2 Child-Rape Victims, Now 19: Here’s How We Moved On With Our Lives

2-27-2008 United Kingdom:

Two 10-year-old girls who made national news in the U.K. in 1999, when a convicted pedophile abducted and held them for four days, are now young women of 19. And, contrary to what many might have guessed, Lisa Hoodless and Charlene Lunnon have moved on with their lives with remarkably few difficulties despite their ordeal.

It included repeated rapes by a smelly, then-45-year-old man, at least one abortive murder attempt and a cruel claim that their captor had sought a ransom which their parents refused to pay, reports the London Times in a lengthy article detailing their experience and how they survived it.

Watching her father on television, while they were being held, Lunnon says, she could see from her father's face that he thought she was already dead.

Today, the two young women are close friends, although they were estranged for years in the aftermath of their terrible experience. One is in a long-term relationship and has a child; the other recently ended a relationship and plans to work with children. Both say their parents were more adversely affected by the crime than they were, although one has had nightmares and the other is still fearful of being alone at home.

However, they don't worry about living in the same area where they were abducted, because their attacker, Alan Hopkinson, will never be released from prison. He and the two girls were discovered in 1999 when police came to his home to question him after other parents complained about the way he treated their children.

Both Hoodless and Lunnon remember as one of the worst aspects of their entire experience the therapy they were required to undergo for months after their release. They wanted to put their ordeal behind them, but instead were forced to relive it in the therapy sessions. What helped them move on successfully, they say, was simply going ahead with their lives.

“You can either go one way and [think] everything's ruined or you can go the other and put it behind you," says Hoodless. "That's what we did.”

In fact, there was even a positive aspect to their experience, which, as far as the actual crime was concerned, lasted only a very small fraction of their lives, says Lunnon. "If someone said you can take it back, I wouldn't take it back. It has made me so much stronger," she tells the newspaper. "It hasn't brought bad out, it has brought out good. It has made me appreciate things.” ..more.. by Martha Neil