Stories

My story is a very old tale. I am 80 now and this relates to my experience in scouting when i was 12-13. On a camp trip to Reading I was sleeping in a tent of 5 or 6 scouts including a senior scout of around 18 who was well liked in the Scout Group by all including me.
On a particular evening I was in my sleeping bag next to him. He got me to touch him in a certain way of which I was totally ignorant, He achieved what I now know as a climax which resulted in me receiving his semen over my hand. This was a complete shock. Next day he disappeared- I can only assume that his behaviour had been witnessed. I guess that this witness informed the leaders and he was removed. We were told that he had been taken ill and nothing was ever done. This episode must have created some severe shock and ptsd and controlled much of my life since then, which is a very long story. I couldn’t tell my parents or even older sisters. I have only managed to tell specialist therapists a little of the experience relatively recently. I have lived a life of organised chaos , and still continue to work albeit minimally. This seems to be a cover for the trauma. I now have Parkinson’s.
I am now happy to tell this tale.
Paul Eddins

As a leader there is a big gap in the disclosure policy. When I raised it to the support centre they brushed it off and ignored it. It effectively allowed some adults on camps to be present without a DBS check. Their guidance explained explicitly these particular adults didn’t need a DBS if they were “network” 18-24 year olds. I’d say 50-50 split of leaders followed the guidance, with the rest DBS-ing them “to be on the safe side”. It’s really clear that legally you can’t just DBS someone without valid reason. The guidance needed to be explained and clearly communicated so there wasn’t this big gap. Instead of acknowledging the issue they brushed it off and quietly made some changes to rules A year later – still without adequately making leaders aware.

As a leader there are numerous gaps in the safeguarding and complaints processes at scouts. We had concerns about one of the explorer scouts being neglected at home and vulnerable to abuse. Never any way to contact parents, never any response from them. Explorer would come with another friend. We flagged to safeguarding. They took the view there was no risk of harm and no need to report, but put all the expectation on us leaders to sort it out. They suggested we were wholly responsible for getting the parents engaged to give permission for their child to attend, but we could never see them or teach them. We didn’t want to turn the young person away as it was the only experience they had and we feared what would happen. Social services should have been contacted to check on the family. We never saw her again.

I went to the police.

They couldn’t arrest them. A group of men testified for each other were all party to the abuse.

I joined age 15 in scouts. They celebrated when I became ‘legal’ and chanted ‘legal’ over the girls heads on finding out our ages.

Some had girlfriends and they were supporting leaders and they hid and kissed and touched me (not sure how many others) underneath their partners noses.

They plied us with drink. I went abroad with them to Barcelona , Bruges, and a London trip. My small group of ventures was encouraged to connect to wider groups across Scotland and beyond. That was where we met the abusers. They were so brass it wasn’t abuse to them. They were leading the ‘good time’ and that’s why we joined ventures the alcohol and ‘adventure’ right?

I was shy quiet innocent scared girl at school. Easy to target as wouldn’t say boo to a goose.

I woke up at camps by long sheer tie-dye crop had small detail buttons from neck down…all I buttoned and no top woke cold naked on a plastic ground sheet next to a leader. I was raped in a corridor I lost my virginity to this man. He was annoyed I didn’t scream out in joy…so went ‘down’ and bit off part my clitoris and said ‘you felt that though right’ I bled in silence for days called a slut by peers. No one helped and even at going to police and police investigation the ‘friends’ if my youth didn’t care or speak up.

No one spoke up. The drenched thrown in a shower laughed at. The cloud of being tossed about drunk….when the alcohol underage became the way to cope.

The ‘blind date’ games getting us to speak as sexy as possible for a camp fire activity. Pairing us…just no more 15-17 to go ‘have fun’ now. The dripping of chocolate etc…

The ‘relationships’ on these trips…. Leaders with young girls.

I became a young leader to try and stop them hurting the girls younger in the group who were in guides with me.

No one helped. Not even as an adult. They were drunken orgies with young people being abused rewarded for organising the most ‘adventurous’ locations for all this chaos to happen. Under canvas bunk house…or the ‘reunion’ parties.

Three leaders at least the main three I remember. Other victims surely have spoken up?!? I don’t know. They and no one cared what they did to me then and when I reported to police. They weren’t stopped.

It wasn’t just my group… another was attached to the university I was told they were linked too…

Move on….it was just a laugh right?

I was a beaver who loved every second of my time there, but the moment I aged up, out troops Cubs and scouts were mixed and held on the same day in the same place, with a cross over.

I had family connections to the scouts but not in my troop and I was very excited to continue this tradition.

The scout leader was mother to three of the boys, and their dad was also heavily involved. There were other leaders also, but the main leader was the mother.

The boys were known bullies, who picked on anyone they felt like.

I was punched, kicked on numerous occasions, but I did and said nothing because I wanted to stay involved with the fun activities. The final straw happened one day when they asked their mum to make sure I was in their group, and when we were together and unsupervised, they pretended to whisper a secret in my ear and spat into my ear. Which meant I lashed out.

It was 3 against 1 and two of them were older than I was. They punched me and then told their mum I attacked them un-provoked.

I was not the only person who had issues with the boys, and the leaders knew they were the ones responsible.

I was kicked out because of this and the bottom line was the bullies got away with it because their parents were in charge and they protected them at the expense of other children in the group.

This experience stuck with me my entire life and I have always had trouble with trust and friendship because of it.

The fact that these people, parents and the children who grew up to be volunteers, continued for decades after these events to be involved with scouting resulted in me not wanting to allow my children to be involved.

Around 1996. I was a very vulnerable 16 year old as I was suffering severe neglect and abuse at home. I was brought to the venture scouts by a friend at the time. The assistant venture scout leader, in his twenties, was flirtatious with certain girls.

He offered everyone lifts back after the weekly sessions, in his land rover. After I joined he switched his attention from one other girl he was abusing. to me.

Although I lived only a 5 minute walk away from the scout hut, he would drop everyone else off first and stop at a secluded parking spot in the countryside and sexually abuse me. He lived with his girlfriend and when she was away he would take me to his house and do it there.

The main leader knew about this and would make comments to me asking how it felt to be “the other woman”. The abuser would gossip about me to him and the other assistant leader – a female school teacher – in the pub where we all went drinking after our weekly meetings, despite the fact most of us were underage.

He’d tell them I was bad in bed etc. Of course I was- I was a virgin when I met him.

The main leader eventually told the abuser that he was getting fed up with his promiscuous behaviour with the female venture scouts and that he had better make sure I was the last one, or he would have to tell his girlfriend. He never did. Of course he never threatened to report him to the scout association.

When we would go on venture scout trips I would stay in his tent with him whilst the other girls stayed in their tents so it was obvious to all what was happening.

The abuse went on for about 2 years-compounded by the fact that I was suffering greatly at home and when I got (very regularly) kicked out by my parents I would stay with the abuser (who had his own house and by now had broken up with his girlfriend). Whenever I tried to break up with him he would threaten to kill me and follow me around in his car, tears streaming down his face.

He committed suicide in his 30s. I don’t know if there was a trigger. I hadn’t seen him in years by that time.

As a leader there are numerous gaps in the safeguarding and complaints processes at scouts. We had concerns about one of the explorer scouts being neglected at home and vulnerable to abuse. Never any way to contact parents, never any response from them. Explorer would come with another friend. We flagged to safeguarding. They took the view there was no risk of harm and no need to report, but put all the expectation on us leaders to sort it out. They suggested we were wholly responsible for getting the parents engaged to give permission for their child to attend, but we could never see them or teach them. We didn’t want to turn the young person away as it was the only experience they had and we feared what would happen. Social services should have been contacted to check on the family. We never saw her again.

I was a venture scout and when I helped the leader with younger scouts he touched my breasts. I was over 16 and he is now dead and I was in a first aid demonstration.

It was because of scouting that I went drinking with him and the last time i did I woke at his house to find he was undressing me. I went back to his house having had a drink on many occasions and I believe he got me drunk on purpose.

I saw him on the odd occasion in the years following but I felt a bit afraid I might see him. I didn’t report it in 1987 because I had been drinking and I was 19 then.

A scout leader in the 1980s locked the door of the scout hut and my relative could not get in and he left scouts. The leader also had had a drink while the scouts were there.

My son (8) and his fellow cubs have been bullied and humilated at meetings and at camp, while at ******************. There have also been Safeguarding issues when 2 cubs were left on their own at an unscheduled trip out. I was an parent leader. When I complained to the Safeguarding team of the repeated poor treatment of the children. They returned it to the local team who brushed it under the carpet siting they would just offer more training, but were unable to say when this would take place. They also banned parent leaders. I have also complained about the outcome of the complaint but have been ignored and now myself and my son have been kicked out of the cub group.

My parents were high up in scouts so I spent my entire childhood at every single event possible until I was 18 and could finally say no to them and I stopped going . Not long after I was on tinder with my friends and they were swiping for me just messing around , they must have swiped right on a guy that turned out to be my old cub and scout leader who then sent me a barrage of messages saying that he was so shocked I would like him and that he’s fancied me for years (essentially admitting he was attracted to me as a child) he made comments about how he watched me developing into a beautiful woman and enjoyed seeing my body changing. It made me totally sick to my stomach and I blocked him. I told my mom he sent me creepy messages and she brushed it off saying I’m an adult now and I deleted everything so can’t do anything about it, but it just made me think about how many other girls he was watching over the years.