Changes

|title= How Could He Do It?

|author= Emma Charles

|buy= Yes

|borrow= Yes

|pages=304

|publisher= Preface Publishing

|date= February 2009

|isbn=978-1848090002

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I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to The Bookbag

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I have just finished reading this book. I was reluctant to read it at first as I have read books on abuse before and have found them too graphic with describing the abuse.It was a refreshing change to hear more about the effects the abuse had on the child and her family. What impressed me the most was Emma's quick response in dealing with it from the outset. Her foremost thought was for her child, as it should be. Unfortunately not all mothers are like this. Mine was one of them.

I was 15 as well when I finally told my mother what was going on.... her response was ( I can still remember like it was yesterday) that " she'd had her suspicions"!!! I couldn't believe it, how could any mother "have her suspicions" and yet let it continue??

I think it is true that people in general don't want to know about abuse. They don't' understand the lifelong effect it has on the child. I found the last part of the book, Afterthoughts...very interesting. It echoed the thoughts I myself have had on this subject. It appears that the justice system even in this country (Australia) is more concerned with the rights of the guilty than the rights of the innocent victims.That somehow the abuser becomes the one to be protected. They are mollycoddled in jail , if ever it goes that far and protected by suppression orders in the media. The church is far more interested in "forgiving" the abuser than worrying about the victim. As has been my own experience.

They don't think that what they do IS "that bad" they haven't "murdered" anyone. But what they HAVE indeed done is stolen the innocence from that child. They have forever tainted that child's life with terrible memories, that no amount of counseling or treatment will ever take away. They have robbed those children of their self esteem, left to feel dirty and guilty and ashamed.

If every parent read this book, then maybe so many children would not become victims. Maybe they might realize that the danger is not the strangers out there but could very well be good old "Uncle John" or whoever, in their own family or circle of friends. Maybe those people that are protecting the abuser in their own family, by staying silent, might speak up and thereby protect the future victims. For men like this, Emma is right, given the opportunity they WILL abuse again.

It took many years to overcome the past but like Tamsin...I am not a victim...but a survivor.

Julie Aldridge

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