Why I had to see the man who abused me at three face justice
second assault, which took place in her parents’ living room, happened about four years later, when Jackie was seven years old.
“He was doing work on the computer – I was in the living room and my mum and dad were in the kitchen,” she recalled.
“I remember clearly he was on a spinning computer chair. He swung round to me and exposed himself and asked me to do things with him.
“The first incident was a lot worse, but I feel more comfortable talking about this one.
“After that, he still used to come round all the time. As soon as I heard his car turning up, I would hide away in my room.
“I remember he would still try and talk to me as if nothing had happened, even when I was older.”
Growing up, Jackie said she was “scared” of boys and would get regular flashbacks of what had happened.
Fearing she would not be believed if she spoke out, she bottled her emotions throughout her childhood and teenage years.
It was not until after she had children of her own that it all got too much and two years ago, she finally found the courage to go to the police.
“As I got older, it got harder because I reached a point where I realised it was wrong,” she added.
“I was a teenager when I broke down about it for the first time. I remember pulling a friend of mine into a toilet and telling her all about it. She was the first person I ever opened up to.
“I tried to put it to the back of my mind after that.
“But it started to come back to me a lot about two years ago. It was causing a massive problem for me.
“It was going from thinking about it about once in a while to thinking about it once a day. It was completely taking over my life, I was breaking down in tears all the time. I used to question whether I had done anything wrong, I used to ask, ‘Why me’?”
Despite suffering vivid flashbacks regularly, Jackie who has been diagnosed with PTSD and depression as a result of the abuse is now receiving the help she needs at a sexual assault referral centre.
She added: “It was very hard to speak about it, I had tried to put a mental block on it for a long time, but I’m so glad I opened up.
“The biggest and scariest thing was that I thought nobody would believe me and I think that’s why it took me so long to talk about it. It’s a hard subject to discuss anyway, but bringing it up after so long was even harder.
“But it’s never too late to talk about it, despite how long ago it happened.
“Going to court is a horrible experience, it was awful. But you have got to go through it to get justice.
“I hope by speaking out that more people come forward so he gets an even longer sentence. Three-and-a-half years is nowhere near long enough.
“I just want to move forward with my life now. I’m a completely different person now to what I was this time last year.”