A 60
year old rapist and paedophile has admitted to raping his two
step-daughters and deliberately infecting them with HIV. He originally denied
the accusations but is now awaiting sentence after changing his plea to guilty
on the second day of his trial this week. He has since developed full-blown
AIDS. One of the girls was about 11 when she contracted the potentially deadly virus.
Her sister was 14. Now one of the girls, now 22, tells how she only found she had been infected
during a routine antenatal blood test when she got pregnant by
her boyfriend.
She said that moment of happiness turned
to devastation when she found out. She knew immediately she had to try to
save her younger sister, still only 12, from the same fate. But tests after her sister was removed from the family home by social services
showed that she, too, had been infected. Shockingly, their mother stood by the man as he accused the girls of lying. The daughter’s only relief has been that her
diagnosis was early enough in her pregnancy for drugs to prevent the HIV being
passed on in the womb, meaning her son was born free of the virus. Read
her story after the cut.
"Mum came home one
day in 2006 when I was 11 with a new man and our world changed forever. Within
a couple of weeks he’d moved in with us and within a couple of months he was
abusing me. My own dad had left when I was a baby and I never knew him. The
dads of my younger sister and brother had both done the same, so we were always
a single parent family. Now we suddenly had a stepdad I thought we’d be a real
family.
At first I was right,
and the new man treated me how I always thought I wanted to be treated. I was
the eldest and I was used to the younger ones getting all of mum’s attention.
But my stepdad bought me a new phone and clothes and gave me cash. Then one day when I was
12, mum was in the kitchen doing tea when he told me to sit next to him on the
sofa and suddenly kissed me. I was shocked and told him to stop but it only
spurred him on. That was the start.
I’d been in the bath one
night a few weeks later and he knew I’d be getting ready for bed so he came
into my room. I tried to tell him to leave but he forced me down on to the bed
and ripped my towel away before raping me. I had no choice. I was terrified. After that, he made
excuses for me to sleep in his bed with him every night and told mum to sleep
with my little sister in case she had nightmares. He bought me a ring which he
told me to wear like an engagement ring as if I was his fiancée, not his child.
Then one month, I started
getting bad stomach pains I was 13 and pregnant. He said I’d been sleeping
around at school and made me have a secret abortion, then took the scan
pictures from me. Neighbours and family
members suspected something was going on but my mum never believed it. Maybe if
someone had listened it wouldn’t have happened to my little sister as well. When the police and
social services came to the house, I wanted to tell them what was happening but
they only ever interviewed me in front of him and I was too scared to say. Now
I wish I had.
When I fell pregnant
with my partner’s baby, I was happy at last but when the midwife said I was HIV
positive my world fell apart. The abuse had stayed a secret for so long. In
that moment everything came back to punch me in the stomach. I felt disgusting,
dirty and inhuman. I knew instantly I’d got
it from him because just two weeks earlier he’d been rushed to an AIDS unit in
London.
I remembered thinking I
didn’t care if he died now I’m facing my own life sentence. I wasn’t just
sickened by the things he’d done, but also by myself for being infected with
this virus. I knew now it would all come out and it was a mixture of fear and
relief. I told my boyfriend to
leave me and for his family to leave me alone. I felt sickened and disgusted by
myself so I imagined they felt the same. But amazingly they said they still
loved me and have stuck by me.
Now my mum’s partner has
admitted what he did we can move on. But I take each day at a time and try not
to think about what the future holds. I always hoped and
prayed he hadn’t got to my little sister, but once I knew what he’d done to my
future I had to get her away from him. I couldn’t let him ruin my baby sister’s
life like he had my own. I knew in that moment I had to make the police and
social services believe what he had done.
When I heard her test
results I filled with a rage like I’ve never felt. I was screaming and
shouting, my boyfriend and his mum had to hold me down, I was just
inconsolable. Who can rape a child and ruin their entire future by giving them
one of the most dreaded diseases in the world? He’d already given us
both a life sentence mentally because we can never forget what he did but now
he has given us a physical life sentence too.
At the moment my sister
is too young to understand what she has or why she has it – she just knows she
has “funny blood” but it’s only a matter of time. When the time comes I’m
the only other person in the world who will understand how she feels. Police had to keep us
apart when he was arrested to make sure we didn’t talk to each other to match
up our stories. When he changed his plea
to guilty, I was relieved not just because of the result but because it meant I
could see her again. Now all this is over I’m going to be there for her until
the end.
When the abuse first started
I didn’t tell my mum because I wanted to protect her. I thought if she knew she
would blame me, or it would cause the family to break up and she would be sad. But she took me to bingo
one night when I was 18 and as we were getting on the bus suddenly I was really
conscious we’d left my little sister alone with him so I told mum everything. I
told her I was worried he would do it again. She said I was making it up.It
felt like the biggest betrayal. I had plucked up the courage but she was
choosing him over me.
I don’t have anything to
do with my mum any more. We don’t live far away from each other so we still see
each other at family events but I can’t forgive her for not believing me. I
have my partner’s mum now, who is more of a mother to me. My sister has been
taken into care so she has foster parents now." When the CPS discussed
charges, they wanted to get him for giving us HIV but that falls under the
bracket of GBH.
Rape carries a greater
punishment so they went for that instead, but I think he should have got
manslaughter. He has put lives at risk
for his own sick pleasure. He should never get out. I’d tried so hard to put
the rape and abuse behind me so that I could start my own family and have a
chance at happiness. But now he has me right where he wanted me – with a
life-long reminder of what he did to me. All I wanted was to bond
with my son and have the kind of family I’d missed out on because of the abuse
and neglect.
But from day one, it was
impossible. I had to have a Caesarean so I didn’t pass it on to him during the
birth, then I wasn’t allowed to breastfeed. From day one I was
terrified of cutting myself or having even a little scratch and going near him
in case I made him ill. As he’s grown older it’s
become even more heartbreaking. I see him take a tumble and graze his knee and
my maternal instinct tells me to go straight to him and kiss it better – but I
can’t. I have to put on rubber
gloves or let my partner or someone else go to him.
He is too young to
understand so he just thinks I’m not going to help him. All of this is because
of that man. I live day to day and I
always believe that if and when I get ill from the virus I will take it as it
comes. I’m grateful every day
that I fell pregnant because the blood test probably saved me from getting
much more ill. I’m on medication so
things are under control for now, and most importantly my son is happy and
healthy. He hasn’t got to my boy
and now he never will.
The
judge at Canterbury Crown Court warned him to expect an indeterminate sentence
after he confessed to a string of crimes ranging from rape of a child under 13
to sexual assault and attempted rape.
Source: Daily Mirror
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