Kerri McLean still bears the scars of the historic sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of former police officer, Gordon Raeper.
It has partly shaped the tough and resilient woman she’s become – like a flower forced to grow through the cracks of concrete before it can flourish.
Raeper, 68, was brought to justice and jailed for more than three years in 2022.
Upon his release from prison, Kerri has chosen to share her story in the hope of encouraging other victims of historic sexual abuse to come forward and report what happened to them.
Kerri, now 35 and a mum, bravely recounts her journey from a terrified eight-year-old girl to a determined young woman who stood up to her abuser and won her life back.
‘I feel like I’m serving a life sentence for this’
It is almost exactly two years to the day that an emotional Kerri McLean stood outside Aberdeen Sheriff Court having just watched her childhood abuser being led away in handcuffs to begin his prison sentence.
For a young woman who has battled alcoholism, night terrors and crippling self-doubt as a result of what Raeper did, that day was vindication and it was written on her face.
“He had punished me for many, many years – even afterwards,” she said. “I was being punished all that time.
“It’s only fair that he is punished. But it’s nothing like the punishment I had to go through. Mine is for life.”
Kerri makes no secret of her reaction to finding out Raeper would be set free having only served half his sentence.
“I was angry when I was told,” she said, “I feel like I’m serving a life sentence for this.”
During a harrowing court case, it was stated that, as a child, Kerri was forced to witness a series of depraved sex acts carried out by Raeper.
On other occasions, the serving police officer ordered her to attach chains to his wrists and ankles and place a ball-gag in his mouth.
Aberdeen child sex abuse victim: ‘I went to a very, very dark place’
In the intervening years between the abuse and Raeper’s arrest, Kerri blamed herself for what happened.
Sadly, this is an all-too-common feature in abuse cases involving children, where the adult perpetrator not only abuses the child’s body but also warps their concept of right and wrong.
Kerri struggled to make sense of the confusing new world she now found herself in, which lasted right through until adulthood.
“I went to a very, very dark place,” she said. “I really didn’t want to be here. I felt angry, but I also felt like I couldn’t talk because I felt disgusting.
“I felt like what I’d done was wrong. That I was in the wrong about what had happened.
“It took a lot for my husband and family to keep me on the straight and narrow.
“It got to the point where enough was enough. I wasn’t sleeping. I was thinking about drinking again.”
‘What if no one believes me?’
Over a full weekend in 2018, Kerri sat and wrote down everything that Raeper had done and presented it to her family.
Following that conversation, she went straight home and called the police to report historic child sex crimes carried out by one of their own.
“I realised I was not in the wrong, that what he did was wrong,” Kerri said. “I was not willing to live my life thinking the other way anymore.”
A subsequent police investigation unearthed other victims.
And, as the case was taken to trial, Kerri said her biggest fear was that, as a former police officer, the jury would take Raeper’s word over hers about what had happened.
“That was the hardest battle I had,” she said. “I felt like I had to continuously convince people. That was my biggest worry at the trial, what if no one believes me?
“It felt like I had to prove myself and I had to prove those events word-for-word every time.
“But my siblings believed me from the get-go and I wouldn’t have managed it without them.
“I thought it would be a hard thing to prove, it had been drilled into me that he was a police officer and no one would believe me.”
Police officer ‘abused his profession’
However, following a week-long trial, the jury took less than two hours to find Raeper guilty of a series of sex offences against females.
The sheriff at the trial, Ian Wallace, told Raeper he had sought to abuse his standing within the community as a police officer “to ensure the silence of his victims”.
Outside court, Kerri wept as she described him as a “corrupt police officer” who had “abused his profession”.
Following the outcome of the trial and everything that led up to it, Kerri says she has “managed to deal with life way better” than she did before.
“Since the court case and getting all this off my chest, and making the world know what he is and what he’s done, it has helped me mentally to get it off my chest. To know it isn’t my fault,” she said.
“Although I still live with my challenges over what’s happened, it’s not controlling me as much as it did before I reported him and getting it out there – it’s changed in my mind.”
When asked why she has chosen to come forward and tell her story now, Kerri said her main goal is to let other victims know that reporting their abuser to police “does help you mentally”.
She added: “I want to tell them not to shut down and to get the help they need and report – you are not in the wrong.
“Although you’ll go through the hardest and scariest part of your life, it is worth it to see your offender brought to justice.”
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