Victims of child sexual abuse, for the fear of outright denial or stigmatization almost never find their voices. Now, it is one thing to be sexually abused as a child but it becomes harder to swallow when the one who ought to protect you, is the very one who is molesting you.
Caryn Walker, 47, who was sexually molested by her own father for many years, has a powerful message for her abuser after finally ‘finding her voice again’.
Caryn, who hails from Wallasey, England suffered years of horrific, systematic abuse in the hands of her twisted father, Norman Yeo, who was jailed for 16 years in 2011, Independent.co.ukreports.
Caryn who has a son, Karl, 29, and a partner of 18 years, Elroy, has waived her right to anonymity by writing the book she titled, “Tell Me You’re Sorry, Daddy” in which she detailed the harrowing ordeal she was put through as a child, by her father.
Ms Walker – formerly Karen Yeo – changed her name to rid herself of the association with her abuser, whom she now refers to as “Norman” rather than “Dad”. She also changed the spelling of her first name and took her grandmother’s surname.
Yeo, then 63, was jailed for 16 years in 2011 following a trial at Liverpool Crown Court. The judge said he had ruined his – then unnamed – victim’s childhood, while his actions had also affected her entire life.
Yeo had admitted 10 charges of indecently assaulting Caryn but he denied rape and claimed his abuse began after she turned 11, rather than at a younger age. His denials forced his daughter to relive her ordeal in court.
Jurors rejected Yeo’s defense and found him guilty of a series of rape, which reflected a course of conduct from when she was aged 9 up till she was 16. And in addition to the previously admitted charges of indecent assault, he was also convicted of a series of indecent assaults beginning in 1979, when she was just eight.
Judge John Phipps told Yeo, who showed no emotion, that he had “secured the child’s silence, initially by telling her it was normal behaviour and later by subtle pressure”.
“It was a hard decision to write the book. Over the whole process I have been afraid of people’s reactions. But when I decided to do it I knew it was for the right reasons – and the reasons were stronger than my worries.”
Walker went to the police in 2010, when she was 39, after a chance encounter with her dad during a visit to see her grandmother in a Liverpool nursing home:
“It occurred to me I didn’t know who he lived with – who he had access to. It wasn’t because of what he did to me but because of what he might do to someone else.
I always thought I would never be strong enough (to report him) and it wasn’t an easy decision – it was only on my third visit to the police station that I went in.
I was so damaged at that time that I actually called Norman and apologised – not for going to the police but because other members of the family now knew about it. I wouldn’t do that today, but I felt so full of guilt and shame at the time.
I only had one child because I could barely cope with the anxiety and fear of raising a child in the world that had allowed my father to abuse me.
I suffer from depression and get flashbacks and have nightmares. I’m unable to be alone with older men and I think of every one of them as a potential paedophile.”
But Yeo continued to make her suffer, by ensuring she had to take the witness box and relive his abuse.
“I was so relieved he got such a long sentence, because it really did matter – while knowing that all of those strangers believed me meant the world.”
Although Yeo – who is eligible for parole next summer – was jailed for 16 years, Ms Walker writes that he gave her a life sentence through his actions.
In the book, Ms Walker documents the beginning of her ordeal.
“I was eight. I was only a little girl. I didn’t want to see naked bodies. A touching father and daughter moment. My first experience of pornography, my first real exposure to what his twisted mind enjoyed.
He was back the next night, but this time there was no magazine. He said the thing he would keep saying for years. ‘All dads do this with their little girls. It’s normal. Everyone does it’.
He started by touching me, then he got bolder. ‘This is what dads do with their little girls. You’ll thank me when you’re older.’
It impacted on everything. From that moment on, I always felt I wasn’t good enough, that I was a bad girl who no one would like. I felt stupid and scared and filthy.”
“I still live it – every day. But I am more clear now about what it was. It was something done TO me – it wasn’t my responsibility or my fault. Before, I’d always carried a feeling of guilt about it.
Now I know speaking out really is the first step to recovery. I am a different person today. I have shifted my guilt and shame.
Through seeing a support worker, I’d started to accept that what happened to me needed to be punished. Someone did need to say ‘sorry’.”
In parts of the book, Walker directly addresses her much-loved and much-missed big sister, Jenny, who spent most of her childhood in care, starting from the age of 18 months and died of a brain aneurysm in 2006, aged 36.
“I wanted to give Jenny the voice she never had, and for her to be acknowledged. I also want to help others who may have gone through what I have been through – or are still going through it. I want to help them find THEIR voice.
I think I’m finally ready to step out into the light and say ‘I made it. You didn’t break me. I’m still here, I’m still standing’ – and I am shouting loud enough for both of us.”
Today, Walker says she still struggled to maintain her mental health, adding:
“I don’t have confidence in myself. I always believed there was a blackness inside me that people could see – but I am working on that.
I have been seeing a counsellor for the last five months. If just one person, after reading my book, confides in someone else it will have all been worth it.”
