Vera Bell

In my opinion, perhaps in my experience, the presence of sexual grooming or other types of abuse in a family don’t just come about by accident. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that a mother would be able to spot these things or call them out? How is it then that this doesn’t happen?

Talking to an expert (a while ago now) was illuminating. She worked with the partners and wives of child abusers, and one thing she pointed out stayed with me: child groomers don’t only groom the victims – they also groom those close to the children into thinking their behaviour is normal. There are many ways of doing this and it perhaps depends partly on their personalities or the way they were themselves brought up.

So rather than plunging in I can talk first about the mother, how she was, how she is, how she relates to her own mother and family. I spoke at length, over a number of weeks, to the grandmother of Helen, the mother. An interesting history emerged, which I will unfold over the next few posts here.

“One thing you notice about Helena’ she began, ‘and she’s forty-seven now, is that she can’t smile; she can only imitate a smile.”