RECENT correspondence on the so-called witch hunt of elderly personalities accused of sexual abuse (HAS, May 6) shows that some people clearly have no idea of the psychodynamics of child abuse.

My father was abused by a schoolmaster in the early 1920s.

It blighted his whole life until he died at 86.

The only person he ever told was my mother, and she only mentioned it once to me, at which point the effects of this crime on their relationship which I had observed over the years fell into place like pieces of a jigsaw.

All sexual assault, however trivial, is an abuse of power.

In my view, it is only right that victims should be able to break the code of silence enforced by perpetrators, however long after the event.

In contrast to that any financial compensation is quite meaningless.

Name and address supplied.