My stepdad groomed me like Corrie’s Bethany
BRAVE MUM SPEAKS OUT ON SEX ABUSE AND SALUTES SOAP FOR TACKLING ISSUE
A BRAVE woman who suffered years of sexual abuse and grooming as a child has taken the courageous decision to speak out after viewing shocking scenes on Coronation Street.
Amy Foley, 28, was first molested by stepfather Michael Foley at a young age and she says the psychological effects will never leave her.
Foley, 44, is serving 10 years in jail for a string of rape and sex offences after ‘grooming and brainwashing’ Amy. The mum-of-two decided to waive her right to anonymity and speak out after watching scenes about grooming on Corrie.
The soap is currently running a storyline which shows Bethany Platt, 16, being exploited by her much older boyfriend.
Viewers were shocked when creepy Nathan slept with the much younger girl after she was plied with vodka and later, paraded before his pals. Amy has been impressed by the authentic storyline and says there should be more done to raise awareness of grooming.
“I’m just so glad they are doing that story so people know what it’s like,” she said. “It’s real life and it’s happening, so it needs to be out there. Like a lot of people, I didn’t know I was being groomed. It was only when I got older that I realised my stepdad was moulding me into what he wanted me to be.”
Amy lived with Foley from the age of two but says the grooming started when she was five. Simple tickling and playing soon turned into inappropriate touching and Amy went to live with her nana for a few months.
But when she returned to the family home Foley’s attentions became sexual, leading to a campaign of abuse that lasted years.
“We all come here blank and we only know what we know because we are taught it,” said Amy. “I didn’t know to what level it was wrong.
“It just got worse. He would say I couldn’t take packed lunches if I didn’t do anything with him, or I wouldn’t get money for the bus, or I wouldn’t be allowed to go to a friend’s house. He wouldn’t force me but I knew the consequences if I didn’t do it. It was manipulating and controlling.
“In the end it was just so much easier to do what he wanted.” When Foley’s disgusting crimes were finally uncovered, police told Amy she had been groomed. “I didn’t know what grooming was, I thought it was to do with drugs and alcohol. And I didn’t realise it was rape if someone didn’t pin you down.”
Foley admitted four counts of rape, four of indecent assault and three of gross indecency in July 2014.
Jailing him at Manchester Crown Court, Judge Martin Rudland said Amy was ‘brainwashed,’ adding: “She was groomed, and there was gross abuse of trust.”
Amy, from Ardwick, struggled with a range of complex emotions after Foley’s conviction.
She said: “My family couldn’t understand it, but I didn’t want any harm to come to him. It just completely threw me. I was crying to my nana saying I wanted to drop the charges – I was heartbroken. When someone has been groomed it’s all they know. He was my dad. He was there every birthday, Christmas and parents’ evening. I was as close to him as I was my mum.”
Amy says the suffering she endured colours everything. She even described a time while potty training her son Tyler when she became uncomfortable touching him. “I went into nursery crying. They said there was no problem. I was 24 and I didn’t know what was inappropriate and what was normal,” she said. “From my point of view the grooming is almost worse than the abuse itself. You can get over the physical stuff but mentally grooming affects everything.”