I was raped & pimped out to VIP sex parties at 20... I kept my dark secret for 38 years
RECALLS THE FIRST NIGHT OF ABUSE
Tony left the flat and tried to put the awful episode behind him. But days later at work in Foyles, an elderly man approached him. “Are you looking for something?” Tony asked. “Yes, you,” he replied. Tony was being touted as prey for a group of high-profile men and no idea how to respond. was the beginning of a three-month al where he was groomed by a pimp regularly had sex with him as well elling him to a string of important mbers of London society. e was taken to parties attended by -known MPS, captains of industry the super-wealthy where he was ed to have sex and perform sex acts. dull the pain of what was going on egan drinking heavily. He was introed to cocaine. He rarely ate and his health collapsed. Yet he also developed a strange fondness for his pimp.
“At least he showed some kindness to me,” recalls Tony. “But I was totally brainwashed by then. He groomed me so effectively and to such an extent that I was totally dependent on him.”
One day, physically and emotionally wrecked by his abuse, he collapsed on the floor of the pimp’s home.
He handed Tony enough money for a flight home to Ireland, telling him to return when he felt better. Tony, finally, was free.
He says: “If he hadn’t told me to go I wouldn’t have been able to do it. I was totally in his control by that point. But he freed me and for that I was grateful.”
Tony returned home a skinny wreck but never told a soul about what had happened in those months in London.
The mental scars never left him though and he was terrified that one day his abusers would come to reclaim him.
A few months later he was reminded how far their tentacles could reach...
He says: “Our house was raided by the army. Afterwards, the officer in charge called me over and said, ‘This is a calling card from your friends in London’. “I knew they were trying to intimidate me. I’d been used by MPS and very important people – they needed to be sure I’d be too scared to tell my story.”
Later, Tony married, had children and the events of 1976 faded. Then, in 2014, stories emerged about VIP paedophiles – abusers in the highest echelons of politics and power. After reading one story in the Sunday Mirror, Tony could not keep his secret any longer. He sat his wife down and told her everything. He says: “We both cried and cried. My wife said that from the day we married she always knew there was something inside me which was damaged.”
Tony reported his experiences to police in Northern Ireland but most of his abusers were long dead.
He also had counselling, but what he found most cathartic was writing down his memories. It was from there his book was born, as writing became his therapy.
As he typed, he listened to the Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel song Make Me Smile (Come Up and See Me), which had been in the charts around the time. He even wore the Grey Flannel aftershave his pimp wore.
Now the book is finished, Tony hopes to put the awful experience behind him.
He says: “I am 63 and recently had my fifth grandchild, so there have been times when I’ve wondered why I want to talk publicly about all this now. But I had to – I needed to bring it to an end.”
In a week when the Sunday Mirror revealed another grooming scandal, in Telford, he says: “I can see exactly how it has happened in these places. For the victims involved it becomes their normality. For a while in my life I became like an actor playing a role and I adapted to this new persona. That’s what can happen. I can only hope this is now the end.” ■ Playland is published by Mirror Books.
I could not understand how the chatting turned into brutality
TONY DALY