“I’ve been living with this secret for 25 years. It eats away at you, like you’re leading a double life. Only the victim and the perpetrator know what actually happened. Now I need him to face the truth. I need my family to know and we all need answers. I can’t carry on living this lie anymore. I need to look him in the eye.”
The Family Secret (Channel 4) was perhaps the least festive but most fearless piece of programming you’ll see all month. This tale of sexual abuse and restorative justice made for grim viewing – but what emerged was a searing testament to one remarkable woman’s resilience and courage.
That opening statement came from Kath, a thirtysomething confronting a devastating childhood trauma. With astonishing access and intimate interviews, we met each member of her family, before watching Kath and her abuser come together for a meeting which she hoped would bring some form of closure.
It wasn’t until 15 minutes into this hour-long film that we heard how, aged seven, Kath had been raped by her 11-year-old brother Robert.
“I had a big brother who was meant to look after me and protect me,” said Kath – calm, clear-eyed and righteously angry, as she was throughout. “Instead he did that to me. The world wasn’t safe for that little girl any more.”
Now she bravely stared her abuser down. Robert’s identity was protected so we saw only glimpses but his slumped shoulders and nervous hand movements spoke of deep shame.
The abuse continued for the next three-and-a-half years, with Robert visiting Kath at night when everyone else was asleep. The details might have been difficult to hear but our discomfort was nothing compared to the lifelong damage suffered.
Kath was accompanied in the meeting by her mother Andrea – a wise, gentle presence who tenderly called Kath “sweet” and “petal”. She clearly felt unfathomable guilt but sat stoically listening to her son and daughter, her inner turmoil betrayed only by the occasional twitch of the eye or tightening of the mouth. The cruel twist, we later learned, was that Andrea had been a social worker who worked in child protection and should have spotted the signs.
Eventually, Kath managed to fight off Robert and the nocturnal visits ended. “But just because it stops, it doesn’t go away,” she said. Heartbreakingly, young Kath thought her family would believe Robert rather than her, so kept the secret.
It was only when she had a son of her own and didn’t want Uncle Robert to come near him that she realised she had to come clean. When she told her parents, her father Chris said it was “like a bomb going off”. “If you could hear a heart break, you would’ve heard my mum’s,” added Kath.
Fallout was still being felt. Middle sibling Graeme seemed as damaged as anyone. Andrea’s 40-year marriage to Chris – entrenched in denial, scared to face difficult truths – had since broken down.
Yet Kath kept at it, tackling her tormentor head-on. When Robert was vague about his memories, she was unerringly accurate. When he was euphemistic, she corrected him: “It wasn’t intimate, it was rape. There was never a stage where I might have wanted it.”
She told him how he’d “stolen my childhood” and “broken everything”. She read him a poem, poignantly written from the point of view of the teddy bear that she still owned today. She heard his apology, responding that she could never forgive him and wanted him out of her life after today.
Having said what she’d come to say, she left Robert listening to a song that was important to her: Warrior by Demi Lovato, with its defiant lyrics: "I've got shame, I've got scars/That I will never show/I’m a survivor in more ways than you know/I'm stronger than I've ever been/And you can never hurt me again."
This unflinching film was made by production company True Vision, whose award-garlanded CV includes Britain’s Sex Gangs, Catching a Killer, Stacey Dooley’s documentaries and last night's Growing Up Poor: Britain’s Breadline Kids. They specialise in films about human rights issues, ensuring this was sensitively handled.
It was directed with subtle skill by Anna Hall, whose sole stylistic flourishes were haunting music and scene-setting drone shots of the local area. There was no narration, no editorial voice at all. Viewers were left to listen to the testimony and make up our own minds.
Outside the room, Kath hugged her tearful mother. “I love you,” murmured Andrea. “So brave.” “Had to be done, didn’t it?” replied Kath. “Now it’s the start of the rest of our lives.”
I was left in awe of her heroism, hoping that Kath finds the happiness she deserves. This gut-punch documentary ended on a note of hope. Perhaps it was faintly festive after all.
https://sg.yahoo.com/news/family-secret-review-woman-faced-220000336.html
