Jeremy Gibson is the named GP for safeguarding children in Derby (Derbyshire)
This book is a moving, autobiographical account of prolonged childhood abuse. After first experiencing severe emotional abuse and neglect in her own family, Barbara was placed in Aston Hall Hospital. Here she stayed for eight months, where, together with many other girls, she suffered systematic sexual abuse at the hands of Dr Kenneth Milner, the doctor with overall responsibility for the hospital. Girls would be randomly picked in their living area to be taken into a darkened treatment room where they would be placed on a rubber mattress, have their hands tied, and be sedated with amobarbital. After these sessions (many of the details of which Barbara could not remember), Barbara would invariably experience vaginal bleeding and dysuria.
Wilfully blind to Milner’s predatory practices, instead of raising an alarm, the hospital nurses aided and abetted his abuse of these vulnerable girls, themselves exerting cruel levels of coercion and control over them. Only occasionally in Barbara’s story is there any indication that an individual nurse felt something was amiss and showed some small kindness to one of the girls. When inspectors visited the home, the nurses were on their best behaviour, presenting a very different picture from what was truly going on.
It tells us that we must listen to the voices of children and young people, take their concerns seriously, and respond appropriately.
Another problem for the girls was that no one would believe them. When Barbara tried telling her father what she was suffering, he became angry and accused her of lying. Eventually, when visiting her father one weekend, Barbara told his current girlfriend. She believed her and reported it to social services which placed her in a different home. She had finally escaped from Aston Hall!
Years later when Barbara again tried to tell people what had taken place at Aston Hall, no one believed her. In 2015, when she set up a Facebook page for survivors of Aston Hall, others came forward. Once they had thirty members, Barbara contacted the police. But they chose not to investigate. It was only when Barbara contacted the Facebook group CSA Nottingham that people started to listen, and a formal enquiry (Operation Hydrant) recognised the abuses carried out by Dr Milner at Aston Hall. It is believed that during the 1960s and 70s, he drugged and abused at least 130 boys and girls.
Barbara’s story is important. It tells us how easy it has been to abuse young, vulnerable children, how successfully people have covered it up, and how, without thinking, many (like the Aston Hall nurses) have become complicit. It tells us that we must listen to the voices of children and young people, take their concerns seriously, and respond appropriately. If we do this as a society, as a medical profession, we can help save others from what the children at Aston Hall endured. So, the next time any child or young person discloses to us a possible abuse, let us carefully document the child’s words and act on that concern in an appropriate manner without delay.
Featured Book: Barbara O’Hare, The Hospital, Blink Publishing, 2017, PB, 352pp, £8.99, ISBN 978-1911274636
Featured Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash
