By Sophie Lewis – The Grooming Files | The Indie Leaks | @realtalkrealtea

Disclaimer:
This story has been shared with full consent. The survivor has chosen to remain anonymous. All identifying details have been removed to protect her privacy. This account is based on her lived experience and is told in her own words and truth.

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I was just a kid.
The kind of kid who believed in good things — Mars Bars before school, little playhouses, friendly neighbours.
You’re taught to trust the people around you. Especially the ones who smile and offer you sweets. Especially the ones everyone else seems to trust.

I didn’t know what wrong felt like back then.
Not properly.
Not enough to run.

There was a man — someone who was supposed to be safe.
He’d hand me a Mars Bar before school, like it was a treat.
I didn’t even like Mars Bars that much, but I’d still walk further just to get one.
Even when they made me feel sick.
Even when something inside me — something I couldn’t name yet — told me not to go.
Sometimes I’d eat it just to please him, feeling the thick chocolate stick in my throat, smiling even though it made me feel worse.

Sometimes we’d play in the little Wendy house he built.
It was tiny — you had to duck your head to fit inside.
It smelt like damp wood and dust, the kind of smell that should’ve felt cosy but didn’t.
It felt like a secret place back then, tucked away from the world.
A place where nothing bad was supposed to happen.

I remember the way he’d duck down to come in after us, joking, smiling like it was nothing.
I remember him asking if I needed the toilet — strange, the way he said it.
I said no. I remember that clearly. No, I didn’t need to go.
But somehow I ended up there anyway, standing in the tiny bathroom, feeling dizzy, my head swimming like I might fall over.

There were jars.
Tiny jars lined up like something you’d find in a science kit — only they were filled with something thick and sickening.
Even now I can still see them, all in a neat little row, glistening under the bathroom light.

I didn’t understand what it was back then.
Not really.
I just knew it wasn’t right.
I just knew I wanted to go back to playing, to pretending everything was normal.

One day he told us to lie down on the floor inside the Wendy house.
Me and my friend — both lying there, giggling, because that’s what kids do when someone says they’re going to tickle you.

At first, it was just like that.
Tickles under the arms, across the belly, the kind that made you squeal and laugh even when you didn’t want to.
But then his hands started going lower.
Not playful anymore.
Not funny anymore.

I remember saying, “No. Please don’t.”
I said it. I know I did.

But he didn’t stop.
He just carried on like my words didn’t matter.
Like I didn’t matter.

I think my friend ran out.
I think she knew better than me.
I stayed — because by then, somewhere deep down, I thought maybe this was what being liked felt like.
I thought maybe this was normal.
Because when wrong things happen to you enough times, you start confusing them with love.

Afterwards, I didn’t know if I was supposed to feel ashamed or special.
I just knew I felt sick.
The kind of sick that doesn’t come from too much chocolate.

I ran home after.
I didn’t even think — my legs just moved, carrying the sick feeling in my stomach all the way to my front door.

I told them.
I told my dad.
I told her.
I told them everything in the only way a kid knows how — messy, scared, desperate to be believed.

They called the police.
For a moment, I thought maybe it would be okay.
Maybe someone would finally listen.
Maybe someone would protect me.

But they didn’t.

They said I was attention-seeking.
They said it was because I’d only just been adopted, that I was “acting out.”

They didn’t see a child who was hurting.
They saw a problem to dismiss.
And just like that, I learned that even when you scream the truth, some people will choose not to hear it.

Years went by.

Years where I carried it alone.
Where I swallowed it down every time someone looked at me like I was trouble.
Years of wondering if maybe I had imagined it.
Maybe it hadn’t been as bad as I remembered.
Maybe I was the problem, just like they said.

And then one day — years later — the messages started coming in.
From my sister.
From people I hadn’t heard from in forever.
Even from him.

“He’s been convicted.”

Just like that.
Three words that cracked open everything.

I didn’t cry.
I didn’t shout.
I laughed.
A bitter, broken laugh that tasted like blood.

Because why did it take them so long to believe me?
Why did it have to come to this?
Why did they think a little girl would make something like that up?

You don’t lie about things that stain you.

You don’t invent the kind of shame that follows you into adulthood, into your bed, into your bones.

They told me sorry.
They told me they should have listened.
But by then, the sorrys came too late.

Despite everything,
I still believe in good.

I still believe in something bigger than men who twist trust into weapons.
Bigger than smiling faces that hide knives behind their backs.
Bigger than the people who heard my voice and chose to silence it.

He was supposed to be safe.
He wasn’t.
But that doesn’t mean goodness never existed.
It just means sometimes, it hides in the ones nobody thought to listen to.

This is my voice now.
It’s not quiet anymore.