What an amazing project. Thank you for this. My own story is from the 1960s or maybe early 1970s. A time that people say was ‘different’…turns out not so different. I was a cub scout in the ****** troop. It was well run with a kind akela. However, there was an odd man who seemed to be senior to everyone else, we only knew him as ‘*****’. He wore a tan scout uniform, mostly shorts, I remember his bare legs. He had a position of authority but none of us knew why or who he was. He would always appear at camps, but never seemed to have a role.
One camp, a friend and I came out in a rash. Akela thought it was a heat rash and would go away. ***** said it might be more serious, infectious even, and we should spend the night in his tent, just in case. My friend and I slept in a seperate ‘room’ in the tent. It was full of books and toys.
In the morning, ****** came into our ‘room’ with a washing up bowl full of water and a flannel. He said it was time for our morning wash. We stripped naked. I said I didn’t want a wash. ***** took my friend into a different compartment in the tent, and told me to read a book. I remember staring at the pages, unable to take anything in. I felt helpless, that something wrong might be going on, but I didn’t know what, and didn’t know what to do.
Many years later, this came back to me, in murky images and sensations. I don’t know if anything happened to me. But I do know I’m haunted by guilt, that I did nothing to help my friend. I have tried to find him online, but I can’t. I wanted to apologise and to ask him if anything had happened to me as well.
I was always terrified of camps after that. In those days we’d be sent away regularly in the holidays, to ‘adventure camps’ or cub camps. I hated every second, and would often just try to stay in my bed.
Years later, I contacted the Scouts about the incident. I got a placatory email saying that they cared and would look into it. I heard nothing. I’ve contacted them half a dozen times. I get an apology or a note saying there’s been a staffing change and the new team would look into it for me. But they just seem to be giving me the brush off. They did contact me and say they had no record of anyone called ***** ever having existed at all. For a moment I thought I’d dreamed the whole thing. But I didn’t.

I was a scout at ****** between 1981 – 87. My abuser became a scout leader to solely groom boys some years younger than him, he was some 10 years older than myself & my contemporaries.

Leader X was a larger than life bear of a man, slightly intimidating to a 10 year old. My best mate & his family lived a couple streets from me, this where me & mum met Leader X in a social setting. Some several years previously I had been sexually abused at a holiday camp in Bognor Regis. Thankfully another survivor of the holiday camp abuser spoke out to their parents, he was arrested & jailed. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about this abuse until one night the Police knocked on the front door, I was watching Bucks Fizz ‘Land of make believe’ on Top of the Pops with my older brother. I’m telling you this as my mum was sharing this with my best mate’s family & Leader X became privvy to this secret of mine as he later mention knowing & offered friendship, mentorship & care. Very twisted insidious grooming.

With this knowledge Leader X went on to proposition me & my best mate, my best mate told his parents. Leader X was warned about his behaviour, I have no idea how he passed off the allegations to my mates dad but he had been warned. So now he picked out the vulnerable one, me.

Leader X joined the scouts as a leader, he even volunteered to help coach at my school rugby team. I couldn’t get away from him. He’d gained my mum’s trust which looking back I can’t understand as she was told by my best mates parents he’d propositioned me & my mate. Maybe she was vulnerable too being a single mother with two sons. I’m tired now & emotional while I write down this memories.

The physical & psychology abuse happened daily but the start of it was when I was trying to achieve a scout badge restoring a piece of furniture in his woodworking shed. He conveniently left porno mags out for me to browse, he then asked me to sit on his knee & encouraged me to touch myself & he touched also, I was frozen reverting to the mindframe of the smaller 6 year old at the holiday camp.

I can’t carry on right now but Leader X persued me at every opportunity to abuse me, after scout evenings, on scout trips, sleeping in our tents & touching me. After school he’d pick me & friends up drop them off 1st & then take me to his house. It was all the time until at 16 I moved to be with my Aunt & Uncle in Cornwall.

I know I wasn’t the only boy, in the early 2000’s I contacted ****** Police Station to report his actions. The end result was that CPS felt it was my word against his, although my best mate could testify to his behaviour & his also. But as time had past my mates parents were deceased. I don’t think he was the only abuser at my group, Leader Y was into photography & once asked another mate to take in shirt off for some photos but my mate declined & left.

I hope I feel some peace of mind some day but after 40 odd years I still struggle.

When I was 8-9, between 1977-1979 while a cub scout at the ***************, my friend and I used to go swimming with a small group of other cubs, and our cub scout Akela. We loved sport and wanted to get our level 3 swimming badges. He was a fun and kind leader who would make us laugh and not so strict. He was a large man, like a giant teddy bear, and in the swimming pool he would let us sit on his shoulders and climb all over him. I think he was playing the role we would have wanted our fathers to have played. As a child of a single mother, this was something I was very drawn too. He later would let us sit on his knee while he leaned against the wall in the shallow end. Then later we would play games swimming under him, and brushing against his bottom and his testicles in his tight swim suit. My friend and I sensed he liked this, so we went further and would sit under his testicles and up close blow bubbles on them to excite him. We would ask him if he liked this, and he said he did, and at no time did he ask us to stop. This went on several times. A little while later my friend and I arrived at the village hall that hosted the cub meetings to find he was no longer there, or part of the pack, or organisation. I think the new Akela told us he had been kicked out or had left. We were devastated and angry because the new Akela was way too strict. After the meeting, and seeing our parents were late to pick us up, my friend and I ran to his house, which was up the street – I can’t remember how we knew where he lived, but I know I had been there to look at some of his native american artefacts collection. He opened the door, and he seemed angry, but told us straight up that he was not allowed to talk to us, or see us again. He closed the door, and that was the last we heard of him, and the last he was talked about in the pack or anywhere. I realise now that the behaviour towards us would qualify as grooming. I know too that it was neither me or my friend who had complained about him – which suggests another child had, and he had been fired as Akela as a result, and likely put under some kind of restraining order. I have lived with immense confusion, and guilt about the whole situation for most of my life. I am 53 now, and know that while there were other traumatic experiences in my life this contributed immensely to the confusion I have experienced about my sexual identity, and my capacity to experience intimacy and fulfilment in relationships; it also led to an inability to notice predators as an adult. For a long time I felt guilty that nothing worse had happened, and in not knowing how he was removed from the group, imagined that whoever reported him for inappropriate behaviour did experience worse. However, I know now that the contact I had with him qualifies as sexual abuse – no child of any age has any business being that close to a grown mans testicles for his pleasure. He used his power and authority over me and my friend to derive sexual gratification. I refuse to marginalise or minimalise it any further. The Scout Association just like most UK public schools who have been subject to historical sex abuse inquiries have simply gone through the motions through a well oiled public relations strategy to acknowledge past wrongs, pay some compensation to a few survivors and put in place new safe guarding and pastoral care guidelines to show they are now a trauma and abuse informed organisation – and then they want to Move On… leaving many still with stories untold, and present students and members reliant on their word they are implimenting said safeguarding . I am grateful for Yours In Scouting for providing this forum and agree with its aims to hold the Scout Association accountable. I wish everyone who was directly exposed to harm or risk while in the Scouts comfort and healing.