‘There was a lot of alcohol and a lot of
drugs. The children were a commodity, the highest and more valued
commodity, and used for sex.
‘No child deserves what I went through, or what millions of children go through.’
Children were scared into silence and members of the network killed those who threatened to go to the police.
She told MailOnline: ”I had to do it [the rapes] because there was always the threat of being killed.
‘Children were killed. Boys were more often tortured but girls were killed.
‘I was graphically threatened…it was not something that was talked about.
She added: ‘The children were set against
each other. There were friendships but I tried to keep things as simple
as possible to survive.
‘I really didn’t want to be made a
“favourite” of one of the network because I knew what happened to girls
who got singled out… It created a lot of problems. I tried not to stand
out.’
During the week, she went to school where she described herself as being a ‘nonentity’.
She said: ‘I was a shy girl, with few friends at school, and at home no one cared for me.
‘I received more attention in the network.
It felt good to be viewed as the most perfectly beautiful, sensual
object by powerful men with high standards in taste. This was the only
positive in my life, and I clung to it as my only raft to keep from
drowning in a sea of shame and self-loathing.’
She told MailOnline: ‘When I returned home
for the school week, my parents acted like nothing had happened, so I
took their denial and kept telling myself I was normal.
‘I was so ashamed of what happened to me on weekends that I didn’t want to know.
‘There was another girl who was at school
with me who was being abused in the network but unfortunately I never
found a teacher I could speak to about it. At one point, in 1974, I had a
really bad report card and a teacher I liked yelled at me and I just
remember crying. I wouldn’t have dared to speak out. I was threatened in
a way that I didn’t feel like there was a way out.’
At the age of 11, having spent five and a
half years inside the twisted aristocratic sex ring, it was decided she
was ‘of no use anymore’ and was to be killed.
She recalled: ‘I was strapped to a butcher’s block that was black with all the blood of children that had come before me.
‘One man was forcing five young children to harm me. It was part of their indoctrination.
‘The torture lasted for a few hours. A
burning cigarette was put out on my forearm. My body is full of scars
and every scar reminds me of that moment.
‘I thought that I was going to be killed
like all the children that weren’t loved enough to live and I was going
to be forgotten as well.’
She added: ‘When I was being tortured I
could see the other children didn’t want to do it. While I was being
tortured for most of the time I didn’t feel pain…it was like a body
response to being traumatised.
‘But then later on I did feel it and it felt horrific. But I didn’t want them [the adults] to see me suffer.’
However she was saved when one of her
abusers made a deal with the politician in charge of the peadophile
network while she was tortured.
They made a deal where he would work for the politician in exchange for her being spared.
The man who tortured her was one of the
defendants in the Dutroux case, which, when it broke in 1996, was
believed it would blow up the Belgian pedophile network. But instead,
eight years later, only Marc Dutroux received a life sentence.
But thanks to the agreement, Miss Lucas was never forced to return to the club.
She told MailOnline: ‘After that I went
back with my mother. I felt numb and it was very difficult to live at
home as my mother was unhappy about being unable to punish me anymore. I
tried to please her as much as I could.
‘I left home at 16 and then lived with an
adult who was in his 30s…but soon after I moved in he made clear he
wanted me for sex so I was used for sex again.’
Miss Lucas then moved in by herself,
before leaving Belgium in the 1980s and moving to London, Paris and LA
and ended up settling in New York.
Miss Lucas, who has a 15-year-old
daughter, said: ‘I wish that wasn’t my story and I wish it was
different, but it’s important to speak up and I did spent decades coming
to a place where I felt I was worthy of living.
‘I think the fact you had to [hurt other
children] was the most damaging part as I felt like I was a perpetrator
and not a victim.’
She added: ‘My daughter asked me some
years ago why she didn’t know her grandmother and I told her because she
wasn’t a safe person.
‘Then just last year I told her in general
what had happened. She heard it and a few days later she gave me a hug.
It was very moving.’
Miss Lucas founded Liberation Prison Yoga in 2014 to help other people who had been incarcerated and vilified as a child.
She now runs 30 yoga programmes every week in various prisons that focus on healing.
She said: ‘It’s been a 30 year healing
process and the prison yoga organization is the culmination of my
healing journey, sharing healing modalities with those traumatized by
incarceration. It is very rewarding and empowering work.
‘I have spent my adult life trying to heal from the deep wounds of the past.’
A spokesman for the Federal Police in Belgium said they were unable to comment on Miss Lucas’ claims.