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When I was sixteen I met a beautiful boy at a church dance and fell in love.

While we were dating, he told me that he had been sexually abused by his Scout Master, a man named Timur. The name always stuck in my head, perhaps because it was so unusual. My boyfriend told me that Timur was ordered by the Bishop of their ward to write letters of apology to the victims and their families. That was his entire punishment.

So perv man (Timur) received a get out of jail free card. Even back then, I was an uppity little radical and demanded that my boyfriend's mother give me an explanation as to how she could let the man that traumatized her child to get off scott free. She gave me a bunch of TBM crap and blew me off.

Flash forward to several years after that sweet boy and I broke up. I was watching the evening news and heard a report that Timur had sodomized two boys from the soccer team that he coached.

Flash forward again to last week. I was in my office which is right across the hall from my bedroom where my boyfriend was watching the news. As soon as I heard the words "two former scouts filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints ," I bolted from my chair knowing that it was about Timur. Sure enough it was. The churches PR response was that Timur had been excommunicated, but they failed to mention that it was twenty years after the molestations that he was told to write letters about.

I promptly looked up the lawyer on the case and emailed him, telling him that I knew that there were at least eight other victims, including my ex. He wrote me back asking where he could find said ex because they needed witnesses. Having not spoken to my ex in many years, I was of no help. Fortunately the lawyer found him on his own and I cut off communication, not quite sure of how my old boyfriend would react to my telling, and not wanting to know.

Since then, I have awakened in a cold sweat, gripped by the anguish of knowing that I could have stopped the little boys on Timur's soccer team from being raped if only I had gone to the police myself. I am adamant in my view that the adults who were aware of Timurs pervy inclinations are almost as guilty as Timur himself.

Therein lies my anxiety. I too knew what this man was capable of, yet never said a word about it to anybody who could have kept him away from young boys. Doesn't that make me no better than the TBMs who thought that if they could just drop a big enough love bomb on the bastard, he'd abandon his pervy inclinations?

Thoughts?[/i]

cricket wrote:Thoughts?

You should've gone to the police.

That's what I think too. Even though I was young at the time, I had a strong sense of right and wrong. I knew that the cover up was wrong, and yet I didn't do anything about it.

But, Crickett, you can't beat yourself up over this. You were a kid. You did speak to an adult, the boy's mother, about the issue. She is more to blame than you for not investigating things further and blowing you off.

More than likely, the police wouldn't have believed you anyway, and would have written it off as heresay. Unfortunately, that's what our legal system is coming to today. Now maybe you could have gone to another trusted adult figure...

But, I honestly don't think that you can condemn yourself for this on a nightly basis. Yes, it is a tragedy. Making me hear about the incident makes me angry, and want to castrate the SOB myself. Child molesters are vile. They all need to be let loose on an island somewhere and molest each other to their heart's content.

At least he was caught!

You can't let this eat at you. You can't change the past. You can only move forward. At least you did what you could in helping the prosecuting attorney.

The eight boys from yesteryear have a potential civil suit.

moksha wrote:The eight boys from yesteryear have a potential civil suit.

I hope they pursue their claims. The church has appropriate policies in place now, and that's great, but it should take responsibility for their previous cluelessness.

Cricket, what Liz said, don't take the blame for this.

Hi Cricket...

We can all look back on our lives and see things that we wish we had done differently.

The truth is, you did the best you could as a child under the circumstances.

Twenty years ago things were quite different. Most likely you would not have been believed. People don't tend to believe children over church leaders. :-(

All we can do with our past is learn from it.

I know the church is making some changes but they have a ways to go to keep children safe.

Adult males meeting alone with young girls and boys behind closed doors discussing sexual issues is NOT a good idea and must stop.

~dancer~

Twenty years ago things were quite different. Most likely you would not have been believed. People don't tend to believe children over church leaders. :-(

And this has changed... how?

Hi Harmony...

My thought was that today if child abuse is reported to a therapist, teacher or church leader, they are bound by law to contact CPS. CPS in turn is bond by law to do an investigation. I don't think this was the case in most places twenty years ago.

I also think most folks today are less willing to protect the abuser than they were twenty years ago.

~dancer~

What I'd like to know is how the boys Father didn't take the Scout Master out on a little Camping trip of his own, the kind only one comes back from.

No way would a Man who did that to my son keep on living.