I was raped by my HIV positive dad – he plied me with drink and drugs and then made ME feel guilty about it
SITTING in the clinic waiting room, Lauren Sullivan waited anxiously for her blood test results with mixed feelings of anger and dread.
She was just 14 years old and after being subjected to a reign of abuse at the hands of her own dad, she was about to find out whether she’d contracted the potentially deadly HIV virus, from him.
“It’s a blur to me now, I was in a situation no child should ever be in,” says mum-of-two Lauren, who has bravely waived her right to anonymity to speak out.
“It was incredibly stressful and I was incredibly angry.
“My dad had just been arrested and I was waiting to find out whether I had a life threatening condition that he could have passed on to me.”
It was four years since Lauren’s estranged dad Shaun Dallisson had walked back into her life and for the past four months he’d groomed her, in a shocking betrayal of trust.
He went onto ply his teenage daughter with drink and drugs, before subjecting her to sexual abuse.
Growing up, Lauren, who is now 25 and from Bournemouth, didn’t have Dallison in her life after he’d walked out on her mum while she was pregnant.
Until age 11, Lauren’s childhood was happy and secure – but then she was reunited with Dallison.
Speaking to Fabulous as part of Life Stories, our new YouTube series that sees ordinary people share the extraordinary lives, she says: “My dad left my mum when he found out she was pregnant.
“I had no involvement with him until I was 11 when he suddenly got back in touch with my mum.
“It was after discovering his HIV diagnosis that he’d decided to ‘right his wrongs’.”
Lauren’s mum discussed the idea of the two meeting with Dallison for several months before eventually asking Lauren whether she would consider it.
After years without a father figure, she felt excited.
“When I was a kid I had always wondered what he would be like and I idolised the idea of him in my head,” she says.
“I was really keen to have a father figure and very excited to meet him.
“I also found out I had a half brother so I was really happy about that.
“And initially we had a really ordinary father-daughter relationship and did normal things like going to the movies or into town.”
Now when I look back at the photos of me swimming with dolphins and looking so happy it is horrifying to think I had no idea what would happen just a day later.
Lauren Sullivan
Initially, Lauren would see Dallison, who lived in Bournemouth, sporadically but as they got to know each other, their visits became more frequent.
Eventually Lauren was splitting her weekends between her two parents and she spent part of her school holidays with her dad.
But with hindsight, Lauren recalls how the dad and daughter boundaries were blurred and he’d treat her like an adult with little to no rules – and she believes the grooming began around three years later.
PLIED WITH DRUGS
“He gave me much more freedom than a 14-year-old should have,” she says.
“I was allowed out late at night, I remember going to the beach at 1am.
“He was also plying me with alcohol and cannabis which is obviously horrific but at the time I thought it was great, I was being treated like an adult.
“But of course I was only a child.
“There were also times when there was MDMA and if I asked if I could try it he would put that on me, telling me I was a big girl and I knew if I could handle it.”
Lauren says her dad also started to turn her against her mum, because he was the more lenient parent.
“He made her seem strict and overbearing,” she says.
Are you at risk of HIV?
HIV is a virus that damages the cells in your immune system and weakens your ability to fight everyday infections and disease.
An estimated 106,890 people are living with the condition in the UK.
In most cases, it spreads through unprotected sexual contact with an infected person.
Most people will experience flu-like symptoms two to six weeks after being infected.
This tends to include a sore throat, fever and a rash all over the body, which lasts one to two weeks.
After this, HIV may not cause any symptoms at all, but the virus continues to damage your immune system.
Some people go on to experience weight loss, night sweats, thrush in the mouth, an increase in herpes or cold sore outbreaks, swollen glands in the groin, neck or armpit, long-lasting diarrhoea, and tiredness.
While there is no cure for HIV, there are very effective treatments that enable most people with the virus to live long and healthy lives.
Medication now reduces the amount of the virus in the body to the point of being undetectable, meaning it cannot be transmitted.
The only way to find out if you have HIV is to have a test. This involves giving a sample of your blood or saliva.
The most effective ways to prevent or reduce the risk of infection include using a condom for sex, post-exposure prophylaxis, pre-exposure prophylaxis, treatment for HIV to reduce the viral load to be undetectable, and never sharing needles or other injecting equipment, including syringes, spoons or swabs.
Source: NHS
“To me it seemed like she didn’t understand what it was like to be a teenager when actually she was just being a good parent, it was all part of the manipulation.”
Lauren was 14 when Dallison’s ways turned sinister and she recalls the night when she was dozing whilst watching a film in his bedroom.
The man who was meant to be her protector, turned into a predator.
“I woke up to his hands down my trousers. I was just kind of frozen I had no idea what to do or think,” she explains.
“He stopped because I was crying and he realised I wasn’t asleep.
“He was immediately so apologetic, he described himself as a monster and that actually made me feel really guilty.”
CYCLE OF ABUSE
Lauren says the cycle of abuse and guilt tripping became a pattern and Dallison would gaslight her with apologies about his actions.
“It was all part of the manipulation,” she says.
“He would abuse me then apologise and at one point he stopped taking his HIV medication claiming that he didn’t deserve them.
“I just sucked up all that guilt as in my head my dad might potentially die because of what had happened to me.”
It made me think he was remorseful, he was troubled and he didn’t mean to do what he did.
Lauren
When Lauren was 14, Dallison came into some inheritance money and paid for a holiday in Egypt, taking Lauren, her half brother and their nan.
It was there Dallison stepped up his abuse and terrified Lauren couldn’t escape.
“This was the first time he had full intercourse with me,” she says.
“My nan and my brother were in the next room and I just lay there frozen with fear. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
“Now when I look back at the photos of me swimming with dolphins and looking so happy it is horrifying to think I had no idea what would happen just a day later.”
But her dad’s manipulating ways made Lauren feel like she couldn’t tell anyone what was happening to her.
“I just felt like I had to keep silent,” she says.
“He never explicitly said it was something I had to keep to myself, but I just felt that this was something I couldn’t tell anyone.”
BREAKING POINT
It was six months later that Lauren’s silent suffering finally came to an end.
Her mum discovered messages on her daughter’s phone which Dallisson had sent.
Lauren says: “My mum found the texts that he had sent me apologising for what had happened.
“At this point the abuse had stopped, but I am sure it would have continued at some point had my mum not found out.”
Lauren’s mum spoke to a health visitor as she was worried about her daughter’s reaction who offered to report Dallisson to the police.
“My mum also spoke to my dad on the phone and confronted him about everything,” Lauren says.
“He confessed to everything and agreed to wait at his home for the police to arrive.”
SEEKING JUSTICE
Lauren had been at her work experience placement when she received a call from her stepdad telling her she needed to go straight home.
“He wouldn’t tell me why but when I got home my house was surrounded by police cars,” she says.
“My stomach just dropped, my first thought was that everyone was going to know what had happened to me.”
It was after the arrest when Lauren was taken to hospital to be tested for HIV.
“It was extremely stressful having to go through that,” Lauren says.
It’s still a constant fear that he could come back to the area that I live in. He legally changed his name so I have no idea where he would be.
Lauren Sullivan
“It was definitely a thought that had entered my head. ‘What if I have contracted HIV?’ but it was almost too big of a thought.
“I just pushed it away and tried not to think about it.
“Thankfully, I didn’t contract it, he had always used protection but of course that isn’t a guarantee, he was putting me at risk.”
In 2014, Dallisson, then 37, was jailed for eight years at Bournemouth Crown Court after admitting five counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child and one count of supplying cannabis.
The judge told Dallison he would have faced a 12-year prison term but due to his guilty plea his sentence was reduced.
To Lauren’s dismay, he was released four years later and spent the next four years on licence which has now come to an end.
Reflecting on the years of abuse and the subsequent sentence, Lauren says she was so heavily manipulated by her dad that she was hugely resentful of her mum.
“I was very much under his influence and I held a lot of blame towards her, I just couldn’t think why she would expose what had happened to me,” Lauren says.
“Of course I now see that my mum was nothing but a wonderful parent to me, I have absolutely no resentment towards her now.
“He told the judge that he wished they would throw away the key, like he deserved everything he got.
“It made me think he was remorseful, he was troubled and he didn’t mean to do what he did.”
Even with Dallison behind bars the abuse took its toll and Lauren began to become more withdrawn.
She turned to bad habits to cope and her mental health spiralled to the point of trying to end her life,
She explains: “I relied on unhealthy coping mechanisms – I fell into a lot of drug use and I was self-harming a lot.
“I even tried to take my own life as I struggled to cope with the aftermath.”
How to report a sexual assault
- Contact a doctor or practice nurse at your GP surgery.
- Contact a voluntary organisation, such as Rape Crisis, Women’s Aid, Victim Support, The Survivors Trust or Male Survivors Partnership.
- Call the 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247.
- Speak to the rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales – you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year).
STARTING TO HEAL
Lauren, who runs her own business Loz Creates, says that now as an adult, she is appalled by her father’s sentence.
“I definitely think that his sentence was too light,” she says.
“For it to be reduced from 12 to eight purely just for pleading guilty, is insane and then to be released on license only halfway through that, it just seems crazy.
“Although he can’t make contact with me, it’s still a constant fear that he could come back to the area that I live in.
“He legally changed his name so I have no idea where he would be.
“Now, thanks to Della’s Law, sex offenders like my father are banned from changing their name.”
At 18, Lauren moved from Bournemouth to London to study clinical psychology and there she met her husband.
She has since become a mum of two, something she says has helped her deal with her past.
I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that the shame and all the negative things that come with that don’t belong to me, they belong to my abuser.
Lauren Sullivan
“I think having my own children was really a turning point in my healing process,” she says.
“It helped me get the help I needed to deal with the trauma. I’ve had quite extensive therapy, and I’m still going through therapy now try to re-process the memories I have.
“I think I always carried a lot of guilt and shame about what happened.
“And I think the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that the shame and all the negative things that come with that don’t belong to me, they belong to my abuser.”
In an attempt to gain closure, Lauren attempted restorative justice which brings victims and perpetrators face to face and involved arranging a meeting with her dad.
“I just wanted answers as to why he had done this and I went through the whole process for him to pull out on the day,” she says.
“I think the reason he didn’t meet me was because he was afraid of the person I’d become and that he doesn’t have that hold over me anymore.”
Lauren says that by speaking out about her experience she hopes to help other women.
“There’s so many people who have been abused at the hands of a family member,” she says.
“It’s really important to open the conversations just so that other people who have been through it don’t feel so alone.”