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The first time Megan O’Brien’s step-grandfather Paul Mundy started abusing her, she was just seven.
It happened in 2007 when school asked for her to be collected early when she banged her head.
Mundy, who married Megan’s grandma before she was born and lived in her family home along with her mum and siblings, went to pick her up and should have helped care for her.
Megan, 26, said: ‘He came and picked me up and took me to the bathroom and said he was going to help with showering me. He then began touching my body inappropriately.’
What followed that first incident was years of abuse that gradually got worse and only stopped when she was 15 and dating someone made her realise his actions were wrong.
Even then, it took another six years before Megan, from Doncaster, went to the police at the age of 20.
She said the abuse would typically begin while she sat on his knee watching Coronation Street and he would put his hand down her pyjama bottoms in front of her family without them knowing.
Mundy, 71, was jailed for 31 years earlier this year after being found guilty of 24 counts of rape and sexual assault against four women – seven counts of sexual assault were against Megan.
At its worst, the abuse happened at least twice a week.
She said: ‘I still struggle if Coronation Street is on TV, it sends me straight back to when I was sat on his knee.
‘He was so confident and calm during the abuse as he knew he could get away with it. The fact he brazenly did it with family around showed how sick he was.’
Sheffield Crown Court heard that Megan thought his actions were ‘normal’ and that he would give her money to keep her quiet.
Knowing that he is behind bars has given her the courage to speak out.
She said: ‘I was scared of him before, but when I saw him in court I realised he was just a fragile old man. I am disgusted by him, and left feeling repulsive whenever I think about him.
‘He dictated my life for over a decade, and I am glad it is no more.’
Speaking about how the man she said once saw her as his ‘golden child’ got away with abusing her in plain sight, Megan said: ‘My grandpa had his own armchair which was placed side on but tilted to face away from the settee where my family would sit in the living room.
‘I would be in my pyjamas sat on his lap facing towards my family, and he would have his hands down my trousers’.
She said neither of them talked while he was carrying out his abuse.
She said: ‘I didn’t say anything to anyone as being at such a young age I didn’t know what he was doing was wrong.
‘Also Mundy and my grandma were all the family my siblings and I had and I didn’t want to ruin that.
‘It became as normal as when someone saw their grandma and would give them a hug, I would see my grandpa, and he would abuse me.’
Mundy moved out when Megan was eight, but he would still call round most weekends and continued the abuse.
She said this escalated to aggressive touching and groping, forcing her hands down his trousers when she was 11.
She said: ‘If I knew my mum was out and he was coming around, I would lie in the living room on the settee as if I was asleep watching TV. I couldn’t deal with facing him, I would enter into fight or flight.
‘I remember him pulling down my shirt and fondling my breast. He would pull down my trousers and inappropriately touch me or put my hands down his trousers.
‘He was so aggressive he would occasionally rip the zips trying to take off my jeans.
‘Then before he would go he would leave the money on the coffee table and leave a £20 note or give it to me on his way out.’
The abuse left Megan a shell of her former self and led to her lashing out at teachers.
But now, waiving her right to anonymity, she wants victims to know they are not alone.
In September 2020 while at university in Leicester, she messaged her mum Julie Wright, 57, telling her what Mundy had done.
Julie was devastated and heartbroken at what her stepfather had done and supported her decision to go to the police.
The CPS initially said there wasn’t sufficient evidence against him, but Megan persisted and he was eventually charged. Another three women came forward to say they had been abused by him and he was put on trial then jailed on May 15.
Megan said: ‘It has been the longest, most drawn-out process of my life, but I am very pleased with the outcome.
‘To be believed by 12 strangers was such a relief.’
She added that she is now in a relationship and is ‘healing and learning’ that not everyone acts the way her step-grandfather did.
