‘I'm Fighting To Protect All Children'

Chris Tuck was a victim of child sexual abuse, and that’s why she’s supporting the Truth Project’s work to protect kids in the future.

Clinging desperately to my mother’s clothes, I begged her not to leave. Aged only seven, I could scarcely believe she was really going. But her suitcase was packed and she was walking briskly away from our home, from her four children – and my father’s violence and affairs.

‘I can’t take any more,’ she told me. ‘I’ll come back for you soon.’

The terrible sense of abandonment is one of my earliest memories. And from that day on, my life spiralled downwards.

Soon my Dad married one of our neighbours, who had a family of her own. Our home life was chaotic and Dad didn’t seem to care about us. We went to school hungry and dirty.

Vulnerable, neglected children like me were an easy target for abusers. Aged nine, I was ‘groomed’ by a school minibus driver who gave me and other kids sweets and let us sit in the minibus out of the cold. At last I felt special, as if someone cared.

But biding his time, the driver eventually lured us back to his house and sexually assaulted us. When I found the courage to speak out, it led to a traumatic visit to the police station with an internal examination. As far as I know, no further action was taken against the driver, and he is now dead.

None of the adults in my life helped me, or even asked if I was OK. Quite the opposite – I was accused of being a liar. Like the time I wrote a story at school about what life was like at home – being hit, sent straight up to my room as soon as I got home, not enough to eat…