A woman who was sexually abused as a child by her adoptive dad has spoken out about the cop who manipulated and exploited her as an adult.
Police officer Alan Butler, 64, was jailed at the beginning of this month for ‘manipulating’ a woman, into a sexual relationship with him and groping another victim in her own home.
Now the first victim, given the alias Jane for legal reasons, has told her story to encourage other victims to report their police officer abusers.
After being born to a teen mum, Jane was adopted by a business owner and his partner.
They adopted more children, eventually had a surprise biological baby and all seemed well.
Jane cannot remember exactly when the sexual abuse started, but she believes it began around the age of four.
It became regular when she was 11 years old – whenever her mum left the family house in Warwickshire – and continued until she left home at 19.
Jane tried to move on with her life and relocated to North Yorkshire, enjoyed a career as a bank manager, got married and had several children.
But the abuse still plagued her and eventually, with the help of a councillor, Jane reported her ordeal to Northallerton police station in 2015.
When the case reached Warwickshire, it was assigned to PC Butler – a married dad with more than 30 years of service who came off as ‘a little over-familiar’ but ‘very supportive’.
Jane was going through an ‘awful, stressful’ time and this made her vulnerable to ‘disproportionately’ relying on Butler.
She said: ‘My family was struggling with what was happening, my second marriage was breaking down, and there were times I felt Alan was the only person I could turn to. I felt he really cared about me.’
Jane said she did not notice the early signs of inappropriateness. The first time she walked into the police station, he apparently said to her: ‘Ooh, you look a lot better than on the video interview’.
On the same day, while he took down her statement about the abuse, she claims he asked her: ‘Did you like the pain?’
He also allegedly told her he could see she was not happy with her husband at the time and supposedly put his hand on her knee while visiting her when she was staying with her brother.
Jane’s ‘furious’ brother confronted her about it, saying Butler’s behaviour was ‘not acceptable’ and ‘totally out of order’.
But Jane did not know what her brother was talking about because she did not even realise the police officer had been touching her.
‘People kept warning me that he was interested, but I couldn’t see it at all,’ she said.
One day, when Jane was at ‘rock bottom’, she collapsed on her brother’s kitchen floor and called Butler – who was all she could think to turn to.
After she opened up to him, he started to leave and then apparently said: ‘Oh God, I was just going to kiss you’ and Jane replied: ‘Well, go on then.’
She said: ‘I didn’t find him physically attractive, but I think I wanted to feel loved.’
From then on, Butler visited Jane regularly and they entered into a sexual relationship.
Jane’s adopted dad, 80 at the time, was jailed for nine years for eight counts of indecent assault against Jane, between 1975 and 1981, in November 2016.
He was acquitted of three counts of rape and two more charges of indecent assault.
Jane decided to break things off with Butler, telling him she wanted a ‘fresh start’. But when the officer told her another woman had reported him, she realised what had actually happened to her.
She said: ‘I just sat there sobbing as I realised I had no choice but to report him, because I knew the chances of the other victim being believed were very slim.
‘He’d told me I was the only person he’d had an affair with, but what if there were others?’
Butler is now serving 18 months behind bars for two charges of misconduct in a public office between 2015 and 2017.
Speaking directly to him, Judge Anthony Potter said: ‘Your offending has had a profound and deep-seated effect on both women.
‘You had cynically made an assessment that if they were to complain, there was every chance their complaints would be disregarded.’
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