Hope is the Key: Autistic Rape Survivor Recounts His Journey to Light

David Harris poses for a portrait in a subway in Kingston. Photograph: Soham Mitra, November 2022

A closed bike shed was David’s first street home. It was dark. It was damp. The floor went missing under piles of old litter. But it was safer than home.

The freedom did not last long, though. One day, while making food in the shelter, cooking fume revealed his location, and he was subsequently caught and returned. According to the police, the streets were unsafe for a boy of 9.

David Harris, 53, once an autistic rape victim, is now a torchbearer of hope for homeless people. For the last 8 years, he has helped at least 300 rough sleepers find places to stay. Oftentimes, the rescued were survivors of violence and abuse.

The man, who once tried to end his life by inhaling toxic car fumes, now influences lives to help manage trauma and addictions.

“My job? I can’t explain! I love it. It’s a passion of mine. It’s what I want to do forever,” he exclaims.

David was abandoned by his biological father almost immediately after birth. He grew up with his mother and stepfather.

David fell prey to sexual abuse at the age of 7.

His parents used to hang out on weekends and his uncles used to babysit him. One of them was the culprit. For the man, it did not take long to force the minor.

The abuse continued until the youngster ran away to live on and off the streets. Being autistic made it awkward for him to reach out for help.

Subsequently, amidst the concern for safety by social services, he was taken to Grafton Close, a children’s home in Hounslow.

But there, a manager was aware of his troublesome childhood. One night, while asleep in the dormitory, David found himself being carried to the manager’s flat. He was molested again. Soon, it became customary for him to be got drunk and raped regularly.

At the age of 17, he was finally able to leave the children’s home but not his troubles. He was violated again while living with a foster family.

To deal with the agony, he started abusing himself with alcohol and Class-A drugs. Before being put into prison, David was living in a skip that belonged to a supermarket and survived on the food they threw away at the day’s closure.

But the traumatic past could not turn his life into ashes. He decided to fight back by seeking justice.

It may have taken him 40 years to speak out, and he may have fainted at the police station while reporting the incidents, but that was the first step in redirecting his life towards the light. He became a phoenix.

David says, “If it wasn’t my past, if it wasn’t that dreadful, if it wasn’t that journey— it wouldn’t make me the person I’m today. It could make me a monster; it could make an angel!”

After fighting legal battles for five years, he has won a five-figure compensation last year. His dream now is not a luxurious trip to the Mediterranean, but to establish an online support network for other homeless and historical abuse victims.

But how he was introduced to outreach work? David recalls it was a typical doomed day in his life eight years ago. He lost his job, was depressed and lying drunk in a dark corner of his home.

But then his elder son came to take him to Kingston for fresh air. They went for a stroll along the Thames and did some shopping. There, he encountered a homeless man sleeping rough in an alley. Like an electric shock, memories of him as a runaway kid flashed back. “It was my wake-up call,” David says.

“I’m a social worker with a life history. People tell me their stories— how, why, when— but nothing these days shocks me because I’ve seen that, I’ve done that. I’ve done addictions, done all the odds. That’s what makes me good at my job,” he further adds.

He goes to people living on the streets and tells his story. It motivates them to realise being on the streets, sunk in alcohol and the trauma of an abusive past does not mean the end of the world.

“Such was one young adult”, David recounts. It is an incident from his early days as an outreach worker. His team found a drunk man sleeping rough. By then, he had been on the streets for 3 to 4 weeks.

A couple of years before that, the boy was lost and desperately wanted to return to his family. But as he did not have money, stole a vehicle. Unfortunately, the man also allegedly killed someone in an accident way back home.

Serving a term in a prison cut him off from the world. With the support of David’s team, he gradually transformed into a life of education and work.

David remembers the moment the person got reunited with his family. He returned to bid goodbye. But his throat choked up and his eyes overflowed. “Ahh! It’s tears, tears of joy,” he recalls.

After years of turmoil, David, too, now finds solace in the warm company of his children and grandchildren. He feels relieved to think “nobody is going to abuse me anymore!”

His family and outreach work, today, comprise the world to him.

He adds, “With willpower, with great family support, friends’ support, if you want to change, you can always. Never suffer in silence.”

“Hope is the key thing in my life.”

At an empty café across the river Thames, David halts. It is Kingston again, the place which brought light to his life, the place where he started outreach works.

After days of downpours, it is a sunny day. The morning beams glorify the wrinkles on his face. Adventurers are exhilaratingly flying past on speedboats. Seagulls are nestling together.