What happened: Jon Needham’s life was tough from an early age, growing up in a ‘poverty afflicted’ council estate in northern England. His father was imprisoned, and his mother spiralled out of control, suffering a “major breakdown” that required her to be admitted to a guarded facility. Needham was placed in foster care when he was seven years old, which turned out to be the most difficult time of his life and lasted for decades. Back story: For about a year, he was placed in a room with an adult who raped him on a regular basis. “I’d fixate on a distant orange light, because it wasn’t always at night, it was also during the day,” the 46-year-old explained to LADbible. His abuser was a former military man who would barge into the room wearing a gas mask and holding a knife, causing Jon to wet the bed. Needham recalls that he was a ‘nervous wreck’ as a child, and also developed post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of his experiences. “For 20 odd years, I had nightmares of a person with a gas mask and knives going up to my throat,” he added. Later: When his father was freed from prison, Needham ultimately got out of foster care, and he spent his twenties drifting from job to job, feeling lost. After repeated attempts and failures, he finally made it into the police force in 2009. Fighting for rape victims: Jon now works in a lifetime offender management section, where he deals with serious and organised offenders; he is also striving to help his coworkers understand abuse survivors’ experiences, with the goal of establishing a ‘victim survivor ambassador’ in every force in the UK. “Rather than a symbolic box-ticking exercise, they would give victims and survivors a true voice within the service,” Jon explained.