Women at Broadmoor used as guinea pigs for male sex offenders, says former patient

A former patient at Broadmoor, the high-security hospital, has told how she and other women were used as guinea pigs in the attempted rehabilitation of dangerous sex offenders and convicted psychopaths.

The extraordinary allegations of sexual abuse and rape are revealed today in an interview given by the former patient. Such disclosures by women are extremely rare, not least because of fears of reprisals and the stigma surrounding any stay in Broadmoor.

The woman, Catherine, (not her real name) was a patient at the hospital for three years. Now living in the community, she has revealed that female patients were ordered to pair up with male offenders at a special event dubbed "the clinical disco" by staff.

The youngest female patients were also frequently "groomed" by paedophiles and then sexually abused.

These revelations come only a week after Julia Wassell, the hospital's former director of women's services, told how she was driven from her job when she reported to her superiors more than 1,000 allegations, including rape, sexual harassment, indecent assault and verbal abuse.

The Independent on Sunday has been campaigning for better treatment for mentally ill people including those in high-security hospitals.

Now aged 55, Catherine was sent to Broadmoor after she set fire to a wastepaper bin in her office and was convicted of arson. Sexually abused as a child, she found herself locked up with men who themselves had been convicted of sexual crimes against women.

"The arson charge came at a time when I was feeling desperation and panic," she said. "I had been a long-term victim of serious abuse and was also separating from my husband.

"It was a cry for help. We now understand women experience post-traumatic stress disorder but in those days they were never asked why they did what they did."

When she was convicted in 1978 at the age of 32, the judge recommended that Catherine should receive therapy, but she was locked up without psychiatric help. "They didn't know when I'd get out. It was a life sentence. I remember feeling totally abandoned – I was going to be punished. But I knew I wasn't a dangerous person, that I was not going to go around setting fire to places.

"There was no point in resisting. We were told what underwear to put on, what to eat, when to wash. The principle behind the system was if you could control your behaviour you could work your way out."

Catherine said that staff failed to take into account the fact many of the female patients had been abused as children and were extremely vulnerable. Women would be put in the same therapy classes as men but were never given details about their backgrounds. "We were dominated by large numbers of male patients. Women became part of the treatment for the men. We had this event called the 'clinical disco' which was compulsory for women. We would be paired off and had to dance with them as part of their treatment process. That's what we were used for. The men would literally be drooling." Catherine alleges staff also allowed male patients to write letters to female patients without censoring the contents. "We would get graphic, explicit letters in the post," said Catherine, who now does voluntary counselling work. "They could sit down and write out their fantasies. We were locked up with the perpetrators of abuse and had to go through the whole process of victimisation again.

"The men would do the most appalling things. They worked in the kitchens and would call out of the window 'Don't eat the rice pudding – they've masturbated in it.' And you wouldn't know if they were telling the truth. There was a swimming pool but we stopped going because the men would masturbate as they watched us.

"The men were protected by the system and the women didn't matter. I know a woman who was raped by a male patient and it was said to her, 'Who is it going to matter to?' The staff just told us not to take any notice. It was like we were not worth protecting. Yet only a minority of women had been through the criminal justice system. Most of the women are a danger to themselves, not to others. Self-harm is a serious problem."

After Broadmoor, Catherine was transferred to a psychiatric hospital in London for three months then to a half-way house hostel. There she was raped and badly beaten by one of the male lodgers.

"By then, I'd become immune. I dealt with the rape by allowing it to disappear out of my consciousness. The only good thing to come of that was I was moved out of the hostel and rehoused. That was my last experience of the mental health system. I never asked for help again. I've had some counselling training, I'm well read – I've dealt with it in my own way. You feel you are at the end of a very long chain."

Since being released, Catherine has found it very difficult to form relationships or to find work because of the stigma of mental illness. She welcomes a recent decision by the Government to move all women out of secure hospitals but says it is too late for some.

"The cemetery where women patients are buried in Broadmoor is behind bars. Even in death they are not free. I can never forget the wonderful, artistic women I met who collapsed under the weight of what happened to them and the fact they were put in this filthy place."