Friday 17 October 2014

AN OPEN LETTER TO JAMIE OLIVER FROM A CHILD ABUSE SURVIVOR


AN OPEN LETTER TO JAMIE OLIVER FROM A CHILD ABUSE SURVIVOR

 

David Mason was given four years in a young offenders’ institute after raping 12-year-old girl before joining the apprenticeship programme at Celebrity Chef’s Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant.


Dear Jamie Oliver,

I write this letter as I read online in horror that your representatives have confirmed that a convicted pedophile, David Mason has received a cushy apprentice job at your restaurant. I believe in so publicly giving a pedophile such an amazing opportunity is a smack in the face for victims of child abuse. It absolutely sends the WRONG MESSAGE to potential and active pedophiles. The message being that “if you commit a horrific crime of raping or molesting a child there is a chance society will forgive you and give you a wonderful new life and you could even work for a celebrity”. The fact that he went to prison doesn’t mean that it was an effective deterrence. David Mason could still pose a huge risk to children. The litmus test should always be “If (god forbid) the pedophile had raped a child you know, would you have made the same decision?”. Anyone who says ‘Yes’ is a liar, there only seems to be a desensitization and normalization of child abuse when the victim is a stranger. Had the victim been your child (god forbid) you or your management would not have let David Mason anywhere near your restaurant.

 

In fact it shocks me more that your restaurant has hired a pedophile in light of the information we have now on how rampant pedophilia is in light of operation Yewtree, the high profile child abuctions, rapes and murders and the recent pedophile hunter documentary on ITV. These cases show there are predators in society who, if and when the opportunity comes they would not think twice of molesting, raping and murdering a child. In fact to get further kicks they will take photos and videos of the ordeal.

 

I cried today when I saw the news article trending because I know like many survivors of child sexual abuse, I will never ever get a second chance in life. I am serving a LIFE SENTENCE. I have had one life and it was ruined by pedophiles both young and old. No matter what I achieve in my career, personal life or hobbies the pain will always be there and the physical and mental scars will always be a reminder of my horrific ordeals. In my case it was multiple abusers both strangers and people I knew and trusted.  Yet a pedophile gets an amazing opportunity to start a new life? As I looked at the photos of David Mason smiling and enjoying his apprenticeship programme I feel a revulsion. All I imagine is that same face was probably smiling and getting twisted pleasure from attacking and raping a 12 year old girl. I can’t see past that because I believe once a pedophile always a pedophile and they cannot be rehabilitated. I will proceed to tell you why I believe why pedophiles can never be rehabilitated from my own experience as I do not wish to discuss cases in the media and further distress victims or the families of victims who have sadly passed. Also it would be negligent for me to make assumptions about how those victims suffered their ordeals.

 

If you read my bio you can see the multiple instances of when I was raped as a child and I can tell you the pedophiles involved ranged from early teenage hood (with kids been incited to molest  when it was groups), young adults, mature adults and old people. It never made a difference to me whether my abuser was 13, 19, 40 or 60, I felt the same anger and revulsion! They all knew it was wrong but took some twisted pleasure from abusing me.  There was never one reason for their attacks on me but there were characteristics that they had in common no matter their age, background, history or family situation;

·         They have a strong sexual attraction to children and it is something they will find a way of satisfying and the vulnerability of a child makes them believe they will not be found out or the child will never speak of it.

·         A manic desire to have power and control over someone else

·         They take natural pleasure in the vulnerability of a child and they will easily threaten to kill you, kill someone you love, lock you away or rape you further because no one will believe a ‘dirty little slut like you”. They know a child will easily believe these threats and be scared.

·         Hate (whether self hate or hate towards a certain gender or other human beings)

·         A twisted desire to cause fear, humiliation and pain to make themselves feel important or big

·         Opportunistic predators

·         Morbid curiosity because of wanting to experience sexual perversions and a child is an easy target

·         Twisted urges that need satisfying after watching porn (whether adult porn or child porn)

·         Entitlement that makes them think sex is “a right” and they should not be refused or rejected. In fact the word ‘no’ in my experience angers a pedophile more

·         They are turned on by the secrecy and taboo of child sex abuse and each time they abuse you they will cross more boundaries, some will even want to abuse multiple children at once, torture a child and possibly murder a child.

·         They are convinced they are doing nothing wrong and they will even try to convince you that you are a slut who is asking for it or is bad and making him (or her) abuse you. If you were not so bad he would not abuse you.

·         They find a child seductive or provocative and will blame your swimming costume, breasts that have developed early and try and walk in on your naked in the bath or bedroom.

·         Lastly they know the crime is so horrific, taboo and secretive that the child will never be believed or be told to keep quiet about it. They are in fact very confident that the adults in your life will turn a blind eye or call you a liar. They will repeatedly tell you this until you become so paranoid and afraid of telling anyone.

 

While I have never had a problem with the issue of prisoner rehabilitation I have never supported this when it comes to sexual and violent crimes because I do not believe they are people who can change. I believe 100% that pedophiles can NEVER be rehabilitated because the abusers in my life were never remorseful and they were repeated abusers even if it was not always against children. Pedophiles are dangerous because they do not believe they are doing something wrong and given the chance they would campaign for the normalization of child sex abuse. The horrific crime of pedophilia should never be trivialized as ‘ a mistake ‘ or ‘bad judgement’ it is always a pre-mediated opportunistic crime. No amount of time in prison will stop a pedophile from having sexual perversions towards a child. Prison time is not punishment, it is a weak way for the justice system to keep a pedophile away from society for a while. Society and the justice system have not found a way to deal with pedophiles adequately because the justice and punishment is not ‘victim led’. The predator has always and will always have the desire to harm a child and they will either create the opportunity or wait until the opportunity comes up to abuse as child. Frankly Jamie Oliver your apprenticeship programme would have been better off rehabilitating a shoplifter or fraudster.

 

What is even more disgusting is that after my ordeals, I have had to watch for years in dismay as the pedophiles who were in positions of trust live happy, loving, fulfilling, amazing lives pretending to the world they were nice normal people. I have also had to live with the fear that they are abusing the children that I see in their presence. I have also seen just like in the case of David Mason known pedophiles being welcomed back into their families and communities and being given forgiveness with the excuse that every human being deserves a second chance. I do not believe pedophiles deserve a second chance because their victims will never get a second chance, you cannot undo the rape and molestation. There have been instances as well were I have been told off for not forgiving someone who had sexually harassed me for sex, or raped and molested someone else. They act as if a victim is uncivilized and a bad person for not having forgiveness in their heart to forgive a child rapist or molester. This is why I am re-traumatized and horrified whenever I see any forgiveness and sympathy for a pedophile because I know they have no remorse, repentance for what they have done.

 

You could never understand the terrible message you are sending to predators and kick in the teeth your decision has given to victims.

I can only see that you have rewarded a man who raped a 12 year old girl by giving him a lucrative life line. While his now teenage victim will see the news article and be re-traumatized. You cannot deal with pedophilia and other sexual and violent crimes with the same attitude as petty crimes like shoplifting or smoking cannabis. Trying to make people believe if you engage pedophiles positively, occupy them meaningfully and keeping them from direct contact with children will ‘cure’ them of pedophilia is nonsense. It is a dangerous path and will put children in danger. Pedophiles will never stop desiring children. If you have never been raped as a child you will never be an authentic expert on pedophilia whether you work as a professional i.e therapist, authority figure i.e police or social services, or as a person who runs rehabilitation programmes. You just have no clue how the mind of a pedophile works in that moment of attack and what the victim endures.

 

Whenever I have attended any survivor support group, workshop or event  survivors have always voiced this experience, that “if you have never been abused as a child” you will never ever understand what it feels like to have experienced that horrific traumatic ordeal. Personally I have always lived with the need to forgive, forget and move on but sadly it doesn’t work that way. In fact the more I tried to forget and push away the trauma the more it affected me. Do you think I wanted to live with such horrific memories? In fact I hated feeling that way so much that I pushed away my memories so hard it triggered a long term dissociative disorder. The dissociative disorder made it difficult to connect with others and encouraged bullying because I was perceived as weird, cold and uncaring. There are a lot of insensitive and uninformed comments from “non victims” and over the years I have heard the following;

·         It was a long time ago surely you need to move on.

·         You need to forgive,  not to excuse the pedophile but in order to heal yourself

·         Your negativity will not help you heal

·         God will heal you

·         You were so young did you ever understand what happened to you?

·         I know someone who was abused and s/he is fine why can’t you be move on?

·         You can get over this you are not that child anymore

·         Your current fear is unfounded it will never happen to you again, why are you still so scared?

·         The person who abused you is out of your life you can heal if you try harder

·         You are letting this person continue to ruin your life because s/he is still in your head

·         Oprah Winfrey was raped as a child and she is fine, and you can be fine too! You can be a role model too!

I know many will ask me what suggestions I have for punishing pedophiles and preventing further abuse?

·         I believe the justice system needs to give much longer sentences and listen to victim impact reports

·         The government needs to invest more in the penal system, if there is enough money to go to unnecessary wars

·         Then the government can built more maximum security prisons to keep pedophiles away from society longer.

·         I would also encourage investments in places like Coalinga State Hospital (CSH) in the USA, which was featured in Louis Theroux’s 2009 BBC documentary, “A Place for Paedophiles”.  Coalinga State Hospital (CSH) opened on September 5, 2005 and was California’s newest state hospital, the first to be constructed in the state in more than 50 years. It is a maximum security civil-commitment facility built to ensure that sexually violent predators stay out of the community. Currently, the hospital houses 850 sexually violent predators

·         In the time they are in prison they should take part in compulsory sessions that enable them to face the reality of the evil they have done and the impact on their victims. They should be continually assessed with regard to their attraction and sexual desires for children.

·         Chemical castration should be available for those who admit their desires will never go away (I prefer it to be compulsory but human rights legislation would not allow it)

·         I do agree that in prison they should re-train pedophiles but for a vocation that is self employed. I think it is unfair to force law abiding workers to work alongside a convicted pedophile some of whom could have been abused in childhood. They should only be allowed to work self employed where they disclose their past and it is up to the employer/client to employ them and the community to feel safe with a paedophile working nearby.

·         Also just like there programmes for certain groups in society to work together, there could for example be factory or site jobs where the only staff are pedophiles. They will only be handling goods and have very limited contact with the public.

·         Once a paedophile is out of prison the community where he lives should know of his past and be the ones allowed to decide on whether the paedophile can live and work in the area.

·         School and community programmes should be devised speaking openly about paedophiles and providing child and parent packs on how to watch out for predators and communicating with their children.

 

READ BELOW THE STATEMENT FROM JAMIE OLIVER’S FIFTEEN RESTAURANT

“Since 2002, Fifteen has been taking young people into its Apprentice Programme, many of whom need a second chance to turn their life around.

“David was completely honest about his past when he applied for the course and we decided that as he had served his sentence he should be allowed a place on the programme.  He has so far been an excellent student."

Mason spent two years behind bars and two years on probation, during which time he did a Prince’s Trust Team Programme.

Following his horrific crime, Mason was put on the sex offenders register indefinitely and has been banned from being near young girls without permission.

 

Mason was given the sentence in 2010 after forcing himself upon his young victim after playing video games together.

It has been reported that during the sentencing, the judge presiding over the case said: “The law exists to protect young and vulnerable children and she was both of those things, as you well knew. You knew very well that having sex with such a young girl was wrong.”

Source
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jamie-olivers-restaurant-hires-convicted-4449275#ixzz3GMBfAuAe

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