‘What my father did to me was wrong... what social services did was worse’
Chantelle Thomas, now 17, has waived her right to anonymity to speak out about the abuse she suffered as a child and her experience of the care system. Will Hayward reports
CHANTELLE Thomas, now aged 17, was abused by her father when she was six.
Her father, Arwyn Cellan Thomas, is now serving a 22-year prison sentence for abusing his own daughter.
He collapsed in the dock at Swansea Crown Court in February after being found guilty of raping and sexually abusing Chantelle, who was just one of his victims.
Chantelle was six when the abuse began. It carried on for two years until she was taken into care when she was eight.
As well as the sexual abuse, she describes being “leathered with belts”, chilli sauces put in her mouth and freezing-cold baths.
Yet she describes the next nine years of her life in the care of Carmarthenshire council as being even harder to cope with. During that time, she claims, she was moved between more than 40 foster carers.
Chantelle, who is known to her friends as Tilley, left the care system in April and is now living independently in Llanelli.
She has chosen to waive her right to anonymity to try to help other children in care.
Tilley claims she was let down by Carmarthenshire council. She says she was sent to live with her father as a child even though the authority should have been aware of an allegation made against him two years earlier.
“In 2015 I made a report to police after my father sexually abused me when I was a child,” said Tilley.
“I didn’t know there were other victims at the time. When I came forward it came to light there was a statement made in 2004 with the same allegations against him. I was placed to live with my father in 2006 by the local authority. I stayed with him for two years.
“I was sent to live with my father. “I felt like I was abandoned by social services at a young age. When they came to do home visits the social worker was very much arguing with my father rather than supporting me.
“Social services did regular visits. I remember them. My social worker would come and I remember her trying to catch my father out but my father is very intelligent.
“She would go to cupboards to make sure there was enough food but he would make sure they were full before she came.
“However, she would never take me to one side and have a conversation with me.
“He [Thomas] was very devious. “He controlled everything that went on in the house. The social worker we had was intimidated by him. I was seen as Daddy’s little girl in the social’s eyes so they never even tried [to talk to me about him].
“I couldn’t understand because social services were on us all the time. The social have always been involved so how they didn’t notice or see the potential danger I don’t know.
“I was treated to Victorian punishments as well, like being leathered with belts, chilli sauces put in my mouth and put in freezing-cold baths.
“They must have had an idea of what was going on. I was eventually moved after two years on the basis of neglect.”
Arwyn Cellan Thomas, then of Martin Street in Morriston, Swansea, was found guilty of five charges of indecent assault, six charges of sexual assault of a child under the age of 13, three charges of rape of a child under the age of 13, and assault of a child under 13 by penetration.
Sentencing, Judge Paul Thomas QC told Thomas: “The way in which you abused these children was simply monstrous, and I choose my words carefully.
“You systematically and cynically started to sexually abuse them.
“The similar ages of your victims points to, in my view, a sexual interest of a particular age. Your sexual abuse stopped at around the same ages.
“There was an escalation in what you did. You behaved in a quite awful fashion... and your victims’ lives have been so badly affected.
“You chose to contest these matters and that of course is your right, but it meant your victims had to contest these matters publicly in court.
“There is, what’s more, not a shred of remorse for the way you have blighted their lives.
“You have no previous convictions for this type of offence, but not only did I see no show of remorse, but I saw an anger [when they gave evidence].
“I believe there is a substantial risk in the future from a man as devious and controlling as you.”
Tilley has spent more of her life in care than out of it.
In many ways she sees what she endured after entering the care system as harder to deal with than what she experienced at the hands of her father.
She claims that from the moment she entered the care system, she was stigmatised and pigeonholed as a “troubled child”.
In the early days she was put with one foster carer, who she still thinks of as a mother, but was then moved between dozens of different foster carers where she found it hard to settle.
“You could tell that some of the foster carers I was with were just doing it for the money – we were a job to them.
“Even though I had been taken away from my father I never opened up about those experiences and felt I was always treated as a bad kid.”
Tilley said: “You are so stereotyped, people fall into a trap and just think ‘to hell with it’.
“We are stereotyped from a young age. I don’t believe that any young person is forced to do things but because of how they are labelled it makes it more likely it will happen.
“I always felt like that because I had the mentality that I was determined it wouldn’t happen.
“We are so frowned upon and yet go under the radar.”
Tilley said she wanted to speak out because of other children who are still in care.
“I think of my experiences and I hope that nobody will go through the amount of s*** I have,” she said.
“But when you think about the bigger picture there are probably thousands of children who are maybe not going through the same thing, but might feel the same way.
“I was labelled as being a troubled child, which then turned into a troubled teenager.”
Tilley is now studying full-time at college and dreams of getting a job in the police.
“My dreams and ambitions are to go into policing,” she said. “I’d love to work for four or five years on the beat before doing law and criminology and training to be a lawyer.
“I’m hoping to go abroad. There is nothing for me here. I love my family to bits but I feel like being stuck here there is a stigma and I would like to restart my life away from everything.”
She said: “I would say that every young person in care is always in survival mode. Even though I have been out of the system since April I feel that I am still in survival mode even though I’m living on my own. I am just waiting for something to go wrong. Something would always go wrong in care.
“It still happens, even though I’m living independently. I feel like I’m battling day in, day out. Yesterday I had run out of gas on my meter. I live on £57 a week. I have to pay my WiFi because all my college work is online. I have to pay my food, phone bill, gas and electric through that.
“I would tell children to stick with it and not let the system beat you.
“They are expecting you to kick off and are expecting you to be upset. The moment you kick off you’re stigmatised and you’re a ‘troubled teenager’. The most important thing is to stand up for yourself and don’t be pushed down a path you don’t want to go.”
Tilley said she now finds it hard to trust people. “I am not good at building relationships – I have always had these walls up.
“I know that I have attachment issues from being with foster carers when I was younger. If I felt they had broken my trust I would find it really hard to rebuild it.
“It would get harder and harder and now my walls are straight up – it is like a survival technique.”
Carmarthenshire council was asked to comment on Tilley’s experiences.
Councillor Glynog Davies, the authority’s executive board member for education and children’s services, said: “Whilst we are unable to comment on individual cases, we can say that we are in contact and are continuing to do all we can to provide support.”