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Ongar Resident Teresa Cooper Reacts to Report into Abuse at Church of England Run Kendall House

This is Local London
December 19, 2016

http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/14975384.Grandmother___Harrowing_report_of_how_I_was_drugged_and_abused_at_children_s_home_won_t_erase_my_scars_/

17 hrs ago / Anna Slater, News Editor

A GRANDMOTHER who was drugged and sexually abused in a children’s home has welcomed a church report on the scandal – but is still waiting for a formal apology.

Teresa Cooper, who now lives in Ongar, says the harrowing report about the Church of England-run Kendall House won’t ever erase the scars she will carry around for the rest of her life.

Now 49, she was just 14 when she was sent to the home, where she was locked in isolation and physically, emotionally and sexually abused in the institution that “normalised” cruelty.

Below, Teresa Cooper aged 14 while in Kendall House. She says the effects of the drugs made her look like an 'old woman'



After spending the best part of 30 years tirelessly fighting for justice, she is single-handedly responsible for bringing what happened to light and the release of the report.

She told the Guardian SeriesGuardian Series: “I felt quite sad – that’s my life there in writing. I did feel pride though, because the first few paragraphs thanked me.

“But it shouldn’t have taken me 30 years to get justice, not just for me but for the other girls.

“People only see me as the adult fighting, but what they aren’t seeing is the child who was severely abused.

“I’m glad someone’s realised how hard I work, I don’t get a break from it all.”

The second report, which follows on from a review published in June, paints a graphic grapgic picture of life inside Kendall House as a “frightening, violent and unpredictable place to live”.

During her four-year stay during the early 1980s, Teresa was locked in a room for 163 days and given a cocktail of drugs including Valium, Haloperidol and other anti-psychotics more than 1,200 times.

She was abused while under the effect of the drugs and she believes the chemicals are responsible for a range of health problems suffered by her and her children.

But the 137-page document, released in November but only published last week, highlights the extent of the abuse during the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

When first arriving, girls were pulled by their hair and stripped off naked before being thrown into a dirty bath.

One girl says a matron at the home, open between 1947 and 1986, dunked her under the water repeatedly saying “nits, crabs, you dirty bitch”.

Girls were so heavily medicated they could often be found in the common room “like zombies”, sat slumped over chairs, foaming and dribbling at the mouth. One girl recalled: “I thought they were dead, it frightened the life out of me.”

Girls who resisted drugging at the home were punished, locked in isolation for “days on end” and forced into straitjackets.

Some were forced to wear nightdresses for weeks at a time for minor infringements of rules.

 

 

 

 

 




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