A CARE worker who reported a man to police over “nuisance messages” about sexual abuse he claimed to have endured as a teenage boy in the early 1990s was arrested herself for the alleged offences, a jury heard at the opening of her Royal Court trial yesterday.
Donna Bentley (53) denies a string of alleged historical sex offences committed against a boy under the age of 16: four counts of procuring an act of gross indecency and two counts of indecent assault.
It is said that the defendant, then in her 20s, committed the alleged offences while the boy was sleeping.
The case against Ms Bentley – now a registered care manager working in the Island – opened on Monday morning.
Crown Advocate Carla Carvalho, prosecuting, told jurors that the case involved “historical sexual abuse by an adult on a teenage child”.
“We say that the defendant, who was an adult woman, took advantage of the complainant at a time when he could not lawfully consent to any sexual activity with an adult,” she said.
Decades spent “ruminating” on his childhood eventually led to the complainant reaching out to Ms Bentley via social media, the prosecutor added.
“When Covid hit, at the start of March 2020, he was drinking excessively and wanted an answer for what he then understood to be the abuse.
“He contacted the defendant on [social media] and confronted her about the abuse, and he invited her to speak with him before he went to the police,” she said.
When Ms Bentley agreed to meet up “to see what this is about”, the complainant responded: “You know what this is about – it’s been bothering me for years.”
She reported the complainant to the police for “nuisance messages”, but was arrested herself in relation to the alleged offences.
Giving evidence, the alleged victim was asked by Advocate Carvalho to describe his appearance at the time of the indictment period.
“I was a very small teenager,” he told jurors. “Small in stature, slight build, probably weighed no more than 50 or 55 kg.”
The complainant claimed that, after having sexual intercourse with Ms Bentley, she then “forced” him to continue touching her.
He described himself as having been “sandwiched” up against a wall and that there “wasn’t really much room” to move.
“There was really nowhere for me to go. I just felt under pressure to continue what she sort physically instructed me to do,” he said.
“At that point, I was beginning to feel pressured and not wanting to be there anymore, and just a little bit inferior if I’m honest.
“I was a boy, I had no experience and a woman had just… forced me to be doing physical stuff.”
He stated that he eventually told Ms Bentley that he needed to go to the toilet “as an excuse to get up and away from her”.
“Where did you go?” asked Advocate Carvalho.
The complainant said that he then “hid”, going on to tell the court: “…I just couldn’t possibly think what more I could do to pleasure her, or entertain her.
“I just wanted to get away from her at that point – I was scared.”
The alleged victim told jurors that Ms Bentley targeted him on a second occasion some time later, in “what was almost a mirror image” of the previous alleged incident.
He told the jury that he attempted to tell the defendant to leave because he “had school in the morning”.
“I just wanted it to stop,” he said. “It made me feel inferior, and small, and scared – I felt like I was used.”
He told the court that had subsequently struggled to come to terms with what he alleged had happened to him.
“I sort of wore it as a badge of honour,” he said. “I used to brag about it a little bit; I was so young and naïve at the time that I didn’t register it as sexual abuse until well until my 30s.”
The trial is due to continue this morning. The Deputy Bailiff, Mark Temple, is presiding.
