BBC's Nicky Campbell speaks to daughter of his alleged abuser in moving interview
22.02.2023 - 15:09
/ ok.co.uk
The daughter of an alleged serial child abuser has said she cannot bear the fact his “blood is inside me” after hearing claims brought by BBC presenter Nicky Campbell. Hamish Dawson worked at the Edinburgh Academy in the 1970s and was accused of multiple instances of both emotional and physical abuse on young boys. Last year the Long Lost Family host, 61, who attended the Scottish private school during that time, alleged he had both witnessed and been the victim of abuse that had “profoundly changed my life”.
He also named Dawson, who died in 2009, as one of his alleged abusers. Jenny Pearson, 64, met with the broadcaster in the latest episode of his podcast Different, where he first shared his experiences at the Edinburgh Academy. Ms Pearson, a therapist, was one of many to contact the broadcaster after he first spoke about his experiences and the abuse he had suffered at the hands of her father, who she had been estranged from for years before his death.
“I wanted to reach out because I believe in the truth and I can’t bear secrets and collusion,” she told Nicky, adding that she was “in awe” of his decision to speak out. Ms Pearson and her family moved into the Edinburgh Academy boarding houses when she was seven, though her father was “absent” due to always being “with the boys”, leaving her with her narcissistic mother, who she described as a “screaming banshee”. She told Nicky: “I can say hand-on-heart, I didn’t miss him, but I resented him leaving us with a maniac.
“In photographs I can see both my parents in me, I don’t want to look like my mother, I don’t want to look like my father. “I don’t want their blood in my system, but it is.” “It’s appalling, it’s repulsive, it’s shameful, it’s disgusting. I have spent
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