Molly's Story

I was sexually abused for three years from the age of twelve. It was my friend over the road who got me into it, telling me that these men were our friends.

One of the men told me he was gonna kill my dad if I said anything. But my dad was dying of cancer anyway, so I opened up to a family friend and, two weeks before my dad died I let it all out. My friend rang the police and told my mam.

But then my mam put me in care after my dad died. That’s when the anger issues started, because I just couldn’t forgive her for doing that when I really needed her.

When I went in foster care it was like a new routine, and I was part of this family. But I struggled with it. I remember they had to put bars on my window cos I kept jumping out and I broke my leg one time. Then I got sent to a kids’ home and that’s when I went a bit wild, like. I was drinking. Constantly.

I just wanted my mam. I’d been abused for years, I’d just lost my dad and I needed my mam and she weren’t there. Her other two kids got to stay home with her but I had to go into care. I still don’t know why my mam was like that with me. So I ended up blaming her for everything – for the abuse, for my dad dying, for letting me go into care. My social worker said it was cos I looked like my da.

So I was in care and then there was all this media around the case, and I had to go through loads of interviews and it all messed with me GCSE’s. I knew that, if I stayed around there, I’d have ended up dead. So I decided to move somewhere else and start again.

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I moved up here when I was 16. I went to live with a family friend for a bit but, when I was looking back on how happy my dad and my mam were, I thought, there’s got to be someone out there for me. I just wanted to find some happiness.

I’d never been in a relationship before and I don’t even know what I was thinking but I was 16 and I went on this dating site. Because I had nobody there for me since my dad died I had to learn everything for myself. After a couple of video calls and things on the site I ended up meeting someone and before I knew it, I got pulled into a van and abused.

I ended up with nightmares after that, they said it was psychosis. My head just goes.

So I started drinking vodka all the time. The family friend I was living with at the time, she was an alcoholic. But I didn’t know anything about addiction. And she just let me carry on, waking up every morning to vodka. And then it got to the point where I was drinking just anything I could get my hands on. Like, it didn’t matter what it was. I just needed to disappear. It would help me just black out, just feel no pain. There were no feelings, nothing.

And then I met my daughter’s dad.

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I met him on the dating site too. He swept me off my feet and I think I loved him from day one to be honest.

He was three years older than me and we went out on dates. We didn’t sleep together for months, he was just dead loving. He used to come over, I’d cook us food, we’d go on walks with the dogs. It was nice.

I was still drinking, but he just thought it was funny, so I thought, well it must be normal, you know. He smoked a bit of cannabis and was dead laid back but all that changed when we moved in together. That’s when the mental abuse started.

I’d have to stay in the house so I was really isolated. I couldn’t see my friends, couldn’t see anybody. I started college but I quit because of him.

Anyway, I had been told that I couldn’t have kids but then I fell pregnant. I was shocked and upset. And over the moon at the same time. It was like a miracle to me. I did consider an abortion but then I was like, this is the only person that’s gonna love me for me. And I’m gonna love my baby like nobody else loved me.

He came back from a stag do and that’s when I told him.

He tried cutting my belly open, pinned us down. I’ve never seen a man like it. He cut my belly, he tried cutting us open, he took my phone off us and he tried strangling me on the bed. He threw pizza all over. Then he stripped us down so I was wearing nothing.

For 24 hours I was left sleeping on a cold floor, cuts all over us. My arms were slashed from fighting him off when he had a knife. I was black and blue. Broke all my ribs. I thought I was gonna be dead.

When he was asleep, I remembered that I had my college tutor’s number in my phone, so I snuck it out from under his pillow and rang my tutor, whispering so he couldn’t hear us.

My tutor told me to get out, to just run and run. And he drove over to get me. I ran naked down five flights of stairs. Fucking hell. I just ran. My tutor was just pulling up in the car when I got out the door. He rang the police, covered me in a blanket he had in his car and took me back to the college office and offered me a cuppa but all I wanted was vodka.

My partner got arrested, and it took 24 hours for me to get any of my clothes back.

The hospital confirmed that he’d broke both sets of my ribs, I couldn’t open my eye, it was out here by this point, and I had cuts all over.

They had to do an emergency scan of the baby. All was okay. I was a lot further than I thought. And I found out they were twins.

Then I spoke to someone from the domestic violence line, they said I needed refuge.

It all happened so fast.

******

I got an injunction against him but he was on bail and he rang us and rang us and rang us off unknown numbers, his dad’s phone, his mam’s phone. And he begged us.

He rang us this one day and I was so down and my head were fucked to be honest. And he says I’m begging you not to press charges. Court was in two days for him. He was looking at about 15 years, that’s what the copper said to us. I had a solicitor and everything. So I went to court and I didn't press charges. ‘Cause I thought I still loved him.

But there was nobody supporting me, nobody talking to me. I was put in a refuge and basically dumped. No social services or alcohol support. He was all I had. And I was thinking to myself that he still loves us, he’s changed.

So after that, while I was still living in the refuge, we went to a wedding together and stayed in a hotel. I was still drinking at this point. I was five months pregnant and I was mortal if I’m honest.

At the hotel, after the wedding, he strangled us again, like, he didn’t let go. I really thought I were gone. Then he threw me down the stairs. I vaguely remember it. I remember going down. But not how. But obviously the staff in the B&B had seen it and they called the police.

When the police got there they had to use the taser on him and that released his hands from me. I was struggling with my breathing and spitting up blood so I had to go to the hospital. They had to check the placenta. Everything was fine. But they said there was just one baby – not twins as I’d been told before.

That’s also when the police referred me to an alcohol service so I started getting help.

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I don’t know what it was called back in the day, but this woman used to come out, she was like a key worker. And we slowly cut my alcohol down, so I was slowly weaned off it. So by the time I had my daughter I was clean off drink. It was hard. My anxiety came back, my feelings came back. I was like, I don’t like this, you know. Then obviously what he put me through as well, it was just like, I were remembering it every day. When I was drinking all that went away.

But then, on a positive note, I started focusing on baby, and getting everything in ready for her. With my key worker helping, l put all the money I was spending on drink in a jar, and, just before I gave birth, me and my key worker went out and spent it all on the baby. And I got absolutely everything for her. Like, it’s made me think how much I spent on drink and how that could help bring a baby into the world and care for her.

But then social services got in touch and they put her as child in need, putting safety plans in place, obviously cause of her dad.

I got moved into a flat, out of the refuge, where it was like a hidden address. I set it all up, I could even buy furniture and that. I got it ready for my baby coming home, and I had my phone on red alert for when I rang the police and I had victim support. Obviously I had my key worker too, and she’d check in with us every day. I also started having contact with my mum, just over the phone and stuff.

Then they tried giving us counselling for the abuse from when I was a kid. And I done two sessions and I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the right time then. I’ve tried since and it’s just been awful.

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I had my baby on the 13th November, Friday the 13th of all days.

I went home with my baby in her Moses basket and I started getting these pains. They felt like labour pains but I knew they couldn’t be. I had called my mum and by the time she got here I was on my hands and knees in the bathroom pushing.

I basically gave birth to the twin they said I didn’t have.

He was stillborn. Apparently it was because of a lack of oxygen which I realise now is probably from being strangled.

But I don’t know how they didn’t know there were twins cos he’d got big. I could see his little hands and everything. My mam called an ambulance. I was just frantic, it was like I’d lost my head.

The ambulance came but they were fucking useless – they didn’t even take me in. The midwife rang us and when I told her she said I was probably hallucinating! I sent her a photo of this baby in my fucking hands. I went, I’m not hallucinating.

The midwife didn’t come until 48 hours after. And then they did take my baby boy to the lab. But it was brutal the way they returned him. So they returned him from the lab and they said they could either take him and cremate him, or I could freeze him and bury him eventually in my own time when I’m ready to grieve. So at the time I thought that way he’s not getting taken away from us. He’s always there. I literally took everything out of my freezer to freeze him.

So I did freeze him, yeah. And they basically said it was a lack of oxygen which caused his death. And it’s just sickening. I had a lot of anger towards the midwife, the hospital, the social, like everybody at that point because I was like, you’ve failed me as a mam. My son was dead in me and you said there was one baby. One. How how can you miss that? Like how? So I started doing research, like you do as a mam when you lose your head. I started looking at scan photos. And there was one that I found and when you actually look at it there’s two heads. So I went to the hospital, I got a solicitor, I did take it really far, like. I said there’s two fucking heads, you tell me that’s not another head. So there was loads of investigation and yeah, it got confirmed it were two heads. But why didn’t they spot that at the time? I still never got the fucking answers.

******

I carried on drinking to block everything out. The fucking government, social services, they’ve now give him custody of my bairn. The man who tried to strangle me, who tried to cut me open. And he’s got my fucking bairn.

He didn’t go to prison, there wasn’t enough evidence. And because I bailed out the first time they were questioning me about whether I was telling the truth.

My daughter was three when I lost custody of her, and after that things got worse. I’ve had five miscarriages, two of those because of domestic violence – and one I gave birth to at 16 weeks. I’ve been in multiple refuges. I had two other children and, after losing them too, I went to live with a so-called friend.

She injected me with smack and let me get raped. I was locked in a house for six months. I'd never seen outside for six months. And she was doing this and letting me get raped, sometimes six men in one night, to earn money for her drugs.

Then my first daughter’s dad was putting my windows in. And he put us in the back of a van, and he had this mask on, and he was saying he was a rapist from when I was younger.

I was continually being injected with smack every day and raped, and I was too weak to fight it. It became a habit, and I ended up on crack, cocaine, heroin, diazepam, codeine, anything I could get my hands on. So I ended up selling my body myself to pay for it.

When my so-called friend went to meet her dealer, I did a runner. I went back to my other ex partner and he took us in for a week. Then I went to a refuge and finally got a house. I got no drug or alcohol help. So I locked myself away for four weeks and rattled. My mam would bring me food parcels. I came off everything. I didn’t have methadone, nothing.

I’ve been a year and six months clean today.

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So now I’ve got four children, but not one of them’s in my care. My eldest is with her dad, who abused me. And my two middle children have recently just been adopted. I agreed to the adoption to keep them away from their dad. To give them a better life with stability and it’s the hardest thing I’ve done as a mam. But I got no help from social with that.

My youngest, I was told all through the pregnancy that, cause I stayed clean, and I’m accessing support and engaging like I’ve never engaged before, I’d be able to keep her. I’d never gone to these lengths before. I’d never felt able to. But then, the day before I had her, social services rang me and said they were taking her. They told me it would be for a couple of months max. She's now nearly four month and I’ve got a final hearing coming up.

That’s when I find out if she’s coming home, or if we’re looking at adoption.

In the meantime, they’ve just given my eldest daughter’s dad my address. Because they gave him the court bundle, and it’s got my address in. So now I’ve got to be careful when I go out. I’ve rang the police a couple of times on him so there’s been some child concerns. It’s all been logged. But still, social put my bairn in his care – even after he’s done all this. It just knocks me sick to be honest.

I just don’t think social services have ever been there for me. I’ve had five years of them in my life for fuck all.

But no matter, what I’ve been through or how many sleepness nights, I just have to keep going and figure shit out for my youngest. Yes, things are still a bit rocky, but why not put us on a supervision order? There’s been no offer of that, there’s been no support for me.

I think, although my mental health is a big problem, if ever somebody came up to me and suggested asking social services for help for me, I’d say no. Because when you ask social for support they fucking take your kids. And that is the blunt line of it, they remove your kids. You know, where's all these nursery nurses gone? Where’s the support for mams?

Social said I was not emotionally stable. Well who would be after all that? But now my daughter’s living with the man who abused me. It’s like my childhood all over again. How’s that going to turn out?