A devastating report will this week expose the scale and impact of child sexual abuse across the UK.

Researchers have found that abuse is widespread across all communities and social classes – and believe it has been perpetrated in schools and other institutions much more widely than previously thought.

The report – obtained by The Mail on Sunday – is based on the biggest archive of evidence by abuse victims and survivors ever assembled in this country.

It presents detailed accounts from 50 of the 1,400 people who have so far given evidence to the Truth Project, part of the huge Independent Inquiry on Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) set up by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary.

Researchers have found that abuse is widespread across all communities and social classes – and believe it has been perpetrated in schools and other institutions much more widely than previously thought

Danny, 40: 'Speak out. Staying out eats away at you' Danny Wolstencroft, from Bolton, was abused between the ages of five and ten by his grandfather, who owned a manufacturing firm Danny Wolstencroft, from Bolton, was abused between the ages of five and ten by his grandfather, who owned a manufacturing firm. It drove him to drugs, crime and prison. When he was 32, a drug worker ‘told me he, too, had been abused. That was like giving me a gift – I’d never met anyone who’d told me that – and so enabled my recovery’. Danny turned his life around and set up Shatter Boys, which helps male abuse victims disclose their suffering. ‘People think if they talk about it, their lives will be smashed,’ he said. ‘It’s not true. It’s not disclosing that eats away at you.’ Danny helped design the Truth Project – even its office colour scheme – to make it as easy as possible for others to come forward. He now has a partner and a son. Advertisement

Some have waited decades to tell their stories. The oldest victim who has spoken to the project is 95 and many are in their 70s and 80s.

About a third have described abuse perpetrated at least 50 years ago.

One woman, named in the report as Nancy, told how she was repeatedly raped from the age of five by a farm labourer after she was evacuated from London during the Blitz.

Until now, she had never spoken of what happened.

She told investigators it made her ‘cross that people don’t seem to realise child sexual abuse is not a new phenomenon’, and there were ‘apparently no checks on people who took in evacuees’.

Nabila, 42: 'My imam attacked me at my local mosque' Nabila's parents used to send her to their local mosque in Birmingham for religious instruction from the age of seven. The Bangladeshi imam, Hafiz Rehman, subjected her to escalating sexual abuse for four years, finally attempting to rape her. ‘I used to think about telling my mum every day as I walked home,’ she says. ‘But I was scared. Would she believe me? How could I say such things about an imam?’ Sometimes she avoided classes by hiding in a graveyard. But she kept silent and even today, as a married mother, ‘intimacy seems dirty. If I do start to enjoy sex, I feel I must have enjoyed it when he was doing those things to me’. She went to the police years later, and after a second mosque victim came forward, he was convicted in 2016 and sentenced to 11 and a half years in jail. Astonishingly, Rehman had been on bail and was allowed to stay at home at the end of the trial by claiming he was ill. He had surrendered his UK passport, but had a second, Bangladeshi one – and the day after he was sentenced he fled there, where he remains. Nabila says abuse is rife in Muslim communities, but ‘never discussed, always covered up. The culture is, “we will deal with this, we don’t need anyone’s help” – but we don’t tackle it. There is abuse in almost every Asian family. ‘They get away with it in their own community, and then they target vulnerable white girls. ‘This culture has got to change.' Advertisement

Victims who contact the Truth Project give their accounts to a trained facilitator, with no end in mind other than finally allowing them to speak about what for many has been an agonising secret.

The relief can be enormous.

‘For the first time in 50 years I felt I was believed, one victim said.

‘I was treated with the utmost respect by all involved, receiving counselling before and after from a lovely lady.’

Another said: ‘For 49 years I have had a dark secret which burdened me with feelings of depression, anger, self-loathing and worthlessness.

'The Truth Project provided me with a safe environment to tell my story. I was given a voice that started the healing.’

Patrick, 63: 'I didn't let anyone touch me for 15 years' For decades Patrick Sandford has hid a deeply painful secret Patrick Sandford has had a successful career as a theatre director, actor and playwright. But for decades he hid a deeply painful secret: he was repeatedly abused by a teacher in his last year at primary school. Like many victims, this left him terrified of intimacy: he did not have a relationship until he was 26: ‘I didn’t let anyone touch me for 15 years. ‘I thought I was the most hideous, ghastly person, and I blamed the fact I was homosexual on my abuse.’ When he finally started to talk about it decades later, ‘I realised I’d had two lives – a successful professional one and a private psychological battle’. In 2016, to rave reviews, he wrote and began performing his story in a one-man drama entitled Groomed. Advertisement

Analysis by IICSA shows 53 per cent of witnesses who spoke to the project have so far been women, while 94 per cent of perpetrators were men.

Forty per cent of victims were aged between three and seven when their abuse started and 32 per cent between eight and 11. More than a third endured multiple ‘episodes’ of abuse.

They described a wide range of consequences in later life, including depression (33 per cent), difficulties with trust and intimacy (28 per cent), thoughts of suicide (28 per cent) and actual suicide attempts (22 per cent).

It is often claimed that most sexual abuse takes place within families. But only 28 per cent of witnesses say they were abused by relatives.

Abbie: 'Priest targeted me at 7 but Church didn't want to know' Abbie was abused by a Catholic priest for four years from when she was just seven. A friend of her family, he assaulted her on days when he took her out and when staying at her family’s home. Now in her 50s, she told the Truth Project her ordeal ‘destroyed me as a sexual person’. She has had a successful career and many friends but has ‘never had a serious relationship’, because she says she found sexual thoughts ‘very upsetting’. Although her abuser was in the Church, Abbie has retained her faith and says it is important to her. But her attempts to raise what happened with the Church in her 20s were ‘met with disinterest’, she says. Advertisement

Shockingly, around a quarter were abused by teachers or other educational staff, and a fifth by adult family friends or ‘trusted members of the community’.

Fourteen per cent were abused by members of the clergy, 12 per cent by professionals such as doctors and social workers, and nine per cent by residential care workers.

Rebekah Eglinton, one of IICSA’s clinical psychologists, works closely with the Truth Project. She said: ‘We’re learning that many people have put themselves in positions of trust and authority to have access to children.

'It feels really important that we are here. People tell us again and again how silenced they have felt. This is an opportunity to end that silence and so to hear how we can better protect children.’

Dru Sharpling, the former Crown Prosecutor for London, is the IICSA panel member who heads up the Truth Project. She said some victims’ testimony has been referred to the police, leading to 14 perpetrators being convicted of child sexual abuse so far.

She added: ‘Listening to these accounts can be extremely moving. For some, it’s the first time they’ve disclosed. Others have tried and not been believed.

‘Yet often there were signs when they were still children that something was very wrong – which were not picked up. Sharing these experiences is of inherent value but they will also help IICSA make recommendations to protect children in future.’

The Truth Project continues and those wanting to share their experiences can call 0800 917 1000 or visit truthproject.org.uk.