Survivor opens up about sexual abuse as a four-year-old after Leeds pervert jailed 30 years on
A woman who carried the torment of sexual abuse for more than 30 years has bravely spoken out after her perpetrator was jailed.
Thomas Brown was found guilty of indecent assault following a trial at Leeds Crown Court this week.
Kaylee Thompson was just four-year-old when she was abused in 1994, while Brown was 17.
He was jailed for two years - the maximum he could receive given his age at the time, and that he had to be sentenced under the more-lenient laws of the 1990s.
He was also put on the sex offender register for 10 years.
Now Kaylee has courageously waived her right to lifelong anonymity to talk about her experience at the hands of the violent peadophile and how it has plagued her life.
Kaylee, who lives in East Ardsley, told the Yorkshire Evening Post that she wanted to rid herself of the stigma that she had suppressed for decades.
The 35-year-old said: “There’s a lot of shame when you experience something like this. I’m really adamant that I should not feel any shame.
“The shame should be all on him. The more I open up about it, the more it has left me.
“I would encourage any survivors to come forward, no matter how long it’s been.
“The process is not easy, however, it does help you heal and get closure.”
Brown, of Middleton Road, Belle Isle was unanimously found guilty after a three-day trial.
The assault occurred in June 1994 when Kaylee was being childminded. Brown was at the house in Morley when he entered her bedroom and attacked her while she slept.
When she woke and tried to resist and say “no”, Brown punched her before leaving the room.
Kaylee said she told people that Brown had hit her, but remained silent about the sexual abuse.
She eventually confessed to her mother when she was 12 or 13. She had since told her closest friends and her husband.
She finally found the strength to tell the authorities in 2021, saying the memory of that fateful night “just kept coming back”.
Kaylee says she was happy with the verdict and was prepared for the lenient sentence, saying she just “wanted it on record” and needed to “put her faith in the criminal justice system”.
She added: “It feels like a massive weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It has taken a long time to get to court. It has affected my whole life.
“Although everyone has believed me when I’ve told them what happened, for it to be heard by complete strangers [the jury] and be believed, is massive.
“I wanted it on record, in case he ever did it to anybody else.”
Kaylee, who is mother to three young boys, now juggles her time working as a community development worker in the Wakefield area, and at the Bradford Rape Crisis and Sexual Abuse Survivors Service, helping to empower women who has suffered as she has.
She said that while people can empathise with the horrendous experience, talking with others who have suffered similarly has proved a great help.