You have kept this largely to yourself. Other than the police, I am one of the only people you have told. You have kept it from your own parents, as you fear you will bring them shame and they may never look at you again in the same way.
For this reason, and so you cannot be identified, I have omitted a number of crucial details from this article. But this is not to say that I don’t think you need to share this with your parents. You are vulnerable with low self-esteem and you have been through a horrific ordeal. Right now, you desperately need emotional support, not from me, but from those closest to you.
Regardless of moral standards, religion, or other family expectations, I cannot imagine a loving mother and father turning their backs on you now if you tell them the truth. As a first step, I think you should speak to a trained victim support group, so I have provided you with some contact details.
Your police case is now being treated primarily as a rape inquiry, but with my involvement, your bank and TSB have separately been working to help retrieve your life savings.
Your bank has helpfully provided its own version of what happened. When you transferred the initial chunk to the man’s TSB account, it blocked the payment and presented you with a scam warning. You were asked to call the bank to authorise the transaction. You told the bank you were making a payment to a family member, which it accepted and you sent the funds.
When you transferred the second chunk of money a few weeks later, it was not flagged as suspicious. This is because it was to the same TSB account that you had already told your bank belonged to a family member.