Walking through one day in the 1980s, spotted a familiar face in the crowd, a face that triggered memories of a sex assault that had happened to her 20 years earlier, when she was just 16.
Back then the man, a drama teacher, had told her no one would believe the word of a mere “schoolgirl” against his if she told anyone about the assault. Now, she seized her chance to confront him about what he had done. She walked up, stopping him in his tracks as she said: “Do you remember me? You should do, you threatened to rape and murder me in Sefton Park. I’ll never forgive you.”
Alison, 78, describes the sexual assault and the later encounter with her attacker in her new autobiography. She also tells how after landing a TV role on Z Cars in the 1970s she was by a director and then sexually assaulted by a member of the crew.
She went on to have a successful stage and screen career, her hits including Abigail’s Party, Pride and Prejudice, Fat Friends and Gavin & Stacey. But memories of the bullying and sex assaults were a “constant weight”. Growing up in Liverpool, Alison began to attend a youth theatre club, where all the regular teachers were brilliant and she “felt safe”. But there would be visiting tutors and for a few weeks a teacher from a local school took charge and was “extremely funny” to win over the class.
He offered Alison a lift home but even though she initially refused, he insisted and she felt too embarrassed to say no. After getting into his tiny bubble car, instead of going to Anfield, where she lived, he drove to Sefton Park, deep into the dark, isolated woodland area.
He grabbed her hands before groping her as he described in graphic sexual detail what he wanted to do to her. When she threatened to tell other people at the youth theatre, he replied: “Who do you think they will believe? A schoolgirl or me?” He also told her: “I could do whatever I want with you now. I could murder you and dump your body in the park. No one would know it was me.”
After a terrifying hour, he drove her home as if nothing had happened. And Alison did not tell her parents because she feared they would stop her going to the youth theatre. Reflecting on that in her book, she writes: “My youthful decision not to tell anyone had locked part of me away and I chose to remain quiet, haunted by, ‘Who do you think they’d believe? A schoolgirl or me?’.
“We can put in place as many safeguards as we like, but... as long as that admired person, that trusted person, that successful person, that funny person... is able to subtly infiltrate and embed themselves, before making their clearly calculated strike, then there is a risk.”
After landing a TV role on Z Cars in the 1970s, Alison was bullied by a female director who was so critical of her acting in front of the cameras, Alison would cry before going to work. Things got even worse when she accepted a lift from a crew member. He took a detour and pulled into a side lane, then “tried every way to touch me up”. She writes: “I could practically hear him say, ‘You know you want it’, which I most certainly did not. It was terrifying.”
When Alison shouted at him to stop, he drove off at speed, dropping her at the nearest train station. Reflecting on the sex assaults and the bullying, she writes: “The shame and the embarrassment that I’ve borne has been a constant weight. This and my time on Z Cars have remained clear memories that have disturbed my peace of mind.
“Like the Z Cars director, bubble car man went on to lead a successful and high-profile life and it had been
troubling to have seen both of them move on without a care to the damage that they had caused by their
reprehensible behaviour.”
Out Of Character, Alison Steadman, out now, published by HarperCollins
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