RK, aged 16
2009
My friend and I would always order a takeaway from a Church Street takeaway (close to the number 3 pub) as it wasn’t far from my house and we would walk down to pick it up. We were there once a week at least for a few weeks, the staff there were always friendly and we’d chat while we waited for our food. Sometimes they would give us discount or free food. We would sometimes call and order and walk down so it was ready when we got there and I started to get texts from one of the men who worked there, very innocently at first asking how my day was etc. I always wanted to be polite and never thought anything of it, but the texts ended up becoming weirder, he would tell me I was beautiful and send me poetry and say he dreamt of waking up next to me, but he was in easily his 30s at the time I was leaving high school/starting 6th form. I would ignore the texts a lot but I was very scared on how to deal with this situation and felt awful that it had started in the first place. I ended up telling him to fuck off and stop texting me or i’d tell the police and I blocked his number.