A young adult woman said her older male cousin touched her inappropriately when she was six, and the family is now trying to deal with the allegation without forcing an investigation. Rachel Haynes of the Lucy Faithfull Foundation said the first priority should be her physical and emotional safety.
Haynes said the family should start from the survivor’s pace: “What’s important in these situations is to take things at her pace,” she said. She also said, “Often when people have experienced sexual harm, agency and choice has been taken away.”
Her advice was to put the young woman at the centre of what happens next, using “safe places to talk” and the language she chooses. Haynes said, “Giving her safe places to talk and mirroring her language can help her feel heard.”
The allegation covers two incidents. The first happened 18 years ago, when she was six and he was 12. A second incident allegedly occurred eight years later. This year, she told her parents, and they passed the information to her cousin and other family members.
Rachel Haynes and family safety
Haynes said there was a “significant power difference” between the two children at the time, and added that 30-50% of child sexual abuse happens between children. She said, “There’s an assumption that harm displayed between children is less harmful and that’s not the case.”
The cousin said he cannot recall either incident. He is also accessing psychological support following mental health issues, while the young woman has been encouraged to engage with counselling and has so far declined. That leaves the family trying to balance her wish not to pursue an investigation with concern about whether younger relatives could still need protection.
Stop It Now and NAPAC
Haynes recommended contacting the Lucy Faithfull Foundation’s Stop It Now helpline or the National Association for People Abused in Childhood for support. For families facing a disclosure like this, the practical next step is to centre the survivor’s safety first, then use specialist advice to decide what protection steps are needed around any younger children in the household.
Whether the older male cousin currently poses any actual risk to younger relatives is the point the family still has to work through. The disclosure has already split the private question of what happened years ago from the immediate question of how to keep children safe now.
