A woman who claims she was sexually abused by a serving police officer when she was 14 says a Church Minister put the phone down on her when she told him she felt suicidal.

Helen (not her real name) claims a serving member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, who was a family friend and a member of the Orange Order, sexually abused her at least once a month for two years.

She also claims that four years later when she herself was a member of the security forces, she was raped by a fellow colleague during a training exercise in England. While she is unaware of the identity of her second alleged abuser she says the first man who “tormented” her while leaving her home from babysitting his children is still alive and living locally having retired from the police.

“I was 14 years of age. I can remember babysitting for this couple. When they came home the husband always wanted to leave me home. As he was leaving me home there was a derelict lane before our home lane and each time he reversed his car and exposed himself.

“He took my hand, made me try to touch him and he touched me. This went on until he got his own satisfaction, then he dropped me home. That happened for two years,” she said.

Helen, who is now 54, has provided the name of her alleged abuser to this newspaper and claims the abuse took place when he was off duty and “always” when he gave the teenager a lift home in his car.

“It never happened when he was working, it always happened when I was going home and still to this day I remember his wife looking at him and saying she would leave me home because ‘you were a long time leaving her home the last time’. Whether she had suspected it I am not sure but he always got his way and left me home.

“I lost count the amount of times he abused me during those two years; at least once a month.”

Helen says the abuse took place during the Troubles, a time she believes, that “overshadowed quite a lot of things”, including incidents such as this.

“He knew it wasn’t going to go any further. Maybe he thought they weren’t going to say anything about it and as the years have gone by, he has probably thought he got away with it.

“I would imagine he is worried. He knows what he did and I say to him now, if he is reading this, just admit what you have done.”

Helen says she has “carried the pain for 30 years” and says it has affected her mentally and made her feel like she could not trust people in authority.

“I have learned a lot from that such as never to assume a man in a good job in good clothes is a good person. In those days you would have looked up to a police officer, someone in uniform, but sadly they have been found out.

“Only someone who has been abused can feel that pain. These abusers were able to get on with their own lives. I feel they are never going to be taken to the courts. What chance do any of these poor victims have?

“I couldn’t have talked about it before but people would have been pointing the finger at me. That’s the feeling I’ve always had, that I couldn’t speak out about it until now,” she said.

When she was 18, Helen joined the security forces but during a training exercise in England she claims she was attacked by a colleague. She still does not know his identity.

“During one of those exercises we had gone out for the evening, myself and some of my friends. They stayed on to drink, I walked home.

“But during that walk a chap came up behind me. It was very dark and he pulled me through a hedge and raped me,” she said, getting emotional. “I still don’t know who he was but I do know he is from Fermanagh.”

She returned to her dorm where she lay in bed when her colleagues arrived back some hours later but she said she “couldn’t for the life of me” tell any of them what had happened.

“It could have been a laughing matter back then; it was something you would have kept to yourself,” she said.

Helen said she kept it to herself until two years ago when she confided in clerics from seven different churches, claiming only one of them “sat with me and prayed”.

“One of those ministers sat and prayed with me and cried with me, even to this day he would ask me how things are. As for the others they didn’t want to know,” she said.

Helen even claims to have alerted one of the ministers to her desire to end her life.

She explained: “I remember ringing one of these ministers when I was so low and he was on the motorway, he was on the M1. I told him how I felt suicidal and he said ‘not on my watch – ring someone else’ and put the phone down. I don’t know where his faith lies.”

She said one senior Church figure said he was “sorry to hear” the allegations and, according to Helen, “left that evening without even praying with us”.

“Nobody advised us to report it or suggest we needed help,” she said.

“I feel let down, I feel are these men in this just for a job and a wage? To me there is no pastoral care. Who do you turn to? If I can’t turn to a man of the cloth where do I go?” she asked.

“I would have preferred to have lost my limbs in the Troubles, I don’t mean that in a bad way to anyone who has suffered, rather than go through what I have been through.”

And she has this message for her alleged abusers: “I do forgive those men, that sets me free from my pain. I got rid of that anger and I don’t want anything from them. I only want them to admit what they have done, just admit it,” she said.