A sexual abuse victim said her dad gave up his job to give him more time to sexually abuse her when she was a child.
Emily Victoria was just two-years-old when her own father started to molest her. He sexually abused the youngster throughout her childhood, right up until she left home when she was 17-years-old.
Emily, now 31, speaks about her horrifying abuse in a new Channel 4 documentary - A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad - which airs this evening, reports the Mirror.
The businesswoman, from Dorset, attempts to find answers as to why she had to endure such abuse from her father and tells of how she started to resent her mum, Kathy, for not noticing what was going on at home.
Mum-of-one Emily said she did feel sorry for her mum, but also said she struggled to forgive her for being ignorant to her husband's behaviour.
Speaking candidly to the cameras, Emily said: "Imagine if your dad wanted to be with you instead of your mum. Can you imagine what that feels like?
"And then how horrible it makes you feel? And I just felt sorry for her all the time. I might have resented her as well, so thought, like, 'Why weren't you able to see or whatever?'"
Emily said to the outside, her family looked like any other.
When she turned eight, her dad quit his estate agency job to become a foster parent at home, while her mother worked long hours.
Talking of her abuser, Emily explained: "He was like a really popular person on the surface. Popular with everyone, very good at hiding this stuff."
She would often miss school when her father kept her off to abuse her, and as she was filmed looking through a Year 7 school report, she said: "This is the year when I felt like I died."
While her dad initially used condoms, Emily was then placed on the contraceptive pill at 15.
As the abuse continued throughout her teenage years, she felt forced to mask how she was really feeling. It became her- way of surviving.
"I had to be happy and smiley to him in those horrible moments to make him okay," she admitted.
"That happiness, smiliness was always on my face, everywhere I went, completely masking it.
"The only thing I could do with myself was excel at school and with swimming. I was always the best and I was always winning everything."
But as time went on, her father started to control every part of her life, and forbid her to spend time with her friends.
She was made to feel guilty if she ever left the house, and could only see her mates when he was busy.
Emily thought she was a lone victim, until she saw one of the foster children comforting him in the same way she felt she had to.
"I didn't consider telling anyone anything until I was about 17. I started to suspect he was hurting other children," she reflected.
"Something snapped in me and changed."
She added: "Why the hell have I been doing this? I've been trying to protect everyone else and putting myself in the line of fire."
A few weeks after her realisation, in November 2009, Emily reported the abuse to the police.
During the documentary, she was reunited with police officers Tony O'Connell and Helen Deakin - who had first been involved in the case.
Tony said Emily's father was 'nervous' but then 'opened up', reading the interview notes aloud: "'[I was] happily married at the start, never watched kiddie porn, don't know why it happened.
"'Emily was a very sexual kid, some kids are. Don't know if that's what switched me on. Can't remember exactly how it started.
"'Emily would do stuff to herself, I caught her one day.'"
He paused, and then addressing Emily, he said: "So that's the start of his narrative, he's not a sex offender or into kiddie porn, it's about you and what you did to him."
Emily responded: "It's so interesting because the earliest memories I have, as a toddler, of him like poking me and everything, why did he think a child behaves a certain way?
"It's because you're teaching them."
Continuing to read the notes, Tony recalled how the dad had recalled the abuse in his mind.
"'[She was] sat on bed, straddled me, started moving on me. Didn't stop her immediately. Could feel she was quite turned on I guess.'"
"[I] felt guilty, usual stuff. Feelings came up again, sexually aroused, guilty. It just progressed.
"He said '[we had a] brilliant father-daughter relationship and [that I] didn't do anything she didn't want.'
"'[It was a] very gentle, wrong but a very loving relationship. [I] didn't have to force her or tell her not to tell.'"
Stunned Emily then asked if her father ever felt remorse, to which Tony responded: "There was no part of him that felt bad over what had happened."
Emily added: "I just feel a bit sick. His narrative that he put there was what he was trying to put on me the whole time. Everything was my fault, even outside of that nonsense.
"He would say, 'No one likes you at school and these are the reasons why.' He was always trying to shift the blame onto me.
"I'm not shocked that he has done that...it brings up all those feelings when I was a child and blame myself for everything, which I don't do anymore.
"I'm trying to make sure that that doesn't make me go backwards. I'm having an inner battle with myself."
The mum-of-one then revealed that she assumed her dad had pleaded guilty in court because he felt bad for what he had done, not just because of the evidence.
But after hearing his police statement as an adult, her mindset changed.
"My dad's words made it very clear that he didn't care about me at all. I actually want to know and look him in the eye to see if he has changed at all," she said in the show.
Her dad was sentenced to 14 years in prison but was recently released.
During the show, it shows Emily speaking with a restorative justice specialist as she attempts to meet with him.
However the dad, who was unemployed and living in council accommodation, turned down her offer.
Confused Emily explained: "'I have an inner battle, and I'm having to have an inner battle to be strong.
"Part of me wants to give into the anger and the darkness. Part of me wants to be like, 'F*** everyone, screw my mother and father. I don't care.'"
Kathy is part of the documentary and admits she finds it hard to be able to communicate with her daughter.
Emily added: "There's so many layers to my relationship with my mum and it really, really hurts in some ways.
"I don't know, I think I feel really guilty as well. It makes me emotional. Because I know that I couldn't have done anything to stop it - but there's an element where I feel like I ruined her life."
Although the abuse has scarred Emily for life, she argues that there is still a part of her dad that loved her and cared for her.
Kathy added: "There were points where I felt like I had lost her. It's a constant fear.
"I've said to myself, 'If she never wanted to see me again ever then I would honour that because I just want her to be happy and to thrive".
Kathy explains in the doc that she and her husband used to have constant arguments about money after he quit his job.
She felt like a spare part and just assumed he and their daughter had a strong bond - but that it was nothing to raise suspicion.
"I didn't ever think that it was anything more than a really strong bond [between you and your father]. I just felt a little bit more and more pushed out," she said.
"I tried really hard to have a relationship with you."
Towards the end of the show, "reborn" Emily says that taking part in the documentary and tracing what happened has helped her "release shame".
"I always knew my worth but I feel I've stepped into my power and I feel I'm never going to take any shit off anyone again," she asserted.
"I really hope if anyone can take anything from my experience, they can have the confidence to have these conversations."
A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad airs at 9pm on Channel 4.
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