UNITED KINGDOM
Birmingham Mail
11 OCT 2015
BY JEANETTE OLDHAM
Louise Palmer says parents sided with evil Richard Davenport over her, while church offered only prayers and urged her not to go to police
Former Treasury worker Richard Davenport was jailed for 14 years last month after sickening sex attacks on a little girl in the 1980s. That little girl was his sister Louise, who today bravely waives her right to anonymity to claim that she was made an outcast by her own parents after going to the police. And she claims that she was failed by the family’s Jehovah’s Witnesses’ community, which she says had shockingly tried to hush up the abuse.
Sobbing heavily, Richard Davenport turned to his sister in the car and begged: “Please don’t tell the police – I’m not prison material.”
Louise Palmer hesitated but then tentatively agreed, showing her elder brother what he had never shown her during her childhood: kindness, compassion and protection.
Depraved Davenport had sexually abused his little sister during the 1980s when they lived in Halesowen, a manipulative monster in the midst of a strict Jehovah’s Witnesses family.
Louise kept her ordeal secret for decades after emotional blackmail and threats from her brother, but eventually went to the police following what she says was a final betrayal by her parents, who she claims chose their son and religion over her.
And she believes the Jehovah’s Witnesses wanted to hush up the abuse because of a shocking and little-known “two-witness rule”, which meant they did not alert the police when allegations were made to them. Instead, they offered only prayers for the victim.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.