Her evidence convicted 62-year-old Darrin Garnham on four counts of indecent assault. He is now serving a 21-month prison sentence.
‘This abuse happened to me over 40 years ago and I only reported it two years ago. And when I did, I didn’t know if it would be taken seriously,’ said the woman.
‘I’ve thought about reporting it many times over the years but it was something I didn’t think would be taken seriously, because there was in effect, no evidence. It was his word against mine.’
Garnham denied the allegations and the case went to a Royal Court trial, where he was found guilty.
Judge Catherine Fooks told Garnham that while he had moved on with his life over the decades, he had ruined the lives of his victim and her family.
As the trial approached, the woman said that she struggled with anxiety and even leaving the house, which she admitted was ‘irrational’, seeing as she was a couple of hundred miles away in another country.
She said that she experienced flashbacks and nightmares and it had strained her personal relationships, particularly after the details of the case had emerged in court.
‘Straight away after the verdict I felt like a weight was lifted off my mind, but then I had to think ahead to what the sentence would be,’ she said.
‘I was up and down with my emotions, but then as soon as I heard that sentence, the weight was lifted. I can finally put the past behind me and move forward with my life. It’s been an emotional rollercoaster, but from here on, things will get easier.’
Garnham was sentenced to 21 months in prison, but his victim said it was never about the length of his sentence.
‘Even if he only had to serve one day in prison, for me it was very much about the guilty verdict,’ she said.
‘It wasn’t until the court case that I was put forward for PTSD trauma counselling specific to child abuse. Hopefully now that it has passed, I can draw a line underneath it all.’
She left the island while still a teenager, leaving behind friends and family, and only came back intermittently, she said, because she feared bumping into Garnham.
‘I feel like I’ve missed out on that part of my life,’ she said. ‘There was absolutely no chance I could have stayed or brought up children in Guernsey.’
She admitted that she had been over-protective of her own children as a result of her own experiences.
‘I didn’t want them doing what would be considered normal things, like playing in the park or having sleepovers because I didn’t want anything that had happened to me to happen to them,’ she said.
‘I was quite controlling and over-protective and so my children have missed out on things because of this.’
The woman said that she had been misdiagnosed with depression her whole life, and after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder a few years ago, her psychiatrist could not get to the bottom of why. She finally opened up about what had happened when she was a child, and they made the connection with that trauma.