‘I don’t want to be seen as a victim of my father. I want to be a voice for survivors’
A WOMAN who was sexually abused and blackmailed by her father has vowed that she will not let the abuse control her, after being left ‘emotionally battered and broken’ by the ordeal.
Last month, David Masterson, 56, was jailed for 17 years for abusing his daughter, Charlene Masterson, over a sevenand-a-half year period.
He sent text messages to his daughter under the guise of being another person, demanding that she do sexual things with men while threatening to send information to her father’s work regarding her previously talking to boys on an online chatroom for teenagers.
As he insisted she wear a blindfold and headphones while the abuse was taking place, she did not learn it was her father until more than three years later. The abuse continued after she confronted him.
Charlene, now 32, yesterday insisted that she does not want to be seen as a victim, and instead aims to be a voice for survivors.
She wants to raise awareness around recognising signs of abuse, as she admits that if it weren’t for a friend recognising what was happening, she may never have spoken out.
She explained how changes in her behaviour prompted a friend to confront her and ask if she was being abused by her father.
‘She asked me in the March of 2014, and I said no, but very kind of unemotional, and she said, “You’re not defending him like someone who is not being abused”. She just kept on my case for the next three months until I finally said yes,’ she explained.
Speaking of her plans for the future, she continued: ‘I’d love to get into schools and talk to people. My friend who saw it in me was training to be a social worker. I always ask, if she hadn’t been training and hadn’t been learning the tools to identify these situations, would I still be in that situation. I just think there needs to be more awareness around little signs and triggers.
‘It only takes one question. They mightn’t disclose, I didn’t disclose the first time, but it just might make them go, “OK, maybe someone is looking out for me, maybe the support is there”, which is always a doubt when you’re in the midst of that dark cloud.’
She revealed that her friend then confronted her mother, who was not aware of the abuse.
Her mother was distraught by the revelations and asked her father to leave the family home.
‘She’s still heartbroken to this day,’ said Charlene.
Speaking on The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk, she added: ‘My mum is a really hard worker… and if she had been in the family home for 23 hours out of 24 hours of the day, he’d have gotten to me in that last hour. This is what these type of people do, they will get to you no matter what,’
David Masterson pleaded guilty to six offences relating to his daughter between 2007 and 2014, including oral rape, sexual assault and incest. The Central Criminal Court heard that after he left the family home and the abuse was reported, Masterson went on to defile three girls, having sexual encounters with two teenage girls and entering into a sexual relationship with a third, who lived with him for a period of time.
Charlene said one of the main reasons she went to the gardaí was her belief that he would target others.
Despite the abuse by her father dictating her life for many years, she said she has now drawn a ‘line underneath it’, and is taking things ‘one day at a time’.
She continued: ‘Since he left the family home, I’ve done my first girls’ holiday and I’ve gone on weekends away with my friends, which sound like minor things, but I was never allowed do them, or if I did, there would be consequences.
‘I’m getting stronger every day’
I didn’t have the typical student life, I didn’t go travelling, I didn’t have relationships. I don’t know whether relationships will be a part of my life at any point, I’m not sure. I’m not sure how my healing from it is going to go, but I’m getting stronger every day and determined to be a voice and change things.’
And despite her trauma, she refuses to be seen as a victim, but instead as a survivor. She said: ‘We all watch these American crime shows like Law And Order SVU, and the victims of these crimes are always portrayed as these weak, hurt... and it is hurtful, I’m not going to say it’s not, I’m not going to say it’s an easy road – but it doesn’t have to determine the rest of your life.’
She added that ‘it controlled me for seven-and-a-half years and I’m determined not to let it control me anymore’.