I Let Him Go (Revised And Updated Edition)
Page 15
Once we got home from hospital there were only two weeks until Christmas and I tried desperately to get into the festive spirit for the sake of the family. Michael had already brought so much joy to everyone – all the family loved piling round for cuddles and it was only natural we should want to celebrate that. But my heart ached for the boy who should have been excitedly getting ready to rip the paper from his presents with glee. As 25th December approached I did pop out to buy some presents but ended up just wandering around aimlessly, picking toys and clothes for baby Michael, watching other toddlers excitedly running around. I was on autopilot really and buying things I knew Michael couldn’t play with, but I needed to cement him being there and distract myself from the fact that James wasn’t.
Was I trying at this point to save my marriage? The honest answer is not really. Deep down I knew there was probably no way back and I suspected that Ralph had found comfort elsewhere because he was hardly ever at home. If I really think back to that time, I was so tired I don’t have the words to describe the exhaustion. I was grieving, had a new baby to look after and I had a husband who would rather have been anywhere than with me. Having Michael made us both so happy but it also brought a magnifying glass to the deep, deep sadness we both felt. I am also a great believer that it takes two to fix things and both parties have to want the same outcome, but when you are both deeply traumatised no one can take the lead.
I wanted to be alive and with Michael, of course I did, but what had happened to James still had a vice-like grip on my thoughts – whether I was awake or asleep I thought about his final moments all the time; my brain never stopped whirring with the awfulness. My body was in shock too – I’d had three babies in four years; my hormones were raging and I was still so angry. I didn’t give myself the time to come to terms with what had taken place – in truth it has taken me over 20 years to give myself a break and the space to process what has happened to our family, and writing this book has been a part of that. But back then I battled on, not ready to give up on my marriage or on justice for James, as well as wanting to be there for Michael – it was too much to handle.
All our previous Christmases had been big family affairs with James and his cousins running around squealing with delighted excitement and glee. James was so sociable and loved a party. At Christmas time he was in heaven with lots of food, music blaring and surrounded by all his gifts. I knew if we celebrated in our usual way, his absence would be so obvious it would kill me. So I decided we would start a new tradition that year and have the day just the three of us, our own family in our own home. We needed to start some new memories or the old ones would drown us. I explained to the family and they totally understood – they were still walking on eggshells with us and were happy to go along with whatever made it all more bearable. So I set about making a special day for us, even if it was a quieter version of the one we were used to.
I wrapped presents and planned a proper lunch with all the trimmings and did my best to enter into the spirit of it all. However, try as I might, I couldn’t interest Ralph – he didn’t react when I came home and showed him the presents that I had bought Michael and he didn’t really join in when I tried to talk about how we would spend Christmas. Ralph stored his feelings away and was still drinking to block everything out. He also carried on spending as much time as possible out of the house and, in the end, that included Christmas Day as well. Michael and I spent it on our own, cuddled up quietly on the sofa, with me imagining James lying on his own. I had no idea where Ralph spent the day.
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In a way it was a relief when Christmas was over – not least as it was another milestone we had survived. It was desperately painful to see in a New Year without James, the start of a year he would never see, another step further away from him. But it also gave me some time to reflect on what needed to be done and to re-engage with the fight to make sure that Thompson and Venables had their sentences increased. The minimum tariff felt like a joke and, now that Michael had arrived, I could switch my mind back to thinking about how to fight it.
I was also coming to terms with the practicality of my new life. Right up until the day of the verdict I was never alone – someone was by my side every minute of the day. But once the court case was over and everyone had gone back to their own lives, I knew I had to find a different focus. I had Michael and the fight for James – this was my new life and I had to get used to it. Sometimes the reality came crashing in on me to the point where I couldn’t breathe, so I kept as busy as I could, hoping for any distraction at all.
Early in the new year, Sean came to the house and went through everything surrounding the sentencing one more time. I think the logistics made a bit more sense now my initial fury had died down a little – I knew that anger wouldn’t get anything constructive done for James but I was determined this wasn’t the end of the story.
When I talked to him for this book, Sean described the process, ‘At the time, the way the system worked, the Home Secretary would eventually make the decision on the final tariff, but he would always take into account the trial judge’s recommendation, which was eight years. He would also take into account the opinion of the Lord Chief Justice and, for whatever reason, he had said ten years.
‘That was it as far as you were concerned! The first battle was about to commence. You and Ralph decided you would start a petition, and I got it sheet typed up and printed off thousands of copies for you to give to family and friends. The petition demanded that Thompson and Venables should be detained for life. None of us believed that a whole life tariff would be set, but you and Ralph understandably felt that an eight-year tariff was an insult and needed to be substantially increased. You wanted Thompson and Venables to be punished for what they had done, rather than just spending a few years being looked after in a secure children’s care home, which was what they got.’
Once I had decided the petition was the next step, it was full steam ahead. We organised tag teams, meaning that when I couldn’t be out gathering names because I was at home looking after Michael, others would step in and stand on the streets getting as many names as possible. It was overwhelming to see how many people agreed that the sentence wasn’t long enough for the crime – this was a community still traumatised by what had happened to James and they came out in their thousands to show it. I will be forever grateful for the support we were shown.
This push for justice also meant revisiting the complicated relationship that had developed with the press. As soon as the trial was over and Michael was born we were advised to give an interview to a magazine. The theory was that if people could see a picture of Michael and read an interview telling them how well Ralph and I were doing, the interest would quieten down. This would be our second big interview: early on, when we found out that I was pregnant, we were advised to do some press once Sean’s statement about the pregnancy had gone out. It was a hell of a long day of interviewing and endless photos and it did me in. I remember getting back to my mum’s house that night and being convinced that I was miscarrying.
That first interview didn’t really make the interest in us go away either – the thirst for news obviously continued throughout the trial, something I understood and appreciated, and then continued throughout the rest of my pregnancy, which was a bit harder. The day after I came home from the hospital with Michael the press found out where we were living and stationed themselves outside our front door. I had not realised this until I opened the curtains that morning to find a bank of cameras pointing at the house. There were all these lenses poking through the trees in the garden, snapping away as I carried Michael down the stairs. I became a recluse really, living with the curtains shut day and night, existing in a house of darkness in order to protect the baby. I would phone Sean in tears regularly not sure how to make the interest go away. My brothers began to come round and sit with me during the day so that I had someone there, as Ralph was so often out. I felt safer with another person in the house with me.
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We were told one more interview should make it all go away now that Michael was actually here and the trial was over, like the final piece of the puzzle. So we did a long day of shooting at a location house with Michael and in the end there was another big spread in Hello! magazine. But in reality it just seemed to fan the flames and they just wanted more. I had opened Pandora’s box and it wasn’t a pretty sight; it became a free for all.
But at the same time the support from the press was a huge boost to our campaign as they reported what we were doing and it actually led to a national newspaper backing us and printing coupons for their readers to support the petition. It was only three years after Hillsborough so I think they saw it as an opportunity to try and win back Liverpool’s support. Nevertheless, they were one of many newspapers throwing their weight behind the drive to increase the sentence Thompson and Venables would serve. In a matter of weeks we managed to collect over 300,000 signatures supporting our quest to raise their tariff, and we made plans to go to London to present every single signed petition to the Home Secretary in person. We had some 4,400 letters of support agreeing that Venables and Thompson should remain in detention for life; a petition signed by nearly 6,000 members of the public, asking for a minimum period of detention of 25 years; and over 20,000 coupons cut out of a popular newspaper, together with 1,000 letters demanding a life tariff. There were only 33 letters agreeing with the judiciary, or asking for a lower tariff.
I felt proud to have achieved so much support and it gave me hope that we could get the result we wanted. The same couldn’t be said of my marriage, which was hanging by a thread.
Chapter 17
Just Me and My Son Michael
Getting the justice James deserved became all-consuming. Everything that he’d had ahead of him had been taken away, so going into battle was the only option. Once the signatures had been counted we all travelled to the Home Office in London to hand deliver them. We arrived with boxes and boxes of petitions – Sean, Ralph and me with Michael in my arms. It felt good to be doing something practical for James. I was convinced that Michael Howard would have to listen to so much noise and there was a real sense of achievement when we handed everything over. The press followed our trip down there and we made the front pages and the News at Ten, it felt like we had some real momentum but we had no idea if anyone would listen to us or how long these things took.
In the end, we didn’t have to wait too long for a response – less than two months later Michael Howard announced that, having taken everything into account, he would be raising the tariff from the original term of 8 years to a recommended minimum of 15 years. This meant rather than getting to start their new lives at 18, instead they would be 25 years old before they were released. This felt like a real victory – obviously my preference would have been a life sentence because I truly believed, and still do, that they present a real threat to any kind of civilised society. But the increase in the sentence brought a bit of peace, it felt like finally someone was listening to James’ voice, finally he had a little piece of justice.
Now we had done something constructive for our boy. But, once that distraction had passed, and we had survived the first anniversary of James’ death it became impossible to ignore the chaos of my marriage. As summer was on its way, it was suggested that Ralph and I get away from Kirkby – we needed some space, just the two of us, to talk through our problems and attempt to salvage what was left of our relationship. I was devastated at the thought of leaving Michael – he was still so small and we hadn’t spent a moment apart. As Ray has said, ‘Wherever Michael was, that’s where we would find you, he never left your side.’ It was going to be awful leaving him behind, but my sister Barbara offered to have him and I knew she wouldn’t take her eyes off him. After what happened to James, the whole family had become as vigilant as me – in fact, people up and down the country had become so careful about child safety for toddlers that shops regularly sold out of toddler reins. Michael would be fine but I wasn’t so sure the same could be said of Ralph and I – we both knew it was the last roll of the dice.
Ralph organised the trip and told me that we were going to stay with his uncle in Australia. A friend of ours, Ste Linder, had put on a series of events in order to raise money specifically to help us get away, so we used it to pay for flights. It was such a hideous thought, being so far away from my baby, but I told myself that I owed it to Michael to be able to look him in the eye and tell him I tried everything to keep our family together.
The day of our departure arrived and I was so distraught that, when the taxi arrived, I was curled up sobbing on the sofa. My brother had agreed to come to the house and watch Michael until my sister could arrive to collect him. Ralph was the first out of the door with the bags – I just couldn’t bring myself to leave my baby boy. I stood by the door, clinging on to the doorframe and wept until my brother eventually coaxed me into the waiting taxi.
We were away for a fortnight – in all honesty I couldn’t have managed any longer without Michael. The time away was much needed, it allowed us to focus on each other and talk a lot of things through. We were both lost and hurting, locked in our own version of grief, but I felt confident that we could try again. We had married because we loved each other and we had made three beautiful children, it would take work but it felt like we could come back from this very dark place if we both tried. I definitely boarded the plane home with hope for our future and this was reinforced as we took off and Ralph turned to me and said, ‘I know what I want now, I want us to work as a family.’
I hoped the affair I suspected him of having was over and that we could really concentrate on our family. I was delighted but part of me did wonder if it was the drink talking, as he’d already had quite a few before the flight. Either way, it was what I wanted to hear and meant we were on the right path.
We landed and the first thing I did was rush to Barbara’s to pick up Michael, my heart bursting with excitement at seeing him. I felt like I had been away forever even though it was only two weeks. Secretly, I was terrified that he might not recognise me – it was a long time to be separated and we have never been apart for that length of time since. I rushed through the door to scoop up my baby. Once we had thanked Barbara and had a cup of tea, we got a taxi home and Ralph brought the suitcases in from the car and put them in the hallway before disappearing. After a while, he came downstairs and shouted that he was popping out and would be back soon – and that was how my marriage ended. I shouted, ‘Bye, see you in a bit,’ and he left for good.
I fed and bathed Michael before putting him to bed, wondering where Ralph was and if he was okay. My brother Gary came round so I made dinner and we watched some TV to distract me, but I couldn’t settle. I was pacing around and eventually pulled back the curtains to look out of the window. The first thing I noticed was that the car wasn’t on the drive – it had been there earlier after Ralph had gone out, and now it wasn’t. I felt scared – the car couldn’t have just disappeared, it must have been stolen, which made me feel very vulnerable in the house with Michael. I called the police to report it stolen, giving them all the details, explaining that I was with my brother but that I didn’t know where Ralph was.
The police came to the house a few hours later to let me know that they had found the car with Ralph in the back seat – and he hadn’t been alone. Something shut down in me right there and then, there was no going back. I had lost James and now my marriage was over too. Ralph was having an affair and I didn’t have the energy to try and compete with her, I didn’t feel like I should have to after all we had been through together.
I went upstairs to check on Michael and realised that it was just my boy and me now, and as long as I had him I would be fine. I got into bed and couldn’t sleep but, in truth, I felt a bit relieved – I could stop fighting for something I knew deep down I couldn’t save. I didn’t have to go to bed anymore worrying about where my husband was, what he was thinking or who he was with. I was devas
tated that we hadn’t made it, but there was also another reality: Ralph was also the only other person who could comprehend the utter devastation I felt about our son. We had made him together and we had buried him together and I thought that bond would see us through, but it wasn’t enough to save us and I had to come to terms with that.
I remember lying there and thinking, I don’t know if I have the energy for this, as I knew there was a rocky road ahead. In less than 18 months my simple and perfect life as a wife and mother had imploded. The day that Thompson and Venables stole my son from my side, they lit a match underneath everything I had and it all went up in flames. As time marched on it became clear there was nothing to be salvaged from the wreckage and the aftershocks just kept coming. But I had Michael to look after and James to fight for, so that’s what I did.
One of the hardest things was the thought of telling people. Even though those close to us knew that things were tough, everyone expected us to pull it back together after Michael arrived. I also knew that the press would be all over the news as soon as it broke – it was perfect headline fodder: ‘Heartbroken parents of murdered baby Jamie in shock split.’ It would mean going back to those dark early days where every grisly detail surrounding the murder was endlessly raked over and my baby’s face was on the front of every newspaper stand. My heart felt heavy at the thought and those old feelings of wanting to shut out the world descended dangerously again. Except this time I had no option – I couldn’t just pull the curtains and climb under the duvet, I had a baby who needed me.