British MP Nadine Dorries Reveals Childhood Sexual Abuse by Vicar

Conservative MP Nadine Dorries has said she was sexually abused as a child by her church's vicar.

The Conservative MP says she was sexually abused by her vicar,
and tells Sky News writing about it in her books was "revenge"

The MP for Mid-Bedfordshire said she had her childhood "stolen" from her by Reverend James Cameron, who died in 2011.

Ms Dorries told the Mail on Sunday she felt unable to report the abuse and instead found writing about it in her novels helped her to heal.

She has published numerous books about life in an Irish-Catholic community in Liverpool in the 1950s and 1960s.

Ms Dorries said some passages about abuse in the novels are based on what she said the vicar did to her, and she included his name in one of the books.

"It has taken me 49 years to talk about it," she said.

"It has been slowly coming out and each time I say the words it gets a bit easier.

"My childhood was stolen from me.

"I was not an innocent girl enjoying things in the way other children were.

"From a young age I was made to be different and ashamed."

Speaking on Sky's Murnaghan programme after the interview was published, Ms Dorries said she had previously denied any events in the book were based on her own upbringing in Liverpool because a "49-year-old secret is very hard to disclose".

"What I did is I left a trail for him to discover and it was my revenge.

"I'm not very proud of it but that's what I did."

More resources for inquiry

Ms Dorries also called for a major inquiry into child sex abuse in Britain to be given more resources.

She said: "There has been criticism of the child sex abuse inquiry that it's going to take so long to report.

"What Justice Lowell Goddard (head of the inquiry) needs is extra resources and she needs extra people.

"I would like to say that she needs some parliamentarians there in the form of (Conservative MP and former children's minister) Tim Loughton and (Labour MP) Simon Danczuk, both of whom have a serious amount of experience in this area.

"I believe that more people need to disclose as survivors and the inquiry going forward is incredibly important and that's what it needs."