The Runaway Schoolgirl

I
know that I’m going to receive a lot of criticism for writing this book, but it was something that I felt I needed to do. My friends and family have always been incredibly supportive and have never once not respected my wishes not to contact the press, but now I feel that the time is right for me to give my side of the story.

Rest assured, I am not doing it for the money. If it was money I was after, I would have taken up one of the six-figure deals that was offered to me when my daughter disappeared.

Hopefully this book will put the record straight about how
it feels to have your teenage daughter stolen from you. She had just turned fifteen; he was twice her age and knew he was breaking the law. Let me ask you, if you had a daughter, would you let her teacher do this to her?

Now it’s my turn to tell you exactly what happened.

UNDER S. 1(1) OF THE SEXUAL OFFENCES (AMENDMENT) ACT 1992, WHICH PROVIDES ANONYMITY FROM PUBLICATION TO THE VICTIMS OF SEXUAL CRIME ‘DURING THAT PERSON’S LIFETIME’, SOME NAMES HAVE BEEN CHANGED TO PROTECT THE INNOCENT. IN SOME CASES, PSEUDONYMS USED BY THE PRESS REPLACE REAL NAMES.

I
t was just a normal day. My eighteen-year-old son Lee was at work with my partner Paul and my fifteen-year-old daughter Gemma was at school. My four-year-old, Alfie, was at nursery and my baby daughter Lilly was having a morning nap. I was sitting at the kitchen table, flicking through the Argos catalogue looking for furniture for the new house. We hadn’t found the right place yet, but with four children at home and my middle daughter Maddie, who was eleven, staying at her dad Max’s place, we needed more space.

I was looking at bedroom furniture for Gemma when I received a text message from her school telling me that she hadn’t turned up for registration that morning. There was a number to call or I could text a reply.

I knew I shouldn’t have let her go to her friend Louise’s for a sleepover on a school night, I thought. Gemma had pleaded
with me to let her go, as Louise’s dad was working late and she didn’t want to be on her own. ‘Just this once,’ I told her, ‘but make sure you get up for school in time. I don’t want any phone calls saying you two haven’t turned up!’

They were good girls. I didn’t want them to be up all night chatting and then sleep through their alarm the next day, but I felt I could trust them.

I wasn’t overly alarmed when I saw the text from the school. I knew they weren’t playing truant – they never had, it just wasn’t their thing. I sent a text straight back, asking them to confirm if Gemma hadn’t been marked in for her first lesson.

Nearly an hour later, I received another text saying, ‘Gemma is still showing absent’, and I got straight on the phone to the school and asked the secretary to find out if Louise knew where Gemma was. I told her I would hang on while she went to check. In the back of my mind, an alarm bell rang. I sensed that something wasn’t quite right, but I tried to dismiss it. It was probably a mistake, I told myself, Gemma would be in a different lesson.

After what seemed like hours, the school secretary came back on the phone, saying that Louise had told her that Gemma hadn’t stayed at hers after all. Gemma had said that she was feeling unwell and had gone back home.

All of a sudden the alarm bells in my head got louder. I told the secretary that Gemma hadn’t come home the night before. She went very quiet. After a short while, she spoke: ‘I think you should call the police …’

I remember looking at my phone and, as I dialled 999, thinking this isn’t happening to me. When I heard the voice at the other end of the line I had to concentrate on every syllable. ‘My daugh-ter is miss-ing …’ It felt like an out-of-body
experience, as if it wasn’t me who was forming the words. It was like I was behind glass, looking at myself making the call. I can’t remember exactly what the operator said to me, but the gist of it was that they were going to send someone over to the house.

I called Paul, Mum and my sister Charlotte, and told them that Gemma was missing. They all said they would be on their way.

I didn’t know what to do with myself, so I went up to Gemma’s bedroom. Already I had been in her room that day to measure up for furniture and I remember cursing her for the state it was in – drawers pulled out, clothes everywhere, your typical messy teenager.

I tried to kid myself that maybe she had been there all along, hiding under her bed or in a wardrobe, like it was just a silly game of hide and seek. I ripped off the duvet, looked under the bed and even heaved up the mattress, trying to convince myself she was somehow hiding there. I know it was ridiculous, but my mind was all over the place.

Random ideas started swimming around my head. What if Gemma had got back home late and couldn’t get in? Maybe she had climbed over the garden fence and was asleep in the shed? The shed was packed full of junk, but could she have squeezed in somewhere? I ran to the end of the garden and checked it. I knew it was stupid, but I had to rule out everywhere, even daft places like small cupboards that she couldn’t possibly fit into.

I put up a message on my Facebook page: ‘Has anyone seen my Gemma?’ I got lots of replies asking for more details, but I only wanted to be told one thing – that someone knew where she was.

I just wanted to know she was somewhere safe. I called her friends Louise and Ben over and over again to find out if they knew anything, but I never got through. I felt like a zombie. ‘Gemma doesn’t like the dark,’ I couldn’t stop thinking. ‘I hope she’s not scared …’

Finally, I went out to the front of the house and stood in the driveway. I just didn’t want to be inside. ‘If I’m not in there, then this isn’t happening,’ I thought. Mum, Charlotte, Paul and Lee arrived, and eventually they convinced me to go back indoors. Then we waited for what seemed like an eternity for the police to turn up. I think by this time I was in shock; I just couldn’t function. I wasn’t thinking the worst – that maybe she had been in an accident or attacked – because I wasn’t thinking anything at all. I was totally numb.

Charlotte called Max, my ex. When he arrived, he, Charlotte and Lee went on Twitter and other social networking sites to spread the message further. Lee then went out with a group of friends in a car, searching the streets looking for Gemma and contacted everyone he knew, but he came back beaten and desperate that nobody had any news. Meanwhile, Mum and Charlotte went over to the school to see if they had any more information, but left with nothing more than the offer of a cup of tea and a prayer.

Paul and I were racking our brains about who Gemma could possibly be with, and I sent a text to Gemma’s friend Ben to see if he knew anything. He eventually replied, saying: ‘The only thing she said to me at school was that she didn’t want to be here, but I thought it was just because of the rumours. Me and Louise are her only close friends and we don’t know where she could have gone because she didn’t mention anything.’

I knew what he meant about the rumours – there had
been some gossip involving Gemma and one of her teachers that had been doing the rounds, but I had dismissed it at the time.

Then two policemen turned up at the house and started asking the standard ‘missing person’ questions. ‘What’s her full name?’ ‘Her date of birth?’ ‘When did you last see her?’ ‘What’s the name of her doctor and dentist?’ I didn’t really understand that last question at the time, but I later realised they were thinking that, if their worst fears were to come true, they would need Gemma’s medical records to identify her body.

One of the officers asked me if Gemma and I had rowed before she disappeared, or if there was any reason why she may have had to run away, and it was then that the penny dropped. I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, they think I’ve killed her! They actually think I have killed my own daughter.’ Of course I know now that they were only doing their job, but I couldn’t take it all in at the time.

I felt like I was going mad. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.

The police then asked if Gemma’s passport was missing – and, of course, when we went to check it wasn’t in the usual place where we keep it. Two more officers from CID then arrived as the other two left and took a statement from me so that they could conduct a full police search. They also took one of my favourite school photos of Gemma in her Year 10 uniform. This was the picture that would later be splashed all over the newspapers throughout the following weeks.

I remember thinking: ‘This is silly, she’ll be home at 5pm. She’s always home by then.’ Then, just before 5pm, there was a knock on the door and two more police officers were
standing there. I recognised one of them as he was assigned to Gemma’s school and was also one of Max’s colleagues.

He looked me in the eye. ‘We need you to sit down,’ he said. ‘We know who she’s with.’