Child and sexual abuse survivor hopes book about traumatic experiences inspires others to speak out

Richie Barlow was haunted by his past.

As the #MeToo movement grew in 2017, as more and more people around the world took to social media to share their experiences of sexual abuse and harassment, memories and feelings that for years he had repressed made their way to the fore.

His was a harrowing upbringing; he tells of how he was abandoned by his abusive mother and placed into the care system and as a youngster, recalls being repeatedly abused and trafficked for sex.

He vowed to never let it beat or break him, making a promise to himself at the tender age of nine to survive each traumatic ordeal he experienced and build a life he dreamt of. He’d done that by 2017, happy at home with now-husband Ben and running a celebrated Yorkshire-based dog-walking business.

But #MeToo sparked in him a need to share his story, to tell people what happened to him growing up. Without that, he concluded, there’d be no closure for his trauma.

Fast-forward five years and last month, his book, Richie – Who Cares? Lost Childhood and a Boy’s Journey for Justice, was published. Ghostwritten by Yorkshire-based journalist and writer Becky Bond, the emotional and powerful story is based on true events throughout Richie’s life.

“It was hard, reliving every single thing which was traumatic again,” Richie, 39, tells The Yorkshire Post. “But I had a clear goal of getting this done because I wanted to shed light on this kind of abuse and show people it’s not acceptable.”

It was Ben who found a starting point for Richie – The Truth Project. Set up as part of The Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the project provided victims and survivors of child sexual abuse with an opportunity to share their experiences and put forward suggestions for change.

Richie got in touch and was invited to tell his story. That experience set him off down two routes, embarking on a series of counselling sessions to help process his trauma, whilst also working with a solicitor to track down all of his personal records from his time in care.

Richie – Who Cares? sets out details of that journey after telling the tale of how he was outed as gay at a young age and describing the horrors he endured as a boy.

Richie, born in Nottingham, tells of how he would be on the receiving end of abuse from his late mother, at times “locked in a bedroom without food, water, or even access to a toilet”.

In the book, Richie describes being abused, beaten and sexually assaulted at the hands of his peers as a youngster, and explains how he feels let down by those supposed to protect and care for him.

“My husband has been saying you need to get this done, you need to get your story out there because it could help other people,”

Richie says. “So I decided to pluck the courage up to do it to hopefully inspire other people to tell their stories. There’s a lot of abuse towards children and it has to stop. Adults need to take responsibility and stop putting children in harm’s way.”

“It’s taken a while for me to get this all out there with (Ben) even,” Richie continues. “Thankfully he’s a very decent kind of person and helped me understand what I’d been through and guided me into a process where I could seek justice, clarity and also counselling for what I experienced.”

Richie is to celebrate his 40th birthday this month, a landmark date he never thought he would reach.

He attempted, on four occasions, to take his own life, and many were the times that he clung to a dream of simply making it to the age of 22.

“I don’t know why 22,” Richie says. “I thought everything would happen quickly after leaving care – you’d get a house, get a car and get a life and I thought if I got that from the age of 16 to 22, I’d have made it.”

Richie left the care system at the age of 16 – “I was given £500, everything was in black bags and I was told off you trot” – and moved to Burnley initially, to be close to his foster mother. He later made his way across the border to Yorkshire, drawn by work in Leeds, and at the age of 22 set up his own business, The Dog Walker, in Boston Spa, in 2006.

“I think Yorkshire saved me really,” he says. “It’s a county that gave me a career, that respected me and treated me like a decent human being. To be able to get to have a house and a car and earn an honest living, I think I owe a lot to Yorkshire.”

As for the business idea, he says: “I had work experience in a kennel and I saw dogs and cats all locked up in cages and it resonated with me, being imprisoned by my mother in a bedroom. I couldn’t agree with it really. So I wanted to do something better.”

More than 15 years later, Richie is an award-winning entrepreneur, now living in Teesside with Ben, and his business has a number of franchises across Yorkshire.

“I just wanted to survive,” he says. Just to pay for my rent and something decent to eat was all I wanted really. I never expected to own my own home and be driving around in a new van and walking dogs for a career. It’s all a bit surreal to be honest. No matter what you go through, if you’re determined and, you’re passionate about something, you can do and become anything really. If you set your mind to something, you can be successful no matter what your past is.”

Richie’s story is one of immense determination and inner strength against the odds. It is about hope, reclaiming the past and working for justice.

He says: “There are some key people in my life without whose support and interventions I would not be here today. They were flickers of hope in my darkest and most desperate times and I cannot thank them enough for the kindness they showed me when others could not have cared less.

“My story shared in the book is dedicated to all who gave me hope and to those who, by the failures of adults and authorities, didn’t make it to tell their truths.”

Richie, to use his own words, was “scared half to death” about the book’s release. Now his story is out there, “I just hope it helps,” he says.

“I hope it shines a light on what people have to go through when people are awful to another person just because they’re different. I hope it shines a light on how not to behave as a human being. I hope it shows people to love their children a little bit more.”

‘Richie - Who Cares? Lost Childhood and a Boy’s Journey for Justice’ is out now, released in June to coincide with LGBTQ+ Pride Month.

Richie’s book was published by Scratching Shed Publishing Ltd,and is available to purchase now via Amazon.

He is doing a book signing event at Caffe Nero in Yarm on Saturday, July 23 at 10am.