Alice was wrapped in a blanket, still grubby from birth. It was in that delivery room that I held her close to my face and introduced myself as her Daddy. I told her she was safe in my hands, that I would love and protect her and she would never come to any harm. Little did I know then, just how my promises to Alice would be put to the test.

Peter and I had been friends from childhood. We grew up together, until he decided to join his family in the Far East where his parents had become full time missionaries. During the time Pete was abroad, I met and married Rachael and eventually we moved to Chester to help establish a new church work there. It wasn't long after our move that Alice was born. I can remember taking her out in the pram for the first time, and on entering the local store, being instantly besieged by doting ladies wanting to know her name, weight, height and other vital information that I could not remember the answers to. Like any doting father I wanted to show off the precious gift we had been given.

After living in Chester for a couple of years, we moved to Somerset where I started up my own business. By the time our second daughter and son were born I heard that Pete was returning to the UK and needed work and a roof over his head. So I gave him a job and the Pastor of the church agreed to let him move into an empty attic room in their house. It was great to have him back and it took no time to re-kindle our friendship. We laughed at the same things, liked the same kind of music and we even had similar tastes in food. I treated Pete like a brother and he often baby-sat for us, especially on a Sunday night when my wife and I went to church.

I couldn't believe it when, having moved in with another couple as a lodger, he was then suspected of having an affair with the wife of the couple. At the time both Pete and the woman vehemently denied anything had happened but the following summer it all came out in the open and Pete left the church. Having been convinced by Pete's initial denial I was stunned and saddened by what had happened and that I'd lost a good friend in such circumstances. However, unbeknown to me at the time, what had happened was only the tip of the iceberg.

About a year later Pete asked to see me to apologise for the pain and mess he'd caused and thankfully I was able, somehow, to convey to him that neither my wife nor I held any malice towards him for what had happened. I didn't speak to Pete after that and his name wasn't mentioned again until the Spring of 2002, a day I shall remember for the rest of my life!

It was a wet Sunday afternoon and I was sitting at my computer when Rachael rushed in saying ''Guess what Alice has just told me?' Normally I would have muttered a quip under my breath, but judging by my wife's distressed state I realised this was serious. Rachael, Alice and her friends had been watching our wedding video and when asked who Pete's parents were, Rachael explained, 'that's Pete's parents. You know Pete who used to work for Daddy'. Alice then dropped the bombshell ''he used to touch me mummy, you know…….''.

Boom! Our world stopped! It was like a scene from 'The Matrix'. I was a spectator, watching my life crash round me. Then I did what I do best in a crisis, I pulled myself together and went into 'robot mode'. I wanted facts, information; I told myself not to panic and that I must process things clinically and calmly. I had to stop the spread of this disclosure at all costs, but this was my daughter, my baby, whom I had promised to protect. My reaction was typical of most caring parents but in wanting to 'make things better' for Alice' I was inadvertently sweeping everything under the carpet.

When I was alone with Alice, she confirmed what she had already told my wife and asked me to promise two things. Firstly, that I wouldn't go after Pete and secondly I wouldn't go to the police. Instinctively I agreed to her request not realising that these were the very promises I would later have to retract.

About a year before, my wife and I were helping out with the Sunday School at church and we were asked to attend a training seminar about keeping children safe. We didn't really know what to expect, but when we got there the people running the seminar explained, amongst other things, how we should respond to a child we suspect may have been abused, by recognising possible signs or by the child directly sharing their experiences. From my time in the police I knew about the legalities of investigating an allegation of abuse but this was different. I realised that the Christian principles I rightly embrace concerning love, mercy and forgiveness, should not stop me from reporting an allegation of sexual abuse to the authorities. It was explained this is because if the allegations turned out to be true it was a serious crime, not simply an internal church discipline matter. We were instructed that if we ever had concerns about a child or a child disclosed abuse, we must go to the lady in our church who was to become our Child Protection Co-ordinator. There was an awful lot to take in at the training seminar, so I just figured in the event of this happening, though I doubted it ever would, I would follow instructions!

Eventually my emergency coping strategy crumbled, giving way to confusion and anger. Should I confront him? Should I just forgive and forget? In actual fact I didn't have a lot of choices. If I am honest, I did go down the road of revenge and yes, there were times I wanted to blow his brains out, but then I remembered my promise to Alice and the pain and agony both Alice and my wife were experiencing. I then remembered the training I'd received and decided to speak to our church Child Protection Co-ordinator. She was brilliant! She was very reassuring and explained that our first priority was Alice's immediate safety and helping her through the ordeal. For the next few weeks, apart from just being there for Alice, we fasted and prayed, read our bible and earnestly sought a road to healing for our daughter and our shattered world.

Not long after that, I was trawling through a TV guide and noticed a programme was going to be shown about sex offenders. With mixed emotions I sat down and watched it and out of all the information in the programme, one big question started to nag at me; ''What if Pete is still abusing children and I could have done something about it but didn't?'' The problem was, I had promised Alice I wouldn't take the matter any further, but equally I realised, for the sake of any other children he might come into contact with, I needed to report the matter to the police. In turmoil I turned to my Pastor for help. As I have already said, I was used to problems being dealt with 'in-house', but after reassuring me that he and the Child Protection Co-ordinator were the only people in the church who knew about it, to my surprise he then said ''well, in situations like this we need to listen to the advice of the experts. CCPAS tell us we need to report this kind of thing to the police''.

The next hurdle was speaking to Alice to explain that I had to retract one of the promises I made to her. Later, as we sat in the garden together, I told Alice that whilst I wouldn't personally go looking for Pete, he could still be hurting children and I therefore needed to speak to someone. What I did find surprising initially was Alice's concern for Pete, whether he would end up in prison and she felt bad she might be getting him into trouble. I know now this reaction is not uncommon and I tried to reassure her that although it would be painful for all of us we would, with God's help, come through the experience intact.

Feeling very nervous, I made the call to Social Services. The social worker was very pleasant but did spell out to me that the only way to find the answers to my questions was to get Pete to stand trial in court. First of all she said she would come and meet Alice to establish whether there was enough evidence to arrange an interview with the police. When the social worker came she reassured Alice she was not in any kind of trouble and she was doing the right thing in bringing it out in the open. I also remembered at that time, that Pete had lived with the Pastor and his family and I felt a responsibility to explain to them what was happening. When eventually the police interviewed them it came out that Pete had also regularly touched their oldest girl but she had not had the courage to speak up.

Alice, Rachael and I met the police at a special suite where Alice's interview could be recorded. She was interviewed on her own, which was awful because we could hear her sobbing at one point but couldn't go in to the room to comfort her. When we found out the extent of what Pete had been doing to Alice I would have found it quite easy to have put a gun to his head again. They were very low times for us all.

Eventually Pete was arrested and charged albeit amidst denial, counter-claim and cover-up and we knew we now faced the prospect of a painful and unpleasant court case. Despite the fact Alice was suffering from sickness and diarrhoea on the day, she blew us away when she said to us ''we've come this far, I'm going to give evidence no matter what''. I am so proud of Alice. As expected it was a gruelling experience because apart from Alice giving evidence both Rachael and I were also intensively cross-examined. However, if you were to ask Alice now what any other child facing the same situation should do, she would say without hesitation they should do what she did.

One of the most disturbing things that happened during the trial, apart from the giving of evidence, was the reaction from Pete's friends and family. On the third day when it was Pete's turn in the witness box, I saw them outside the court chamber in a group, singing choruses with their hands raised and, unbelievably, praying against us. At that moment I could do nothing else but trust God that the lies and deceit would be exposed. Amazingly as the trial continued Pete's defence collapsed and he was sentenced to 15 months in prison, banned from working with children for the rest of his life and placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

Despite the behaviour of Pete's family and receiving a vitriolic letter from a group of Pete's friends pronouncing God's judgement on us, we know we did the right thing. It was horrendous, but together we managed to stop Alice's experiences happening to another child. The teaching and training we received from CCPAS was our means of support both directly and in the way our church handled the whole situation. How much more difficult it is for those who contact CCPAS who don't receive the degree of support from their leadership and, in some cases, face the attitudes displayed by those who attended a prayer meeting in the court!

(The places and names in this article have been changed to protect the identities of those involved)

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