't know what age the woman was when she gave birth, but none of the health professionals asked her who the father was or if she'd been raped. Her father actually attended the birth.

Her father was a special police constable and a member of the Salvation Army, and therefore regarded as a pillar in the community. When she first reported the rapes to the police, they refused to believe her and threatened to charge her with wasting police time. They also seem to have told her that if she had committed incest, she was guilty of a crime.

The rest of her family refused to believe her story and said that she had "seduced" her father.

She was eventually able to prove through a DNA test that her father was the father of the baby. He was sent to gaol for - wait for it - three years.

I often feel despairing about the way women are treated, particularly in the criminal justice system, but this made me feel absolutely without hope. When a child can be raped, repeatedly, with impunity, when women are blamed for their own abuse, when even a man guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable (raping his own daughter for 10 years) gets only three years in prison, then is there any chance things will ever change? This is 2023, not 1823, and yet abusive men are completely free to assault women and girls with no consequences, or next to no, consequences.

I heard it. It was so sad and so horrific. And 3 years what a negligible sentence for the ex-policeman to get for 10 years of rape of his own daughter. I felt so sad for the interviewee. She was so strong in prosecuting her 'dad' and had rebuilt her life and brought up her disabled DC, but what a painful life.

Not the sort of interview Evan Davis usually does. I wonder if any pennies were dropping for him about the extent of male violence against women and girls.
Although I doubt it as in the same episode they discussed Kier Starmer's strange under-popularity and Davis didn't mention the 'what is a woman' issue.

How could he only get 3 years.

Completely agree with this.

That poor woman, how awful. I hope she has access to counselling and support to live her life to the fullest.

Same. I get a physical and visceral reaction of hatred and sheer fury.

HOW ARE WOMEN AND GIRLS STILL TREATED THIS WAY BY MEN??????

I don't understand how the justice system can be structured so that a man can get only 3 years for this crime. It just baffles me.

It is repeated over a decade, it breaks the most fundamental moral rules of protection of your children, it has resulted in the birth of a further victim, it involved trying to cover up using his "pillar of the community" reputation. How, just how, do those multiple factors added to the fact that it was rape not result in a minimum sentence of decades?

I heard it. It made me cry. She sounded so brave, but also apologetic, which made me sad.

That sentence is so disgusting. In the US there have been cases where a rapist or his family was able to win visitation or even CUSTODY of the child resulted from the rape, one of the first things I thought of with this was whether there was even a no contact order given for the poor kid, or if she was forced to interact with this disgusting monster.

God, that is so awful. Just horrific. How many men think they have full ownership of the bodies of women and children? We are treated as trash and the law clearly does not care.

I saw a horrendous interview with two lovely women on tv last night whose daughters had been brutally murdered by their partners. Again, the law gave them a much reduced sentence compared with if they'd done the same thing to a stranger. It's as if if you live in the same house as a man you're implicitly consenting to be harmed by them - even if you are a child.

Same. I get a physical and visceral reaction of hatred and sheer fury.

Same. I think it’s amazing how well we all control it. These bastards just get away with the most disturbing crimes with barely any punishment, while the victims suffer forever. How is this our justice system? What the hell can we do about it?

It's on the BBC 10 O'Clock News now. Warned as distressing content.

Poor people - I hope they find some peace and healing.

On a far lesser scale but...

I was sexually abused by my eldest brother, several times, when I was 10. He was 20. The purpose of this abuse was an initiation into a gang, apparently. I didn't know, at age 10, that what he was doing was wrong.

But when I was an adult, I knew. And I told my mother. She...was not very supportive. She spent the rest of her life making excuses for him, and trying to tell me how penitent she thought he was.

Except he wasn't. And he would get violently angry if anyone tried to take him to task about it. In his mind, you see, I was nothing but an object, a means to his ends.

Some men are horrible, disgusting, perverted, violent people. They can hide behind their 'safe' persona- priest, tv celebrity, pillar of the community, police officer...'transwoman'.

And then there are those who excuse those men. Women, like my mother, who minimise, excuse, defend- I don't know why. Other men, who possibly are hiding their own secrets. And others, who will use violence to put down a woman who dares challenge their 'liberal' views.

And that is why this terrible matter connects with the transgender issues. Because very few perverted men commit their horrific acts in plain view. They hide behind costumes, personas, and no-one can ever tell. It's as much about power as about the sexual act itself.

Men want power over women. Some men will stop at NOTHING to gain and retain that power. Some women will want them to have that power, too.

So we must fight on.

Sorry. That was lengthy.

Well said, Shodan, and I’m so sorry for what happened to you. It is harrowing.

I remember watching a television documentary years ago that was part of a project to record the memories of very elderly people, born in the 19th century. Several women, then in their 80s or 90s, described how their fathers had abused, or attempted to abuse them, and they had to suffer in silence. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. I'll never forget one woman who detailed how her father tried to climb into her bed, but her mother realised and went into the room and threw him out. Then from that moment onwards her mother slept in her daughter’s room and was eternally vigilant to make sure it never happened again.

It just made me well up with admiration for that mother, protectiveness for the young girl, and rage for the father. And it’s STILL HAPPENING. To girls who don’t have anyone to protect them.

I saw a horrendous interview with two lovely women on tv last night whose daughters had been brutally murdered by their partners. Again, the law gave them a much reduced sentence compared with if they'd done the same thing to a stranger. It's as if if you live in the same house as a man you're implicitly consenting to be harmed by them - even if you are a child.

The way you’ve summed this up is just so harrowing to read @AmuseBish , because it’s so true and fucking heinous.

Shodan nails it with “I was nothing but an object, a means to his ends”

That is exactly how a lot of men view women. Not as people, as a thing that is required to provide the actual human person (man) with his desire.

The gay males who want to have genetic children show this in full daylight. It’s the only time in their lives they require a female body, and the dialogue and language used by some male gay couples around the use of egg donors and gestational carriers really shows how the women involved are not seen as people at all.

I think the only reason heterosexual men are not as outwardly dehumanising towards women is because they know they can’t always get away with force when they want to have sex.

And still the narrative avoids talking about the sheer numbers of abusive predatory males involved in raping and abusing and killing women. We are right to be fearful and seek to make our own separate spaces. But none of the commentary actually names male abuse as being a male thing.

MoltenLasagne · Today 21:52
I don't understand how the justice system can be structured so that a man can get only 3 years for this crime. It just baffles me.

It is repeated over a decade, it breaks the most fundamental moral rules of protection of your children, it has resulted in the birth of a further victim, it involved trying to cover up using his "pillar of the community" reputation. How, just how, do those multiple factors added to the fact that it was rape not result in a minimum sentence of decades?

And I think she said he only served 18 months.

The stories people are sharing on this thread are very distressing, and sickening in the truest sense.

I’m so sorry @Shodan 💐thanks for sharing. You’re right. There are far too many mothers making excuses and letting their sons hide behind them and from justice.

I’ve come across people I’ve worked with who have similar stories, it’s beyond infuriating

My reflections on why these men get away with it…it’s not so much they see women as nothing, but they see women as no threat. A lot of these men operate with a competitive hierarchical mindset, constantly assessing where they are in the pecking order, always trying to be top dog, Obviously some men are no threat to them, some men they need to spar with to decide their position but all women are no threat. When I look at it like this, the only thing higher on the hierarchy than all men should be and is the law. The law and the punishments are the ultimate Top Dog.

That’s why I have such a visceral reaction to 3 fucking years. The law is the only thing that stops all these men, the only guaranteed thing that is higher than all of them on the hierarchy.

And the problem then is that some of these men are part of the system of law, using their positions to keep their ‘ultimate competitor’ constrained, sparring and gaming with the laws in their favour.

Anyway, the only thing we as women can do imo is lobby for better laws. I don’t think it would be nothing to do that and it would make a difference and I think we sometimes forget was is possible from lobbying for law changes. I feel a lot of feminists have been diverted by the trans issue, which is definitely important, but it’s come at the cost of issues like this.

@Shelefttheweb yes, very rude, and you are doing your cause no good at all by shoehorning it into any tangentially related debate.

Sentences are substantially longer now and this would have a starting point of 16 years.

These cases are very rarely publicised because victims' anonymity makes it difficult to write reports about the offenders.

www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/offences/crown-court/item/rape-of-a-child-under-13/

It's as if if you live in the same house as a man you're implicitly consenting to be harmed by them - even if you are a child

So true.

This has been such a difficult thread to read. My school friend was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by an uncle. I encouraged her to tell the school and her Mum. This got her into loads of trouble, then it was all brushed under the carpet. The awful shock of realising the adults actually didn't care. She never spoke of it to me again, just drifted away and went slowly off the rails for a few years.

I appreciate you don’t want to acknowledge the impact of the very anti-woman/girl culture put forward by TRAs but pretending they are unrelated doesn’t make it so. If young girls are told they cannot have boundaries in front of men, that they are hateful if they fail to strip off in changing rooms in front of men and boys, how can they do so when it is their father telling them they must do so? If queer theorists are trying to destroy boundaries and lower ages of consent then how can young girls avoid coercion? If schools are discussing sex toys at primary and playing dice games over how to pleasure a man, how can a young girl realise what she is going through is abusive? If men attend or run rape counselling sessions because they claim to be women, how can a young women traumatised by men get support to recover?

The awful shock of realising the adults actually didn't care.

I think that's so devastating to someone's mental health. The attempts to rationalise or justify or just... not do anything. It must really do a number on your self-worth and ability to trust your judgements, to calibrate how you are valued as a person in society, in your family. It's just completely screwed up.

@Shelefttheweb you are quite wrong. I have a lot of sympathy for your political position. But this is not the subject of the thread. Why try to take it over?

Shelefttheweb · Today 10:32

I do understand why you are bringing TRA up, but this particular testament, involving as it does the incest and rape of a child and the birth of a victim of that rape, is so harrowing that I think most people here want it to have as much of its own space for discussion and sympathy as possible.