The standup comedian and writer Mark O’Sullivan is looking at a picture of himself as a boy, on holiday in Norfolk. “I love it,” he says. “And it makes me really, really sad.” The image is from before “it happened” – before his sexual abuse by a member of his extended family began, when O’Sullivan was 11 or 12.
O’Sullivan’s father died when his son was 15 without ever knowing his secret. When O’Sullivan tried, a few years later, to tell his mother, she “shut down the conversation”. When O’Sullivan discovered in his 30s that he was not his abuser’s only victim, he went to the police; his visit initiated a court case in which O’Sullivan testified to his abuse by the man, who was convicted and imprisoned.
