There really is only one subject I can write about this week. As I write, headlines in the UK are full of stories of the deceased TV presenter and DJ Sir Jimmy Saville, who is the subject of a TV documentary in which several witnesses allege that he sexually abused them when they were children. His family are appalled at the claims, and his nephew has protested in the press. I feel sorry for his family – this is a lose/lose situation for them. Either they see their relative groundlessly dragged through the mud or else exposed as a paedophile. As I say, I feel sorry for them, but the conversation has to be had, and had in public.

The first and most important reason is the possibility of Saville's guilt. It is too late to convict him of the crime but vindication for victims in such cases is incalculable. It is common enough for victims to speak to nobody about their abuse for many years, and find that they are discredited or not believed when they do. It is also a misapprehension or a distortion to say that this is 'in the past'. It isn't. Sufferers can spend years, decades, often the rest of their lives, fighting with the legacy of abuse. Among other problems it creates great difficulty in trusting, forming secure relationships of all sorts. It can also fill victims with guilt, rage, self-loathing and a host of negative emotions that they often can't reconcile or understand. Speaking out, whether they are vindicated or not, is a tremendously difficult step, but it is the first step on a long and arduous road to recovery.

So let's consider that road. I was 19 or 20 when my girlfriend (now my wife) first told me of her 8 years of abuse, which was shortly after she had started to remember herself. For an insight into her experience look here. I didn't know what to do. She didn't know what to do. Who could we talk to? Who could we tell? What help could we possibly get? I spent years getting things variously right by luck or horribly wrong. The damage that was done to her is all too easy to make worse and all too hard to fix. Now, over ten years later, she has a psychiatrist and we are fortunate enough to have found a help group for survivors locally, one that admits partners and well as survivors. The first is rare, the second is almost unheard of. Most wrongs in the world need greater awareness,. Childhood abuse would benefit from nothing in the world more than greater awareness.

Then there is the wider context. Is this country in the last 20 years or so, strides have been made. Within organisations such as social care, the church and the education system, a great deal is being done. Things are, sadly, far from perfect, but progress is being made. The trouble is that these organisations are relatively easy to monitor. It is within family groups that so much abuse occurs and it is in these situations are so hard to control or monitor. So how do we deal with this? Do we treat all parents who get things wrong as potential abusers? Do we subject them to questioning and suspicions and take their children away at the first sign of danger? Of course not. These actions can be, and have been, as damaging as the problems of neglect and abuse. In the Post a couple of weeks ago I talked about people talking honestly about how they are, and people who are prepared to listen as well. The problem of childhood abuse is one of secrecy, of children encouraged, threatened, bribed to tell no one what was done to them. This veil is what needs to be lifted. Children, and adults too – for this covers wider abuses in society – must be allowed to talk, given people to talk to. We, as a society, must be willing to listen, willing to take care of each other, to look for signs of pain, sorrow, suffering in those around us and to give them space and safety in which to talk honestly and without fear about their suffering. It won't change overnight, and it won't prevent abuse from ever happening again, but it will be better than it was.

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