The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (31 page)

I put the phone down and, for some strange reason, I didn’t feel like going to the hospital; I just couldn’t be bothered, I felt like he deserved to die and I was happy he was dead. I sat in the living room and lit a fag; but after a short while, I heard a car horn beeping outside my kitchen window and I knew it was one of my sisters, she had come to take me to the hospital with her. I didn’t want to go, but I knew I would never hear the end of it if I didn’t, so I walked downstairs and I got in the car.

When we arrived at the hospital, the doctors held us back for a moment and they explained that they were very sorry but he was not a pretty sight; the doctor said that some people had found him floating face down in the Grand Union Canal and we should be prepared for a bit of a shock. We said ok; and as we walked into the room, it stunk and he stunk, and his head was twice the size it should have been. I looked at him and I felt nothing, no emotions at all; then I thought to myself that he should have died years ago for what he had done to my baby brother Simon. Then I walked away and went home as the doctors turned off the life support machine.

Later that evening, the police came to see all of us and they said that some people had found him floating next to a canal boat earlier that day. They then said that Kevin had told a friend of his that he was going to kill himself because he could not take it any longer, and then the police officer asked us if we could tell him what the statement meant. We all knew what that meant; it meant that he could not live with himself anymore because of what he had done to our baby brother Simon, all those years ago. I didn’t cry for Kevin, I had no tears for him; he did not deserve anything, not even my tears.

We never told the police officer about Kevin and what had gone on between him and Simon; and a few days later, we arranged for Kevin’s body to be flown back to Ireland, as we wanted him as far away from Simon as possible. And a week later, most of us flew back to Ireland for the funeral. Once the funeral was over, we all flew back to London and that was the end of it and I got on with my life.

A couple of years passed and, during that time, I began to see my GP even more than usual, as I never felt happy and I only felt normal if I swallowed handfuls of nerve and sleeping tablets every day. I tried to stay away from my family and especially Tracy because of her husband Fred. He was still a creep and he was still trying to be my friend, but for all the wrong reasons, and Tracy still brushed everything he did to one side; always finding some sort of excuse for his behaviour and then laughing it off as if it was nothing.

As time went on, my children grew up, and I tried to keep my past and my family’s past a secret from them, as I did not want them to find out about all the abuse I had been through. I knew I had to keep my children away from my family for as long as possible, as they would have told my children terrible stories about me and my past before they were old enough to understand; and I did a pretty good job of it. I even found the time to go back to Ireland for a few days to see my dad and I took one of my kids with me; we had a wonderful time and no one said a thing about my past while I was there.

Then, about a year later, when everything was going just right again, the phone rang and one of my sisters said that daddy was dead. She said that the police in Ireland had rung her and they told her they had found him on the beach dead and it looked like he had died from a head injury. I said ok, put the phone down and headed over to my sister’s to be with the rest of my family. The next day, we arranged to travel back to Ireland and within a couple of hours we all boarded a plane and headed off.

But the moment we arrived at the airport in Ireland, our mother walked off and she went straight to our father’s solicitors, she told them that she was his wife and that she was entitled to everything that had belonged to him. She then went off and stayed with some friend of hers, leaving the rest of us to arrange everything. The next day, we began the arrangements for our dad’s funeral; and at lunchtime, the solicitor contacted us and he told us that our father had left everything to us, his children. Then he said that our mother was not entitled to a single thing, as her name was not in the will; but he said that she was contesting the will and it was up to us whether she would get anything.

I hated her. I hated her for giving me up when I was little and I hated her for this now, and she was an evil bitch and she always will be. She had left our father over thirty years ago and now that he was dead and he had left us some money she wanted to be his wife again; and because they had never divorced each other, the solicitor said that she was legally still his wife and probably entitled to everything he had. The solicitor also said that we had a choice of either giving her half of everything or she was going to take the lot of us to court and then she would take everything and leave us with nothing. We thought for a while and then we decided that she could have half of everything he left us.

However, before she got her hands on the money, the solicitor said that we could spend as much money as we liked on his funeral and she could not stop us as it was in the will. So we did and we spent thousands of pounds on flowers and thousands on the best coffin we could get; and we could see that it was making our mother sick, she was fuming and she even came up to us and asked us why we were spending so much money on a dead man. We told her that he was our daddy and we loved him and we always will. She looked disgusted with us and she walked away grinding her teeth together, as we carried on spending the money on the best of everything for him.

Then when it was all over, we all went to the solicitor’s and in front of us he gave our mother a cheque for over twenty thousand pounds, and the rest of us got almost two thousand pounds each. Her mouth dropped open with shock and she looked disappointed at the amount printed on the cheque; then without saying a word to any of us, she marched out of the solicitor’s office, got back on a plane and went back to London, leaving us to deal with his relatives and his friends. She had taken half of the money our father had left us and she never once thought a thing of it or of us or our feelings; she was only interested in how much money she could get out of the solicitor’s, to spend on our stepbrothers and Jim.

Before we left, the police told us that we would have to come back to Ireland for the coroner’s report, but they said they had a good idea of what had happened and how he died. They said that he had been walking along the sandy beach in the early hours of the morning, when he wandered off into the sandy mud and he became stuck in what must have felt like quicksand to him; and because he was old, he was unable to get himself free. Then the tide came in and he drowned, and he hit his head on the rocks lying around the beach, and it had been all over in around 10 minutes.

However, we knew that daddy had been walking the same beach day after day all of his life and it was no accident. We said thanks and then we went back to London; and a few weeks later, we all returned to Ireland for the report, and we were told the same story at his inquest. We left Ireland and I never went back to visit daddy again. My mother never even went to the inquest.

CHAPTER 13

Living Through It All Again

A few more years passed and the only problem I had was that I was still taking far too many tablets to keep my mind relaxed and to stop me from thinking back to when I was a child. The tablets were becoming less effective on me, and every year I had to take stronger and stronger tablets for them to have the same effect on my mind; and I was drinking a lot of alcohol to help me forget everything.

Then, one day, one of my sisters said that she had seen an article in a local newspaper relating to Irish children who grew up in the institutions back in Ireland. The article mentioned that a panel of people, were being put together to deal with child abuse claims against the church and its followers, who ran the institutions on behalf of the church; and anyone wanting to file a claim against them was invited to do so.

It sounded interesting, so later that day I spoke to Tony about the article and I asked him what he thought I should do. He said that if I felt like I could cope with talking to strangers about what went on back in Ireland, then I should give it a shot. But if talking about my past became too stressful for me to cope with, then I should not continue with it. Ok, I made up my mind and I contacted the panel of people at the address printed in the paper; and a few days later, they sent me a questionnaire form that I had to fill in and send back to them, so that my claim could be scrutinised by them. Then if they felt that I had a case against the church, they would contact me again and then advise me on what steps I should take next.

And a few weeks after I had sent the form off, they contacted me again. First, they said that I had to get a solicitor to represent me and they said that I had to go and see a specialist in the field of child abuse and psychology, so they could assess me and compile reports on my behaviour and mentality. I agreed and I did everything they asked me to do; and six months later, they sent me an appointment to attend a meeting at the Priory hospital in London.

But before I attended the meeting, my solicitor asked me to make a statement for her, explaining everything I could remember about my nine-year stay at the institution run by the nuns. I said ok; and by the time I had finished telling my story to my solicitor, she was in tears. She said that she had never heard anything like it before and she asked me if I could go home and put it all down on paper for her in my own words. So that she could present it to the panel of people who were going to judge me, and when the time came for them to cross-examine me she would be familiar with my story, and she could tell them that I was not lying about everything I told them. I said ok, and I went home and began putting my memories of Ireland onto paper.

I had to go back to the solicitor’s many more times before the enquiry ended and because the process took such a long time. My solicitor and the panel of people, who were representing the government and church back in Ireland, suggested that I have counselling for the duration of the enquiry; they said that it was to help me cope with the trauma of having to go through all my bad memories again, and they told me whom I should go and see.

However, after about six months of going to see the counsellor, I began to feel worse and I had to stop going to see her. The counselling sessions had a negative effect on me and I hated going to it; plus the only person really getting anything out of it was the counsellor, as she was getting £140 an hour just for letting me sit in a chair in her office, while she just looked at me from behind her huge wooden desk. She would hardly speak to me and I spent most of the time just looking at the clock on the wall behind her, wishing for the time to go fast; and when the session was over, she would just say thanks and I would leave the room and go home.

However, within a couple of weeks of me stopping the sessions, I began to feel better and I never went back to see her again. Anyway, not only was she representing me and my solicitor, she was also working with the panel of people back in Ireland; and somewhere down the line, I think they were all connected to the compensation money set aside by the church and they were all making a fortune out of it. Soon afterwards, I received a phone call from my solicitor and she told me that my claim had been accepted. Then my solicitor and I waited and it took another two and a half years before the panel of people said that they were ready to look at my case.

And a couple of months later, my solicitor told me that the panel of people had made a decision and they did not want to see or speak to me at all, they only wanted the solicitor to attend the hearing without me. The solicitor said that my case against the church was so strong that the panel of people probably thought they had a better case against me and they could offer me less money if I did not attend the hearing. My solicitor also said that it was their right to refuse my request to attend the hearing, as they were the ones that had written some of the rulebook relating to the compensation scheme and they did not have to report to anyone but themselves. Even the police had no say in what was going on, as they were set up and run by the government and church; and they held all the financial strings of the church’s purse and everything they did was behind closed doors.

The day eventually came for my solicitor to represent me in Ireland; and when the hearing was all over, they gave me a short time period to either accept their offer of compensation or to refuse it. And if I refused the offer, then the same panel of people who gave me the first offer would look over my claim again and then if they thought the amount of compensation was not correct, they could either reduce the amount offered to me or offer me a higher amount. The problem was that the same panel of people, were also representing the church and making the decisions about the amount of compensation awarded to the victims.

And for that reason, my solicitor advised me to take the first offer, as the second would probably be of a lower amount than the first; and if I refused the second offer, then they would not give me a single penny and my case would be closed. She said that she was sorry, but she had felt very intimidated by the people at the hearing, and really we did not stand a chance against them and we were at their mercy. So I said ok and I signed on the dotted line.

And a few weeks later, I was sent a cheque in euros that was probably only an eighth of the amount that I would have gotten if I had taken the church to court. I even lost a lot of money changing the cheque from euros into pounds and I think they did that on purpose just so they could have the last say in the whole matter. However, if I had taken the church to court, then I would probably have got nothing at all from them, as they are answerable to no one but themselves.