My abuser at my wedding
DARK SECRET EXPOSED & JUSTICE AFTER FOUR DECADES
It makes me angry he posed for our wedding day pictures
GROOM Dave Gipps’s happy wedding day picture holds a grim secret.
The smartly dressed guest in a black suit just a few feet from the newlyweds is Dave’s childhood abuser.
Vile Richard Lancaster wheedled his way into the church ceremony despite sexually molesting Dave for five years when he was a gullible teenager.
But now, 30 years after the happiest day of his life was overshadowed by the pervert, Dave has got justice.
Lancaster, 60, was jailed for ten years last week for his sick crimes.
Dave, 53, said: “I thought I’d be sad when I looked at those pictures from my wedding day but actually I’m happy now.
“I’ve put him behind bars and he can’t do that to anyone else ever again.
“I can show it to people now and say, ‘This is the man who abused me. He got ten years’.”
Christine, 54, who found out about her husband’s secret torment only ten years after their wedding, said: “I was absolutely sickened to know what Richard, a family friend, had been doing to him all those years.
“I never had a clue Dave had a dark past. Richard did a lot for him and I thought he was a genuine good friend.
“When I found out, I was so shocked I burst out crying, it was so horrible.
“It makes me angry he came to my wedding, that I stood in the same room with him and posed for pictures.”
Dave was 13 and getting little attention from his parents as they went through a divorce when Lancaster, then 20, targeted him.
Dave says: “Richard took me under his wing. He was like a second father to me.”
Cuddles
Lancaster was popular in Dave’s hometown of Chigwell, Essex, because he drove a motorbike and would take the children on their street for a ride.
Dave said: “We all love motorbikes and as kids we used to play football on the street, so that’s how we met.”
Eventually Lancaster, a forklift engineer, invited Dave to his house.
In the days and weeks that followed he began to groom the teenager by showering him with attention, cuddles and gifts. Several months later he began touching him.
Dave said: “After that, it would happen three or four times a week. He would take me to a bedroom and
have his wicked way while my parents were at home, oblivious that any of this was happening.”
Dave tells how he became so confused by what was going on he spiralled into depression and at just 14 attempted to slit his wrists in Lancaster’s bathroom.
He said: “I think it was a call for help but I went into Richard’s bathroom and made three cuts with a razor on my arm.
“I was just too terrified to tell anyone. It was like I had two lives, one life with him and one life apart.”
The abuse continued for five years. In 1980, when Dave was about to turn 18, it ended. He said: “I think it ended because I was becoming of age.” Despite the abuse stopping, Dave remained close to Lancaster.
He said: “The reality is I had no idea that what he’d been doing to me was abuse. I didn’t understand what sex was.
“I saw him as a father figure and trusted him. Looking back I can see I was messed up.”
The same year Dave met Christine at her sister’s 21st birthday party and they fell in love.
“Richard never let me mix with girls or women,” he recalled.
“So when I met Christine I felt like I was finally getting a chance at a normal life.”
As the years rolled by, Dave’s relationship with Christine went from strength to strength. They decided to tie the knot in 1986 and even invited Lancaster as a guest. But Dave never thought about telling Christine about the abuse because he had locked away that part of his life in his mind.
He said: “Richard was still a friend who had done a lot for me and I never thought I shouldn’t invite him to my wedding.”
Brainwashed
When their big day came, Lancaster stood for photos with Dave and Christine and other guests – a constant reminder in print of the dark past Dave had left behind him.
Dave and Lancaster lost touch the following year as Christine and Dave prepared to welcome their first daughter Leah into the
world. Lancaster also got married, had three children and divorced. It wasn’t until 2007, 31 years after the abuse began, that taxi driver Dave realised he’d been a child victim of sex crime.
He was sitting in his black cab at Heathrow Airport when the penny dropped.
He said: “I was just thinking there taking stock of my life when I realised I’d been brainwashed into never admitting I’d been abused.”
By then Dave had two daughters, Leah, now 29, and Amy, 25, and two grandchildren.
He said: “When I told Christine and the girls they just broke into tears. It was so hard to watch but I knew it was the right thing to do. I had been brainwashed by Richard to believe what we were doing was OK and when it dawned on me I absolutely hated myself.” Dave went to the police in 2010 but there wasn’t enough evidence to prosecute Lancaster until last year. He was found guilty of 12 sexual assault charges at Chelmsford crown court, Essex, on Monday. As well as his ten-year sentence, he was ordered on to the sex offender register indefinitely Det Sgt Adam Goodger, in charge of the case, said: “I commend the victim for his courage through the investigation and trial. The offences still affect him. The lengthy sentence will hopefully give Mr Gipps some degree of closure.”
Dave said: “I’ve finally got justice after 40 years since this all began. Richard ruined my childhood by subjecting me to all that horror. It ruined my adulthood too.
“I’ve finally got my life back and I am so relieved to be able to move on.”
Dave is now desperate for people to know what he was subjected to in case anyone else fell victim to a similar crime. He said: “I want them to know it’s OK to come forward.”
Christine, also delighted by the result, said: “It’s been hard, but we got through.”
I’ve finally got justice 40 years after he destroyed my childhood