French woman Lydia Goudro posing at home (Image: OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP via Getty Images)
A woman has revealed her 28-year-old nightmare at the hands of her stepfather, during which she was beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted and forced to give birth to six children with him.
Lydia Gourdo, now 62, suffered a reign of terror that began in 1971 when she was locked in an attic when she was just eight years old.
Despite managing to escape the clutches of Raymond Gourdeau on several occasions during the early years of her suffering, French authorities repeatedly returned Lydia to her abuser, even as the attacks left her with burns from boiling water and hydrochloric acid.
The abuse continued unabated until his death in 1999 in the quiet village of Crécy-la-Chapelle, near Paris.
Her stepmother, Lucien, was also cruel to Lydia, an ordeal that began in childhood when her mother doused her in boiling water, inflicted third-degree burns, and prevented her from attending school. Daily Star report.
French woman Lydia Gourdo (Image: OLIVIER LABAN-MATTEI/AFP via Getty Images)
Lydia broke her silence about her ordeal in 2008. Speaking to French radio RTL, she revealed that she was sexually assaulted by Raymond Gourdeau “in the morning, evening and night”.
She further revealed that her stepmother, Lucien Gourdeau, was fully aware of the abuse and that she instructed her husband to “get on with it”.
Lucien Gourdo received a four-year suspended prison sentence for failing to stop the abuse, yet Lydia believes the world largely ignored her devastating suffering.
She co-authored a book about her tragic experience with French journalist Jean-Michel Caradec, titled Le Silence des Autres (The Silence of Others), revealing that she only found the strength to speak out after a very similar case of Josef Fritzl came to light the previous year in Austria.
Josef Fritzl also kept his daughter locked up and raped her (Image: Getty Images)
Fritzl held his daughter Elisabeth in captivity for 24 years, subjecting her to comparable abuse and rape, resulting in seven children.
In that case too, despite her pregnancy and visible injuries, neighbours, teachers and social services all failed to detect the abuse or raise any alarm.
In Gourdo’s book, she expressed her desire to meet Elisabeth to console her after suffering and recovering from similar devastating experiences.
Nevertheless, he also criticized the French and international media for initially ignoring his case, whose coverage only emerged in the wake of the Fritzl case.
Today, Gourdou lives in a small village just outside Paris, where she has raised her nine children.
She wears long clothes to hide the acid burn marks on her body, yet she maintains that she faces life one day at a time.
She said: “I live day by day. But I love life. When people complain, I say life is beautiful. I am fighting now. When the bill comes through the door, I am happy. I am here, I exist.”
