Jehovah’s Witnesses ignored my abuse ordeal, claims Vardy
‘It’s hard to know how I survived that. No one valued me enough to protect me’
‘I was told that ... the abuse was a form of affection. [But] I was well aware of what was right and what was wrong’
REBEKAH VARDY has accused the Jehovah’s Witnesses of having covered up the sexual abuse she endured as a child at the hands of a fellow member of the church.
Vardy, the wife of Leicester City and former England footballer Jamie, also claims the church failed to protect other children from predators in its ranks.
She has now made a Channel 4 documentary about her ordeal with others that suffered and who were “shunned” by their own families when they tried to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses.
Vardy, whose mother was a Jehovah’s Witness, claims that when she was a young teenager, church elders refused to inform the police after she told them she had been sexually abused.
In the documentary, Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, she says: “What happened to me during my childhood still affects me every single day. From the age of around 12, I was being abused and instead of being supported, I was blamed.”
The claims are vigorously denied by the organisation.
In the documentary, Vardy investigates the iron grip she claims the organisation tries to maintain over every aspect of its members’ lives.
Vardy said the sexual abuse she suffered was dismissed as “affection” when she finally plucked up the courage to tell the elders. She says that her mother did not believe her and that when she turned to senior group figures in her home town of Norwich at the age of 15, they dismissed her claims.
“I was told that I had misinterpreted the abuse and that it was a form of affection. I knew I hadn’t.
“I was well aware of what was right and what was wrong, but I was manipulated into believing that it wasn’t right to take it to the police,” she says.
Vardy said the abuse led her to begin playing truant from school and to making a series of “terrible decisions” about her life.
In tears, she tells the documentary team: “It’s hard to know how I survived that. No one valued me enough to protect me.”
During the making of the programme, Vardy met a number of former members who were shunned by the church after making claims of sexual abuse and other complaints.
Laura tells her she was sexually abused from the age of eight by a member of the church who was a family friend, but that her local elders took no action when she told them, believing his side of the story.
When she eventually went to the police herself, the man was charged and later handed an 18-month suspended sentence and placed on the sex offender register for 10 years.
The organisation strongly denies that it fails to take action over allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by its members and that it is “false and offensive” to say they try to prevent the authorities investigating sex abuse claims.
It also denies that shunning contributes to suicides among former members. It said in a statement: “It is false to say our members live cloistered lives and it is misleading to imply our religion is controlling.”
The documentary is being aired on Channel 4 tomorrow at 10pm.