Jeremy Kyle is pretty icky viewing at the best of times, but fans of the show were truly “sickened” when a young girl appeared on the show to talk about a particularly horrific experience in her life.
Brave Becky Herbert took to the stage to open up about how she had been raped as a child – by her own father.
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“It started [the abuse] when I was nine, turned into full rape when I was 11,” Becky explained.
“He told me it was our little secret and that I was his until I was married.”
To start with, the “thought of the family splitting up” stopped Becky from telling anyone about the abuse and it was until much later when was 16 and she was attending a religious getaway that the truth came out.
“When I was 16 and a half I wrote it in a diary and showed a friend at Christian camp,” she said.
As a result, she finally decided to share her secret and her father David Manning was jailed in 2010 for seven accounts of sexual abuse including rape; he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
However, he only ended up serving a shocking four and a half years.
But viewers were in for an even bigger shock.
According to Becky, she had been disowned by her mother for sharing her story.
And to this day her mum is adamant that Becky didn’t tell the truth in court.
Although she refused to appear on the show, Becky’s mum issued a statement that read: “Rebecca has the right to tell the facts of what happened but she has lied and exaggerated.”
And it turns out even though her father was found guilty, her mum has continued to see him.
“She’s still with him,” Becky revealed. “She visited him in prison. She told me to consider myself an orphan because I wanted to get my story out.”
It was this shock twist in the story that had viewers up in arms.
One viewer raged: “Brought humiliation on the family? She’s not the rapist. Sickening, truly sickening,” while another said: “My heart goes out to that girl on #jeremykyle, dad abused her and mum stuck up for him.”
Another viewer, moved by Becky’s story, commented, “What father rapes his daughter. She’s so brave! I’m in tears!”
At the end of the show, Becky urged other boys and girls going through similar experiences to make sure they tell someone.
“To everyone who’s going through abuse please speak out,” she said. “You can’t be ashamed, just speak out.”