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I isolated myself at school, and was very quiet and withdrawn, completely at odds with how a girl from my background was meant to present herself, which was to be outgoing, clever at school and sociable. The horrors of the nights with her father seeped into Maria’s days as she grew up, and she describes early teenage life as ‘like being on the outside, looking in. I saw myself as damaged and dirty, and not wishing anyone else to see me that way – that shame silenced me,’ she says. I was such a “lucky” girl, I was sure nobody would have believed that this was happening to someone like me. Like many survivors of sexual abuse, Maria has asked herself why she didn’t tell anyone. To this day I suffer from chronic insomnia, a legacy of those terrible sleepless nights.’ ‘When he was finished, and left the room, I’d lie awake until dawn, too terrified to sleep, adrenaline coursing through my body. Over the course of four years, what began as touching escalated to Maria’s father raping her when she was just 14. I was too scared of leaving him on his own with our father, in case he became my replacement.’ ‘Around the time the abuse began, my younger brother was born and I remember my mother taking me to look around a boarding school, because it was expected I’d attend one, but I refused. By then it was a way of life, happening almost every night. As I got older, I knew instinctively this was wrong. He was my parent, and he used the power of that relationship and my trust in him against me. I knew what he was doing was strange and uncomfortable, but I didn’t question it. ‘He’d whisper that I must be quiet and never tell anyone, and my body would freeze until it was over. ‘His hands would be everywhere, all over my body,’ says Maria.
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Late at night her bedroom door would silently open, her father would lie next to her in bed and, while her mother was in a neighbouring bedroom, the abuse began. My family nickname was Mouse and my brother was my security. ‘I was a shy, quiet child and tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. There was nothing natural or relaxed about being around him,’ she says. ‘He was a pompous man with a terrible temper, and I never felt comfortable in his presence. Long before the abuse began, Maria says her relationship with her father was strained. ‘During the week we lived in London Uppark was home for the weekends and holidays,’ she says. Maria, her parents and her elder brother Charlie split their time between Uppark and their second home in Fulham, Southwest London, where Maria was a day pupil at a private school, while her father ran a company selling Madeira wine. In 1954, it was given to the National Trust by her grandfather Richard Meade-Fetherstonhaugh, with the caveat that the family could continue to live there. Set in 5,000 acres of land, the grand house, filled with art and antiques, had belonged to her mother’s family, the Meade-Fetherstonhaughs, since the mid-1700s. Home was Uppark, a 17th-century stately home in West Sussex. Growing up, Maria was always told what a ‘lucky girl’ she was. ‘Finding my voice after all these years is about healing myself, breaking the cycle of shame I’ve been trapped in and, I hope, giving others like me the confidence to speak out, too.’
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And there can never be justice because my father is now dead,’ she says. ‘This isn’t about vengeance – I’m not fuelled by anger.
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It is a desire to escape that darkness that has seen Maria, now 47 and a married mother of five, make the decision to share the secret she has carried for 37 years. Where other forms of sexual violence have been brought out of the shadows, survivors encouraged to share their experiences in the pursuit of justice and healing, the taboo around incest is so powerful it has remained largely in the dark. It is a shocking revelation an incomprehensible violation of the bond between parent and child. Lying in bed at night, Maria Le Mesurier would wait, frozen with fear, until her father John crept into her room and – under cover of darkness and whispering threats to her to remain silent – began his ritual of touching her body, the abuse reaching its culmination when he took his only daughter’s virginity.