'Forgiveness is hard, but it can set you free'

Published on Sunday 14 October 2007 00:08

ELIZABETH HISLOP was eight years old and lying in bed, pretending to be asleep, when she heard her father come into her bedroom. She can't remember exactly when it started, but she also can't recall a time when she wasn't being abused.

She had hoped that if he found her curled up asleep, he'd leave her alone, but he never did. This time was no different, except that for the first time he raped her.

"Now clean yourself up and don't make me do that again," he said, shifting all the responsibility on to his traumatised child.

Elizabeth's story of what happened to her behind the modest front door of her 1970s Renfrewshire home is one of those that makes you want to weep and rage at once, and yet it also makes you marvel at the survival skills of a little girl failed by social services, who overcame so much to become a loving mother and grandmother. Still fighting for changes in unjust compensation laws, plus a simple admission of failure by those who were supposed to be protecting her, Elizabeth's story stands out from hundreds of other tragic cases because of her decision to pardon the man who ruined her childhood. It enabled her to move on to live a life that is a testament to the redemptive powers of forgiveness.

Both her parents were alcoholics and, from a young age, while taking care of her two younger brothers, she endured her father's sexual abuse. Once her two older sisters and big brother had left home, she had to care for the younger ones as well as her parents.

It would be hard to find more depressing reading material than her social-work files - at least those she has been able to obtain from Renfrewshire Council. Despite the fact that her father was eventually jailed for sexual abuse in 1977 - when she was 12 - social workers allowed him to return to the family home without first removing Elizabeth and her younger brothers from his care.

William had always ruled his family through fear, beating his wife and six children. Left as the eldest child at home, Elizabeth tried to protect her brothers. "I can remember times when I had to get in the way when he was beating them, as I thought he might kill them," she says. "'Please, Dad, let him be,' I begged once as blood poured down my brother's face. 'You can have his, then,' he yelled, turning the blows on me.

"I took more than my share of the violence, as well as coping with the sexual abuse. I felt I had no choice. I had to protect my family."

William was a mass of contradictions. He ran the house like a military camp. "We were like little soldiers to him and discipline was rigid," Elizabeth recalls. "If we stepped out of line, we were beaten. But to the outside world, he would have seemed the perfect father. He was good company, funny and could be very generous, but not to us. He was so kind to other people that it was hard not to love him. But it broke our hearts that his vicious side was just for us.

"My mum was terrified of him as well. I've often wondered how she could have failed to notice the sexual abuse, but I do believe she never suspected. No one spoke about child sexual abuse in the 1960s and 1970s. So while she took refuge in the bottle, my father took away my innocence."

As Elizabeth grew older, she realised that not all fathers behaved that way to their daughters. "I felt hatred and revulsion. But part of me still loved him and wanted his approval. This caused terrible feelings of guilt and shame. How could I love him after what he'd done to me? The confusion made it harder to tell anyone what was happening."

Even before Elizabeth reported the abuse, the family had had social-work contact, because of her parents' alcoholism. They received food vouchers, but most of these would be traded for booze. When social workers gave the family bags of toys for the children, their parents sold them.

Elizabeth has many painful memories but one in particular still brings tears to her eyes. "One Christmas," she says, "a social worker asked me, 'What would you like from Santa this year?' I looked at my feet and mumbled, 'A dolls'-house,' with no expectation I'd ever get one. One day, when Mum and Dad were at the pub, I found toys, including a dolls'-house, in their wardrobe.

"I loved that house, and for days I sneaked in to play with it, thinking it was mine. But on Christmas Day, there was no sign of it. I heard the social worker tell them off a few days later for selling it."

Yet the family did not always have to rely on food vouchers and charity. William, when sober, was a capable man. During one spell, when he was making a lot of money in the building trade, he bought a Rolls-Royce to underline his success.

Elizabeth used to sneak into the car when he forgot to lock it to enjoy the solitude. "I would sit on the floor in the back, almost choking on the smell from the plush leather.

"I would play there for hours, forgetting all my worries. One day I was sitting there in my own world when the door opened. I looked up at my father and froze. 'Get out of the car,' he bellowed. I was paralysed with fear. He had to pull me out by the hair, then he dragged me into the house and beat me. I hated the car after that."

The money never lasted. William always started drinking again and whatever he had amassed would be poured down his throat. The descent from owning their own home and a Rolls-Royce to living off benefits on a council estate was rapid.

Without the structure of work, William drank more, and the violence and sexual abuse became increasingly frequent. Finally, it was too much for Elizabeth to bear alone. "I had no support. I was at high school, trying to cope with my studies, while also looking after my brothers and trying to run the home. It was too much and I finally broke down and told the head-teacher about the violence," she says.

As social workers became more involved and spoke to her about the violence, she eventually told them about the sexual abuse too. In 1977, William was charged with lewd and libidinous practices. On the advice of his lawyer, he pled guilty and was jailed for three months.

But there was little relief for Elizabeth. "I hated the fact that it was out in the open. I felt so ashamed when neighbours and extended family offered sympathy, but I thought that at least it would all now stop. I didn't think for a minute that the social workers would let him back in the house."

But they had even taken her to visit him in Barlinnie jail during his three-month sentence, and allowed him to berate her for splitting up the family and bringing shame on them by reporting him. "What do you think this is doing to your mother?" he would yell at her.

Perhaps the most depressing aspect of her records is the cold detachment of the professionals who should have been caring for her. During the prison visit, they note that William Hislop is "still very resentful" towards his daughter. At home, they note Elizabeth's mother, Catherine, is drinking even more heavily and hitting her children: "Elizabeth showed me some bruises on her legs that had been inflicted by Mrs Hislop."

She recalls: "I couldn't believe it when he was released and allowed back home. Mum was frosty towards him and he went to London for a while. But after being fined for forcing a woman into prostitution, he came back.

"The beatings and sexual abuse resumed, and, if anything, were more vicious. If we were alone in the house, he would drag me into the first room we passed and rape me. I was totally defeated. Why was this still happening?

"I saw social workers regularly and pleaded for help. 'I can't take any more,' I told them. 'We need to give it a go, Elizabeth,' would come the reply. 'He's begged your mum for forgiveness and she's accepted it. You're holding the family together. What would happen to your brothers if you were in care?' Like my father, they were laying the burden on me."

At the age of 15, Elizabeth was given a year's respite. Her Uncle Jim got together some money to send her off to Tuscany for a year. One of her older sisters was there and they travelled around Italy together, working part-time.

But she couldn't forget her brothers and when she got news from home that they were in care and her mother was in a refuge, she came back. The year away had boosted her confidence and sense of self-worth. Her father was still violent, but the sexual abuse ended. Elizabeth raised her brothers and left home when they did.

She met and fell for Alan, father of her only daughter, Kelly, now 21 and herself a mother of two. Alan learned all about her past and, she says, was her rock. But as with many who have endured sexual abuse in childhood, having a child of her own revived some of her worst memories. She couldn't let Kelly out of her sight, and she and Alan parted.

Her next relationship was abusive and destructive, symptomatic of her self-esteem plummeting once again because she had lost Alan. She was incredibly low and vulnerable. Introduced to drugs, she quickly developed a problem. She also attempted suicide.

By this time, she was in her mid-20s and, recovering from drug use and her brush with death, she realised she would never be able to move on if she didn't find the strength to resolve past conflicts and confront her father.

It was 1991. William had left Catherine and had married another woman, Margaret, who had children of her own. One of his ideas for the building trade had been patented and had made him a lot of money. He was in Canada on a world cruise when a massive heart attack saw him brought home by air ambulance. He never left hospital again.

When her doorbell rang late one night, Elizabeth knew he was dying. She and the rest of the family gathered at his bedside. With her sisters, Catherine and Wendy, beside her, she asked Margaret if they could have a few moments alone with him.

"The sunken pile of skin and bone was hard to equate with the powerful man who had robbed us of our childhood," she recalls. "I told my sisters that I thought we should ease his passing. I hugged them for strength, took a deep breath and said, 'Father, we forgive you for what you did to us as children. Let go now. It's time to go to Heaven.' He was just hanging on and then he opened his eyes. We were sure he knew us. I said again: 'We forgive you, Daddy.' We called the rest of the family in. There was a smile in his eyes before they closed again. We all felt he tried to say something before he let out his last breath, but it never came.

"It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, but I don't think I'd have got where I am now if I hadn't forgiven him. Hate and resentment are so negative. If you let them dominate, you end up hating yourself. Forgiving someone is harder, but it can set you free. He was a monster but he was also my father and I hope he is at peace."

Since then Elizabeth's life has had its ups and downs. In a good relationship now, she lives with her partner and a variety of pets, tending them and her garden lovingly. She also helps her daughter look after her two children.

She has had counselling and support after getting in touch with the Moira Anderson Foundation, a Scottish charity that supports survivors of child sexual abuse. It has helped her to make sense of her childhood and, crucially, to understand that any guilt she felt was unjustified.

Her recovery would be complete but for an understandable need to seek a measure of recognition for what she suffered and, quite simply, justice. She intends to carry on her fight, even though some members of her family have turned against her, not wishing the shame of the past to be brought up again. "But I need to get to the end," says Elizabeth.

Her claim for compensation through the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority has hit the brick wall of what is surely one of the most unjust laws in the country, namely that a victim of sexual abuse prior to 1979 who lived with her abuser is ineligible.

Her lawyer, Cameron Fyfe, and Gil Paterson MSP have pledged to try to change the law, each pointing out the absurdity that if a neighbour had abused her and been jailed, she would receive compensation. And how much more damaging in the long term is abuse carried out by a father?

They have been assured of a sympathetic ear from Kenny MacAskill, Scotland's justice secretary, but as criminal injuries are not devolved, he would have to persuade his Westminster counterpart of the injustice of the ruling.

Renfrewshire Council is also proving a tough nut to crack. With copious evidence from its own papers of failures and neglect, it is relying on the time-bar to avoid paying out.

Elizabeth finds that stance incredibly hurtful. "I managed to forgive my father, but I can't forgive the professionals who were supposed to protect me and who let me down," she says. "They knew what they were letting me endure, but they used me to look after the family. I won't rest until I receive justice and an apology."

• If you or anyone you know are survivors of child sexual abuse and need to talk to someone, contact The Moira Anderson Foundation on 01236 602890