A VICTIM was told how she was held prisoner by her paedophile teacher for five years.
Lisa Turner, now 56, described how the abuser lied to her parents and manipulated her into sex throughout her teenage years.
Lisa Turner first met her abuser when she was 12[/caption]
Now 56, was imprisoned by her music teacher throughout her teenage years[/caption]
Lisa, born in the UK, emigrated to Australia with her parents at the age of 2[/caption]
The music teacher, who Lisa had first met as a pre-teen at school in Australia, began by lavishing attention on the young girl.
She recalled: “Slowly, he started spending more time with me, giving me more personal attention, sort of private lessons.
“And then it started to be more full on with lots of presents and treats and taking me out.”
And it wasn’t just Lisa that the man was grooming – but also her parents, who were British but had emigrated to Australia when Lisa was two.
He told them their daughter was a wayward child in need of closer tuition and assured them he was taking her under his wing.
When she was just 13, he began to pressure her for sex – and the following year, eventually succeeded in manipulating her into sleeping with him.
The vulnerable girl, barely a teenager, had by this point been controlled into thinking that this was the process of a normal romance.
And this was not the extent of the coercion – not even when the teacher left Australia and moved abroad to London.
Lisa, now a therapist and life coach, said: “Just before my 15th birthday, he started to send me threats that he was going to kill himself if I didn’t go to England straight away.
“My mum was in a really difficult situation, because she could see how manipulated I’d been by him.
“She didn’t think it was a good idea. People ask me, ‘What was your mum thinking?’
“But she was thinking, ‘What’s the least shit thing I can do here?’ Because she thought, if I don’t send her, she’ll probably run away and figure out a way of getting there anyway.
“She thought it was better that I went – with a begrudging agreement that I stayed in touch. This proved to be a lifeline later on.”
After landing in the UK, Lisa remembers there were a few weeks of relatively happy living before her abuser became increasingly controlling of her life.
She was allowed to attend a local school in North London, but was forbidden from leaving their house for anything else.
Her abuser controlled what she ate, what she could wear, and who she could speak to.
“This is how a lot of abusive relationships go. They really mess with your mind.
“He convinced me that somehow he knew everything. He would say, ‘I’m always watching you, even when I’m not there. I know what you’re doing.’
“I remember thinking he had cameras everywhere recording me, which he didn’t. But he had me believing that.
“He made me believe that he needed me and that I had to behave in certain ways and do certain things so that he was happy.
“That was why I couldn’t ever be away from him. I couldn’t ever speak to anyone else because he needed me that much.
It was through Lisa’s maintained contact with her mum that she plotted her escape[/caption]
“It was a double-edged sword, because, on the one hand, it is sort of flattering that somebody needs you that much, especially when you’re too young to really understand how relationships work.
“And for a long time, I just thought I was in a normal relationship.”
A regular method of punishment was shutting Lisa in a claustrophobic back room of the house.
And it was there that Lisa, wondering if someone would come to save her, realised she was entirely alone – an epiphany that ultimately paved the way to her escape.
She said: “I heard the weirdest thing. It was like this distorted voice, like when someone shouts out of the window of a moving car, and it said, ‘No one is coming.’
“First, I was really shocked. But then I thought, ‘Well, if no one’s coming, I better stop waiting.’ And that’s when I slowly but surely started to get my life together.”
Fortunately, Lisa, who by this stage was 20, still had some remaining contact with her family back in Australia – one of the terms of the original deal.
After learning of her daughter’s situation, Lisa’s terrified mum simply responded: “What do you need?”
Over the following six months, the 20-year-old was able to plan her escape – first opening a bank account, then finding a safe place to live on her own where she could move all of her belongings.
After finally becoming free of her abuser, however, the thought of reliving her trauma in the legal system was simply too much.
Lisa now helps other abusers in her work as a therapist[/caption]
“I met with a barrister who warned, ‘Every decision you ever made before, during and after that relationship will be scrutinised’,” she recalls.
“He said, ‘It will consume you and no one there will be saying, ‘How awful.’
“Instead, the underwear you wore that Thursday in November when he raped you will be questioned.
“You will live it night and day and you have to ask; will that give you the healing and the resolution that you want?’”
Now married, living in Cornwall, and a proud grandmother, Lisa admits she still receives judgement for her decision.
But she has instead channelled her experiences into helping others – even abusers like her own.
She said: “People have attacked me, saying, ‘He could still be abusing other people.’
“I say I can do far more good now sharing my work and training others, because here’s the thing; he didn’t abuse because he’s an evil person.
“He is abusive, and this is very well researched in in psychological literature, because hurt people hurt.
“Everything about my work is enabling people to recover from all of their hurts. I do a lot of work with abusers. It’s not easy for me, but I will help them.”
While Lisa’s ordeal took place in the 1980s, sex trafficking, people trafficking and modern-day slavery still exist.
In 2022, Walk Free, International Labour Organization, and IOM UN Migration estimated that as many as 122,000 people in the UK are living in slavery – although official government figures acknowledge just 10,000 of this number.
