‘I told my mum about the abuse, but she didn’t believe me’, says Rebekah Vardy

Rebekah Vardy broke down in tears as she described telling her mother she was sexually abused aged 12 – but her mum didn’t believe her – with the WAG declaring today: ‘Nobody valued me enough to protect me’.

The 41-year-old has spoken for the first time about her experiences of growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness, and revealed that she tried to take her own life at the age of 14 before being shunned by her family.  

She alleges in a Channel 4 documentary that the religion failed to support her through sexual abuse as a child. 

Mrs Vardy said: ‘I told my mum about the abuse that I was experiencing. She cried, but didn’t believe me. From the age of around 12 years old I was being abused and instead of being supported I was blamed, manipulated into believing it wasn’t the best thing to take it to the police.’

She then cried as she spoke about the need to protect her own five children – and give them the childhood she had lost to abuse, finding herself homeless aged 15.

Speaking to Good Morning Britain today she said that she has no contact with her mother. She said: ‘The breakdown in our relationship was the abuse and not being believed’. 

The wife of Leicester and England footballer Jamie Vardy was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness in Norwich, Norfolk, but left at the age of 15, after she was ‘shamed’ for the sexual abuse and she and her family were shunned by the community following her parents’ divorce.

Mother-of-five Mrs Vardy said she was sexually abused by an individual in the community between the ages of 11 to 15, which she says was covered up by ‘elders’ –  senior male religious leaders.

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination with about 8.5million followers worldwide, who believe the destruction of the world is imminent.

They impose a strict moral code on members, including teaching that homosexuality is a sin, and punish those who deviate from their beliefs by ‘disfellowshipping’ them – ostracising them from the community.

Speaking today she said that she was ‘scared of the consequences’ of speaking about sexual abuse due to ‘the fear of bringing shame onto the family’.

Vardy said: ‘I think I realised that I’ve probably only just scratched the surface, I think my story isn’t unique and there’s going to be plenty of others, as have already come out, that will continue to come out.

‘I found this part of my life a bit of an obstacle but I wanted to use this obstacle to create an opportunity to help other people that have been in similar situations and just hopefully show that there’s light at the end of the tunnel.’

Jehovah’s Witnesses are a Christian denomination with about 8.5 million followers worldwide and which believes the destruction of the world is imminent.

They impose a strict moral code on members, including that homosexuality is a sin, and punishes those who deviate from their beliefs by ‘disfellowshipping’ them, ostracising them from the community.

Vardy also says during the documentary that when she was growing up in Norwich, Norfolk, she was shunned by the community, alongside family members following her parents’ divorce.

She claims she told her mother, her family and the Jehovah’s Witness community about the abuse and a meeting was called when she was a teenager.

Vardy told GMB that talking to her mother about the abuse was the ‘most harrowing experience’ and led to her becoming a ‘bit of a crazy rebellious teenager’ and a ‘breakdown’ in their relationship.

When asked about the long-term psychological effects, the mother-of-five also said: ‘I’ve created part of myself that is really strong now. I have a lot of barriers. I’m quite unemotional. I’m not a very emotional person.

‘I think a lot of that has to do with what I went through in my past … It was an obstacle in my life and I want to use my experiences to help other people.’

Vardy also recalled feeling ‘isolated and lonely’ as well as being ‘bullied quite badly as a child, because we were made to feel different’.

She said: ‘We had to stand out from everyone else, and have really strong (faith) but I lost so much time in my childhood, because of this religion and it wasn’t pleasant.’

Vardy added: ‘My advice to myself would have been keep fighting, the truth will come out in the end and never ever, ever give up.’

In the documentary Mrs Vardy returns to Norwich, where several members of her family still live as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and with whom she has had little contact since leaving the community.

She says: ‘I was brought up in a strict and controlling religious organisation.

‘What happened to me during my childhood still affects me every single day.

‘I told numerous members of my family, Jehovah’s Witness community, and they called a meeting, I think I was about 15, it was suggested that I had misinterpreted the abuse for a form of affection.

‘I knew that I hadn’t, I was well aware of what was right and what was wrong, and it was explained that I could bring shame on my family, and I was basically manipulated into believing it wasn’t the best thing to do to take it any further and take it to the police.

‘It’s hard to see how I survived that.’

Mrs Vardy recalls a childhood without Christmas or birthday celebrations, in line with the religion’s beliefs, with bible studies and visits to the Kingdom Hall, the religious centre of worship for Jehovah’s Witnesses.

As a child Mrs Vardy said she believed she would die at Armageddon if she was not ‘perfect’ and recalls ‘upsetting’ images shown to her depicting the end of the world, which still cause her nightmares as an adult.

Visiting the Kingdom Hall where her congregation gathered, and where her grandfather was an elder, Mrs Vardy said: ‘You would have to do things to keep Jehovah happy, because he was always watching.

‘Who you spoke to, how you spoke, how you dressed, how you held yourself, how you conducted every part of your whole life, and we were told if we didn’t pray enough, bad things would happen to us.’

Mrs Vardy said she knew her family was different from an early age, and their faith caused her to be bullied and picked on at school.

At home her parents’ relationship was difficult, with elders regularly called to their home to ‘calm down’ arguments.

Mrs Vardy said when she was 11 years old her family were shunned by the community after her parents’ divorce.

Mrs Vardy said relatives and friends were forbidden from associating with her family, which contributed to her ‘resentment’ of religion and her parents.

‘I think that’s where my real resentment to religion started, was being made to feel so bad, so different,’ she said.

In the documentary Mrs Vardy also meets former members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, including a victim of child abuse and the mother of a man who died by suicide after being expelled by the organisation.

Vardy described the experience of revisiting her past as an ’emotional rollercoaster’.

She told reporters: ‘I had closed Pandora’s box and didn’t want to revisit that.

‘I went into this thinking this was going to be quite easy and actually, wow, it was a real challenge.

‘It was an emotional rollercoaster.

‘I have never been so open and personal about my experiences but also to discover other people who had been through similar experiences, witnessed similar things, if not worse, and to hear their stories, I just think they’re incredibly brave for being prepared to speak out.’

Asked whether making the documentary had given her closure on what she experienced as a child, Vardy said: ‘Definitely. I think this chapter has closed.

‘It already really was, but I really wanted to do this when Channel 4 approached me, because I was fascinated by it.

‘Knowing that I had a voice, knowing that my voice could help and hopefully there will be more people who come forward to share their experiences.’

Rebekah Vardy: Jehovah’s Witnesses and Me, is on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight.