I Had To Do This ownership to Rizwan, Joe and Joe

1. Joe and Rizwan

2. • We have chosen to do our project on a man from England that
was sexually abused at the age of 12.
• His story made us think and was very unique.
Geoff Thompson; now
a Martial arts
instructor, teacher and
author of 34 books. He
had also made a short
movie named ‘Romans
12:20’

3. • Whilst working to earn some money for himself and his
mother, he was confronted my a man he so truly
respected and trusted, his martial arts instructor.
• He said to Geoff that his mother had given him
permission to sleep over at his house and help clean the
aikido mats.
• The martial arts instructor set up a tent in his living room
for him.

4. • When Geoff arrived at His martial arts instructors house
there was no-one there but his instructor.
• Geoff was dragged into the tent and sexually abused.
• Geoff said ‘My martial arts instructor was a charismatic
man who took me under his wing. I was in awe of him
and after a short period of subtle and insidious grooming,
he asked me and some of the other boys to stay over at
the club to help fix the aikido mats. That night I awoke to
the feeling of a hand on my bare leg. The level of the
sexual abuse that followed was not extreme, I was not
raped, but the level of betrayal proved to be catastrophic.
Most of that night is lost to my memory but I remember
waking up the next morning knowing my childhood had
ended.’

5. • He lost all trust from everyone even his closest of
relatives.
• When he was 15 he was kissing a girl on the farmers
field and her face transformed into the man’s.
• He had uncontrollable fantasies and horrors about him.
• Uncontrollable nightmares.
• Never felt safe.

6. • At 28, Geoff became a nightclub bouncer in a bid to
mould a bit of himself spine. He was a man with a lot of
underlying rage and Geoff displaced his anger on anyone
that stepped into his orbit. It took a decade of extreme
violence before Geoff realised that he was out of control.
When he almost killed a man in a car park match fight, he
knew it was time to leave. He wrote a book about his
exploits, left the doors and renounced violence.

7. • During his violent days, Geoff thought forgiveness was
weak and meant letting people off. That changed when
he started teaching forgiveness to his own martial arts
students. Certainly he understood forgiveness
intellectually but didn’t understand it in practice until, one
day, Geoff was sitting in a café and saw his abuser sitting
on the table opposite. For a split second it was almost
like he was twelve again, quivering with fear.

8. • Forgiveness is the only revenge. You can have your day
in court, some people need that, but if you want total
freedom, forgiveness is the only way.
• I came to realise that if someone abused me twenty
years ago and I did not forgive them, they were still
abusing me now, today, in fact they were literally holding
me in stasis. Forgiveness gives you power not only over
the here-and-now and over the future, it also deems you
impervious to your past. It literally allows you to dismantle
historical trauma.

10. • But Geoff walked over to him. He introduced himself and told
him what he had done to him as a child and how it had
affected him. His abuser was a big man, and he tried to stand
up and protest. Geoff put his hand out and told his abuser to
sit down. He obeyed immediately. Geoff told his abuser that
despite what he had done Geoff was going to forgive him. He
told him twice. The abuser looked totally broken. It was as if
Geoff’s forgiveness shattered him. As Geoff went to walk
away, his abuser put his hand out. Geoff hesitated. Geoff
wanted to be free from this man’s memory and he knew that
the only way to be free was to properly forgive him. So Geoff
shook the abuser’s trembling hand. When Geoff walked away
from that cafe he felt the most powerful man in the world.
Geoff had taken all my power back from him.