Cheryl: My Story (12 page)

I felt super protective towards Nicola. Not only was she the youngest in the band, but she had also received the worst press so far. She had been branded the ‘ugly one’ of the group, and one magazine even published a picture of her with a brown paper bag over her head. I didn’t understand how anyone could be so cruel towards such a young girl. To me, Nicola was the funny one, like the sweet little sister I never had. It was downright nasty. We were all fat and she was ugly. It wasn’t even as if we were super famous or were parading around like divas, asking to be taken down a peg or two. We were just a bunch of young girls who’d been in the band for a matter of weeks, and all we wanted was to make a success of it.

‘Do you fancy coming out to a club?’ a group of guys asked. It was the week after John’s funeral, we were still at number one in the charts and we’d also started to record our first album. Nicola and I were having a drink together in the bar of a hotel we were staying at near Guildford, as it was close to the recording studio.

‘Shall we?’ Nicola said.

‘Why not?’ I said. It was the first time we’d had a chance to really let our hair down after all the stress of the funeral, and we’d been working hard in the studio all day.

I was in the mood to party and had been in high spirits in the bar, but when we set off with the guys I had the strongest gut feeling ever, telling me not to go out. It was overwhelming but I ignored it, which is something I have learned never to do again.

We went to The Drink nightclub in Guildford. As soon as we arrived, Nicola and I were recognised by the management, who welcomed us into the VIP area and sent us champagne. This was all new territory to us and we were having great fun. I’m not a good drinker, though, and I get drunk really easily. We lost the guys almost straight away and decided it was boring on our own in the VIP area. We wanted to be with all the other young girls having fun in the club. Nicola and I hit the dance floor crazily for about an hour, making friends with a group of girls who also recognised us, before I decided I needed to go to the toilet. Nicola came with me, and I was surprised to see there was a female attendant in the Ladies, selling sweets and perfume. I’d never seen that in a club before, and after I’d been to the loo I asked her if we could buy some lollipops.

I was used to buying sweets in shops like Cloughs, which was an old-fashioned sweet shop on Heaton Road, legendary in my area back home. There, you helped yourself to whichever sweets you wanted and paid the old lady, Mrs Clough, when your paper bag was full.

I wanted five lollipops; one each for Nicola and me, and one each for the three girls we’d met on the dance floor.

After I picked up the lollipops I started fishing in my purse for the 50 pence I owed the toilet attendant, with Nicola standing right beside me, reapplying her make-up. Then, completely out of nowhere, I was hit in the face. I swear on my mother’s life that’s what happened. I remember very clearly hearing Nicola screaming in her thick Scouse accent: ‘Oh my God, warra ya doin’?’

‘Go and get security!’ I screamed.

It was the toilet attendant who had hit me and, in confusion and self-defence, I hit her back instinctively.

Everything happened so fast. Before I knew it, I was being bear-hugged by the security guy, who was carrying me out of the toilet and taking me back to the VIP area. The club was extremely apologetic, and Nicola and I accepted the apologies from the management and asked if the three girls we’d met could come into the VIP area with us, where we sat and talked about what had just happened.

About 45 minutes later we were still in the VIP area when I spotted some police officers in high vis jackets come into the club.

I was still drunk, and in my drunken state I said to Nicola and the girls: ‘Do you think I should go and tell them what happened in the toilet?’

I don’t think they even had a chance to answer me before a policeman came over and told me they were there to arrest me.

‘You’re arresting
me
? You’re joking!’ I said. I was absolutely stunned. ‘The toilet attendant started it. I’m the one who got hit in the face first. I only hit her back.’

It was no good protesting. In total disbelief I was driven away in a police car, crying and shaking, and was locked up in a cell in Guildford police station. Nicola was completely distraught, and she had to go back to the hotel on her own and tell the other girls what had happened.

‘Just tell the truth, Cheryl, and you can’t go wrong.’ That’s what my mam had always taught me, and I really believed that if I just told the police the whole truth they would let me go.

I sobered up pretty quickly in the cell, and I sat there quietly, feeling self-conscious in the little black top and burgundy trousers I had on. They took away my high heels and gave me some little flat shoes with smiley faces on, which seemed like a complete joke. I just wanted to get this over with and get out of there.

‘You’re being accused of assault,’ a police officer told me eventually, after 11 hours in the cell.

My heart stopped.

‘But she hit me first and I just retaliated!’

I started to cry.

‘Where is she?’ I asked. ‘Why isn’t the toilet attendant in here, why isn’t she being accused of assault too?’

I just couldn’t believe it. I’d only been in the group for three weeks. I was number one in the charts, and I was locked in a police cell with the threat of an assault charge hanging over me.

What was it Gillian had said to me that time, when our car window got smashed in during one of our trips to London? ‘
Why is there always some kind of drama with you, Cheryl?
’

I was beginning to ask myself the same question, because it did always seem to be me at the centre of a drama. I gave the police a full statement and was released on bail in the morning, which was just as well as I was due to record something for
Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway
show that day with the girls.

The news hadn’t been in the press yet and so I just asked make-up to cover up the bruise that had appeared on my face, and got on with the recording. I couldn’t tell you what I said or did on the show; my head was just filled with worry and confusion.

All the time I was just telling myself: ‘Tell the truth, and it’ll all be OK,’ but I didn’t bank on what was about to happen next.

A newspaper story appeared showing the toilet attendant with a big black eye. She’d been wearing glasses, and the bruise was really bad. It was horrible to look at and I couldn’t believe it was me who had done that. That was shocking enough to take in, but I was absolutely flabbergasted by what she was saying about me.

‘She punched me in the eye and screamed, “You f***ing black bitch …”’ was what the woman told the newspaper. I was also meant to have called her a ‘Caribbean jigaboo’, although I’d never even heard that phrase before. It wasn’t the sort of language we used in Newcastle and I didn’t even know what it meant.

‘We’re re-arresting you,’ the police said when I went to the station to answer bail.

‘No way! Is this some kind of a sick joke?’

Unfortunately it wasn’t, even though the woman had not made any allegations of racism against me in her initial statement to the police. That had only come out in the newspaper, and I later discovered that she subsequently changed her police statement, four days later, to match what she had told the newspaper.

‘The journalists must have put words in her mouth,’ I protested. ‘I would never say anything like that. I’m not a racist – ask anyone who knows me.
Anyone
.’

It was no good. I had fingerprints and a mug shot taken and in the March, two months after the incident, I was charged with racially aggravated actual bodily harm.

‘I’ll leave the group,’ I told the girls, and I meant it, wholeheartedly.

‘I’m not spoiling things for the four of you. This was my mistake and I’ll take the rap.’

I’d been through hell every day. I had literally worried myself sick for two months, and once I was charged I felt much worse. This was a very serious allegation, and to be accused of being a racist was utterly devastating. I had black friends, and literally
anybody
who knew me could have vouched for the fact I was most definitely not a racist.

‘You don’t have to leave the band. Absolutely not,’ the girls all said to me, even though I knew they’d all been suffering too.

‘But I don’t want to ruin your careers. I’m strong enough to bounce back. I’ll just go, it’s best for everyone.’

‘No way!’ they each told me. ‘You’re staying with us.’

We’d got to know each other really well by now. Nicola and I had become very close, and I’d gelled really easily with Kimberley and Nadine. Sarah was trickier. She’d been brought up practically as an only child as her brother was 16 years older than her, and she didn’t know how to be with other girls initially. We all accepted her the way she was though, and there was never any problem with that.

Despite having the court case hanging over me I did my best to focus on the band, and the girls and I worked very well together in the studio, putting together our first album. The bosses at Polydor told me they were standing by me, and the support really kept me going in the months leading up to the trial, in October 2003.

In every single interview I was asked relentlessly about ‘the incident’. I couldn’t say anything until the case had gone to court, which was just so annoying. I felt like everywhere I went people were judging me or feeling wary of me and it broke my heart to think that some people must actually have believed I attacked the woman because she was black.

‘It’s just ridiculous. Why are you even bothered?’ my mam said when I poured out my heart to her about how upset I was by the racist allegations.

‘
You
know it’s ridiculous but other people don’t,’ I said. ‘It’s hell. I’ve gone from the happiest I’ve ever been to being dragged so low, practically overnight.’

‘The truth will come out in court,’ my mam said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

I’m sure I would have sunk into depression again if I hadn’t been so busy with the group. The girls and I had something on every day all day, whether it was doing photoshoots, radio and TV shows or fittings and rehearsals. I should have been living my dream, but the truth was the court case hung over me like a dark cloud, taking the shine off everything.

‘Spill,’ Nicola would say when we got home at the end of the day and she could see I was upset. The record label had found us all one-bedroom flats in Westminster because the location was handy, but we all hated it because the building looked like an old folks’ home. Nicola’s flat was right next to mine, and having her to confide in was a godsend.

‘I feel like people are wary of me, even in the studio,’ I’d tell her. ‘It’s either that or they’re crackin’ stupid jokes, and it’s just not funny.’

‘Get lost! People aren’t scared of you,’ Nicola would say. ‘And nobody thinks it’s funny. They’re just trying to cheer you up.’

Nicola was a little rock, and it helped so much that she had actually been there that night and knew exactly what had gone on in the nightclub.

I must admit, when the incident first took place my immediate reaction had been to think I had done nothing wrong whatsoever. In my mind, because of the way I’d been brought up, I thought that acting in self-defence was a reasonable excuse for hitting the woman. As the months went on and I prepared for the trial, I started to see that it was not acceptable to have hit her under any circumstances, even in self-defence. I was prepared to say that in court, and I was actually looking forward to taking the stand because I wanted the whole truth to come out, and I had absolutely nothing to hide.

‘Wear the same outfit every day,’ Sundraj advised, because we knew the case would go on for several days. ‘Then the media hasn’t got a new picture of you to use.’

If I’d needed any more proof of how this case had become as much about my newfound fame as my behaviour in the nightclub, that was it. Throughout the trial there were journalists camped outside Kingston Crown Court, and I hated having to walk past them each day.

As soon as I sat in the dock I was flanked by two big security men.

‘Like I’m gonna run anywhere,’ I thought. ‘I wouldn’t get very far with the media following me.’

When it was the toilet attendant’s turn to take the stand she appeared to be flapping and stuttering, which didn’t surprise me at all. The court heard that she went straight from the hospital, where she had her black eye treated, and back to the club, where it was alleged that staff were already putting their heads together to come up with a good story to sell to the press.

The court also heard that the racism allegation only emerged after the
Sunday Mirror
became involved in the story, and on top of that, two girls came forward independently to say they had been the victim of unprovoked attacks by the same toilet attendant in completely separate incidents.

I knew it had gone well, but waiting for the verdict to be delivered felt like an absolute eternity.

‘Guilty or not guilty?’ I heard the judge say. It was a horrible moment.

I was cleared of racially aggravated assault but convicted of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. It was a bitter-sweet victory because the toilet attendant had wrongly accused me of being a racist
and
she had hit me, yet she walked away scot-free.