A mum of seven who covered herself in tattoos to recover from childhood trauma says she reported her “evil” half-brother for sexually abusing her from the age of five to police a decade before he was jailed.
Melissa Sloan alleges she was sexually molested by convicted paedophile Gavin Sloan and reported his crimes to police a decade before he was jailed.
The 45-year-old says she ran away from her Kidderminster home at the age of 16 and was later horrified to discover her half-brother had been jailed for a series of rapes and sexual assaults on young children.
Gavin Sloan, 46, pleaded guilty at Shrewsbury Crown Court to a total of 27 charges, which included the rape of a five-year-old child which he filmed.
Melissa says he first started touching her when she was five and he also regularly beat her and called her names.
She told My London : “He started abusing me in the bath, touching me and he’d watch me dress and say comments even when I saw him in my thirties.
“He was always threatening me from an early age not to tell anyone.
"That’s what abusers do is threaten you to make you scared, it’s like you’re brainwashed with them.
“I felt sorry for him and then you’re like why are you feeling sorry for them? You’ve got to snap out of it and think what he’s done and how long it’s been going on.
“I filed a report on him that he’d abused me and they didn’t believe me because I had a background years ago as a prostitute, before I had my children.
“I had a bad background and they didn’t want to know me.
"They’ve come back to me and said ‘sorry, we should have believed you’, but it’s too late now and now I’m getting slandered for it now by people online saying ‘why didn’t you come forward before’, as if it’s my fault.
“How is it my fault if I didn’t know he was touching children?”
At 16, she ran away from home to Birmingham and London, where she gained work as a pole dancer and spent years sleeping rough.
Gavin was arrested at his home in Minsterley and jailed in May 2022 for abusing children over an eight-year period.
The court heard he had been aided by two successive girlfriends, Louise Smith, 42, and Jenna Ball, 37, who had also carried out sexual offences against young children.
He had encouraged young girls to send him videos and pictures over Snapchat and filmed himself abusing children. His former partner Ball had also encouraged a young boy to expose himself while she filmed it for Sloan.
Following a police raid on his property, he had made efforts to hide SD cards and phones down the side of the sofa, where officers later uncovered hundreds of images and videos of serious child abuse.
After pleading guilty to 27 charges, he was jailed for 21 years whilst Smith was jailed for 11 and Ball received a two-year suspended sentence.
When asked if she felt vindicated following his imprisonment, Melissa said: “No, because I’m up against him next, he hasn’t dealt with me yet.
“I’m just waiting a bit because my children are young but then I’m going to go all the way with it, he hasn’t gotten away with me yet. It's been 20, 30 years that he has made me suffer, I’m still suffering at the age of 45.
"He’s been hurting those poor little children and I feel like I could’ve saved them, because I am messed up. People who get abused get messed up and it never goes away.
“I want his face to be plastered everywhere, for everyone to know him so that he can’t walk down a street again.
“Get him named and shamed, you can’t get more evil than him.”
A spokesperson for West Mercia police said: "We can confirm that we received a report of child sexual abuse in 2010 and at the time extensive efforts were made to investigate the report."
Detective Inspector Jo Delahay added: “It takes great courage to come forward and report offences such as this and we recognise that the court system is not always a route a victim wishes to pursue at the time.
“I would like to offer my assurances we will always investigate any claims of child sexual abuse with sensitivity and compassion.
“We have specially trained officers who work with victims and ensure they have the support they need.
“I would encourage anyone who has been a victim of child sexual abuse to come forward and report this to us, regardless of when the offences took place we will listen to the victim and carry out a full investigation."
