BRACING herself, Franky Dean made the phone call she had been dreading all day.

She was 24 and had just reported her abuser to the police 12 years after she was molested as a child – and she was about to tell her parents.

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Franky, now 25, knew it would be a difficult conversation but she never expected the two words that her mum responded with.

“We know.” 

It was a secret that Franky had kept for over a decade in a bid to protect her parents, and it turned out they had been doing the same for her.

“It really hurts me that my parents had to keep this big secret and live with it,” Franky says.

“I know that they did that with the best intentions and to try and look after their daughter so I can’t fault them in any way.

“It’s crazy to think how different life could have been if we had all known one another knew.”

Growing up in Reading, filmmaker Franky says she has very few memories of her childhood as a result of the trauma she suffered, but from what she has been told it was a happy one.

Speaking as part of Life Stories, The Sun’s YouTube series featuring ordinary people with extraordinary experiences, she says: “My childhood memories are fuzzy.

“From all the pictures that I see of me as a kid, I’m always very happy and smiley and arms wrapped around my parents.” 

Franky, who describes herself as a “bubbly and giggly” schoolgirl, began boarding school at the age of 11 where she met her childhood best friend, Amber*.

“I had this giant pot of pens and she asked me to borrow one and our friendship blossomed from there,” she says.

“We both boarded and after school we’d hang out, as well as at the weekends. We had a really close relationship.”

While the girls spent most of their time together at the school without their parents, they would occasionally visit each other’s homes which is where Franky first met Amber’s dad, Richard*.

“Her dad lived on an army base, and we’d always visit him there,” she says.

“He seemed perfectly normal, we would go fishing together as a three and I never thought badly of him.”

‘I woke up in the middle of the night’

However, that all changed one night in 2011 when Franky, then 12, went to stay on the army base with Amber.

“We were picked up by Richard at the gates of the army base.

“I remember Macklemore Thrift Shop was being played as we were driving through,” she says.

“Amber suggested that I took her room while she shared with her sister and I agreed without thinking, it was nice to have my own bed.

“Her room was in her dad’s office and her bed was next to his desk and computer.

Even when I told my boyfriend about what happened I wasn’t 100 per cent sure what had happened to me and I often questioned whether it really had happened.

Franky Dean

“I woke up in the middle of the night to him sat at his desk, staring at the computer screen, but he had his hand reached out and was touching me under my shorts.

“I had no understanding of what was happening to me, I was 12 and I didn’t know what sex was.

“He had no expression at all, which made me think that what was happening couldn’t be that bad because he wasn’t bothered by it.

“I lay very still and eventually I fell back to sleep.”

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‘I just carried on with my life’

The following morning Richard drove Franky to the gates of the army base where her mum collected her.

“Nothing was said, but equally I had no understanding of what had happened so I didn’t feel like I needed to tell anyone,” she says.

“I just carried on with my life and I didn’t really think about it again for many years, my brain totally blocked out the incident.

“Even when, a couple of years after my assault, a group of girls in my year were asked by our headmistress whether anything ‘odd’ had happened at a sleepover, I didn’t link that back to what had happened to me.

“I had totally blocked out the trauma.”

Flashbacks and panic attacks

It wasn’t until Franky got into a relationship aged 15 that she started to have an understanding of what had happened to her. 

“When we were intimate I would have flashbacks and they would cause panic attacks,” she says.

“But even when I told my boyfriend about what happened I wasn’t 100 per cent sure what had happened to me and I often questioned whether it really had happened.”

Franky began to struggle increasingly with her mental health, and at the age of 16 hit breaking point and called an NHS helpline.

“They wrongly told me I needed to report the incident to the police to access their help,” Franky says.

“That was the last thing that I wanted to do at that stage. I didn’t want my parents to have to deal with what happened and equally I didn’t want to hurt my friend Amber.”

It wasn’t until Franky was heading to the Henley Regatta aged 18 with a friend that she finally had the awful truth confirmed. 

She says: “My friend asked if I knew why we had gone to the headmistress’ office and when I said no she told me how Amber’s dad had been caught filming us all in the bathroom.

“At that moment I realised what had been in my head really had happened and Richard really was a predator.”

‘My heart broke’

With her worst fears confirmed, Franky decided to mention what she had been told to her mum to “test the waters”.

“I had no inkling that she knew what happened to me,” Franky says.

“When I asked her if she’d known about him filming the other girls she told me she had but then made sure I never went back to his house.

“My heart broke a little bit at that stage because I remember thinking it was too late because he had already done what he did to me.”

In 2022 at the age of 22 Franky, who lost touch with Amber after school, moved to New York to complete a Masters in Journalism.

Away from any pressures to report her assault, Franky decided to start therapy, joining a group for sexual assault survivors.

“It was the most beneficial thing I have done for my recovery,” Franky says.

“It helped me to get diagnosed with PTSD and I had a growing understanding of how to deal with my trauma and triggers. 

“While I was studying I was invited to a screening of To Kill a Tiger which documents how, against all odds, a 13-year-old girl in India gets justice for her gang rape.

They were trying to protect me and it really hurts me because they also had to keep this big secret

Franky Dean

“It gave me the courage to report what had happened to me after 12 years of believing I had been keeping it to myself.”

Franky did endless research about her abuser where she came across an article which detailed his previous crimes, including the sexual abuse of a 12-year-old girl.

“I never twigged that the article was talking about me,” Franky says.

A startling admission

After reporting her assault to police in Thames Valley, Franky made a phone call home where she told her parents what had happened to her.

“When they told me they already knew it felt like a scene from a movie,” she says.

“We were all utterly speechless and trying to get our heads around the fact we had all known this whole time.”

Franky learnt the police had found the footage Richard had taken of her aged 12 when she was 15.

They had visited her parents’ home in Reading and told them what happened but advised them not to speak to Franky about it as they believed she was asleep making her an ‘unknowing victim’.

An unknowing victim is someone who is unaware of the fact they have been the target of a crime and whether or not to disclose attacks to such victims remains a highly debated topic.

“It was incredibly hard to wrap my head around but I understood why they chose not to tell me, I would have done the exact same thing,” she says.

“They were trying to protect me and it really hurts me because they also had to keep this big secret.

“I don’t think in any universe either of us could have thought that we knew.”

‘I was in an awful state for weeks’

In a bid to support Franky, her dad sent her the email correspondence he’d had with police containing details of the case.

“There was vivid detail that I had been totally unaware of,” she says.

“I had no idea he had lifted my top up and filmed that, I didn’t know that he had filmed me in the bathroom or the shower and it was totally retraumatising.

“I was in an awful state for weeks afterwards where I couldn’t get out of bed, I couldn’t shower, I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror, I couldn’t look at my body in the same way.

“It was as though I had been violated all over again.”

Franky found out the trial had happened without her knowledge when she was 16 and Richard was given a three-year community order with no jail time. 

“The sentence is something that I think about continuously,” she says.

“This guy who assaulted a minor, who had thousands of pictures of underage children, who had filmed so many kids, did not spend a day in jail.

“It’s absolutely baffling for the life of trauma that this man has caused me.

“The judge said that had his victims been aware of the abuse the sentence would have been very different and that’s absolutely heartbreaking to me.

“I had worked up so much courage to report him, to tell those I love and to be part of a trial and that was taken away from me.”

I struggle to understand why it’s normal to not let people know what has happened to them

Franky Dean

When Franky returned from the States for Christmas she took part in a police interview about her case.

But heartbreakingly, once Franky returned to New York, she was told no further action would be taken as her abuser had already served his sentence for the assault.

“It was unbearable to hear that,” Franky says.

“Because of him I have a life sentence by which I have to deal continuously with my mental health.

“I have suffered from PTSD, flashbacks and periods of self-loathing for the past 14 years.

“In just ten minutes he robbed me of so much for the rest of my life.”

A constant struggle

In the weeks that followed, Franky began to take small steps towards her own recovery.

“I made an effort to harness this new power I had,” she says.

“I was no longer bottling up what had happened to me and that was the biggest release I had every had.

“People could understand me and my story more than they ever had and those closest to me could reach out and help me when I was struggling.

“I wanted to speak out about what happened to me, and while I hadn’t had justice perhaps I could help other people get theirs.”

Franky says she places the lack of justice with her case entirely with the police and says hers is an example as to why ‘unknowing victims’ should always be involved in their trials.

“If the police had been of the opinion that I was awake, my life would be so different,” Franky says.

“I struggle to understand why it’s normal to not let people know what has happened to them. 

“I’m so grateful that I now know what’s happened to me, I can’t put into words how important that is to me.

“What I struggle with most is that someone made that decision for me and took my right to a real trial away and now I will never get the justice I deserve.”

*Names have been changed

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