by Trisha Merry
Alfie was shocked when I told him after tea that evening. He clung to his beloved elephant stronger than ever as he went to bed and I tucked him in for the last time. The tears came as I left his room. He had been with us since he was two and now he was six and a half.
When we saw him off the next morning, he clung to me much longer than I should have allowed, but his stepfather seemed touched by that scene. His mother, as usual, lacked any kind of expression in her face, and seemed almost churlish in her manner. But she did hold his hand as they walked across to their car.
‘Bye, Alfie,’ we all called out, almost in unison.
‘Bye, Ellie the elephant,’ shouted Paul.
Alfie turned as he got to the car and gave us all a final wave, then a wave from Ellie too.
We were down to just six foster-children now – eleven-year-old AJ, ten-year-olds Ronnie and Sheena, Daisy nine, Paul eight and five-year-old Mandy. But it wasn’t six for long.
‘According to our records, Mrs. Merry, you have some spare foster-places?’ asked the female voice.
‘Yes, that’s right. I can take up to four more, maximum.’
‘Good. Well, we have a family of six . . .’
‘Oh no, I’m not allowed to take that many.’
‘Yes, I understand that. But a different arrangement has to be made for the three older children.’
I thought that sounded odd, but I focussed on the younger three. ‘Yes, I do have space for three. What are their ages?’
‘Well,’ she hedged. ‘It’s actually the youngest one for sure – her name is Lulu and she’s just three months old.’
‘But I said ages ago that I didn’t want any babies under six months,’ I reminded her.
‘I know, Mrs Merry. I saw that against your name, but we’re all hoping you’ll change your mind on this occasion. This is a bonny baby who hasn’t suffered any neglect and is in perfect health. We think you would be the best placement for her, and possibly the next two up.’
‘Well . . .’ I thought about it for a few seconds. ‘All right. I’ll say yes then. How old are the other two?’
‘Duane is two and Sindy is three.’
‘Is that all you can tell me?’
‘I’m afraid so, but they will be coming with their social worker. Lulu will definitely stay with you, if you agree, and we will observe the other two interacting with your children, before we make a decision about them.’
That sounded strange. In fact it had never happened to me before. I wondered why she should think it would be necessary now.
As usual, I heard the car and watched as a youngish woman approached our front door, carrying a tiny baby against her shoulder, holding hands with a toddler, with another small child walking alongside.
‘Mrs Merry? I’m Susie, the children’s social worker.’
I nodded and smiled at the two little ones.
‘Hello, come in, all of you,’ I said, welcoming them through the door. Then I had a peek at the adorable, sleeping baby. ‘What a little angel.’
‘Yes, she’s the lucky one, we think,’ said Susie.
Another odd comment, I thought, but decided it was best not to ask her what she meant straight away. Hopefully I might learn more once the children were settling in and we could talk more easily.
Our children were great and tried their best to help these two new little ones to feel at home. Lulu was oblivious to it all at this point, still sound asleep. I noticed that, when Susie sent them off to play, she was observing them very closely. In fact, she didn’t take her eyes off them, until Lulu suddenly woke up, with a wail of hunger.
At just that moment, two-year-old Duane went toddling over to Daisy, who was on a bean-bag at the far side of the room, reading. He clambered onto the beanbag and, before I could alert Daisy, he delved his hand right inside her pants. She shrieked and shot out of the bean-bag. Susie handed the screaming Lulu to me, while she rushed over and picked up Duane, taking him right away from Daisy and sitting him next to her on the sofa.
‘You must not do that to other children, Duane,’ she said to him in a slightly stern voice. Far from looking guilty, or embarrassed, he seemed surprised, perhaps even confused, that she had stopped him. Susie reached for a couple of cars for him to play with on the sofa, hemmed in by the way she sat.
Meanwhile, three-year-old Sindy was looking through the books. Finally she found one that met with her approval and brought it over to Mike, who was sitting on a big easy chair in the corner, with his newspaper.
‘Read the book, for your little friend?’ asked Sindy, tapping his leg.
He put down his paper. ‘All right then.’ He took the book she was holding out to him.
Sindy clambered up on to his lap, so that she could see the pictures, I thought. But as Mike opened the book and started to read, she started to wriggle strongly on his lap.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked.
‘I make your little friend happy,’ she said.
He gave me a quick look as he reached for a thick cushion, lifted her off his lap, slid the cushion underneath and plonked her back down. ‘There, that’s better,’ he said.
Susie was busy with the baby and with keeping Duane occupied and hadn’t noticed what might have seemed an everyday story-time. I watched Mike start again to read the book to Sindy, but she had lost interest now and climbed down. I took her with me to the kitchen.
‘Let’s get a bottle out for the baby,’ I said to her and she happily held my hand. She seemed such an innocent child, yet I couldn’t get that scene with Mike out of my head. I warmed up the milk, then took Sindy back to the playroom to collect baby Lulu. I had sometimes seen small children behave inappropriately before. But what both Duane and Sindy had done seemed different somehow . . . as if deliberate and yet normal for them.
‘I think we should take Duane and Sindy to the kitchen with us to feed the baby,’ I said to Susie in a low voice that I hoped sounded like it was important.
While I fed the baby and she played on the rug with Sindy and Duane, I whispered to her what I had seen Sindy do on Mike’s lap, and what she had said. The exact phrase. I expected her, as a social worker, to show some concern at least, but it was as if she wasn’t surprised at all. What was going on here? The earlier comments that had puzzled me came back to me now.
‘Have these children been sexually abused?’ I asked her outright.
‘I’m not normally allowed to tell you anything,’ she said. ‘But in this case my boss said I could explain and apologise if the toddlers acted up.’ She paused. ‘So, the answer to your question is yes. But it’s more complicated than that, I’m afraid, and more terrible too.’
Now I was really on edge, as I waited for her to continue.
‘These are the youngest three, but they also have three older siblings, and this has been going on for a long time, without even the neighbours knowing anything about it,’ she said. ‘But it was the health visitor who found out, when she visited this new baby, Lulu, right in the middle of a shoot.’
‘A shoot? Do you mean with guns?’ I must have sounded very naive.
‘No, a film shoot. As we now know, this couple made their living by making sex films.’
‘Of themselves?’ I asked.
‘Mostly of the children,’ she corrected me. ‘The parents had trained all their children, even these two.’ She looked at Sindy and Duane. ‘They had trained them all to do sexual things to each other, and with each other, as well as with them sometimes. And that’s not all – they regularly invited known paedophiles to come round and join in.’
I was stunned into silence, hit by waves of shock and disgust. How could any parent do this to their own children?
‘They made them for people who paid them a lot of money for each thirty-minute film. They wanted as many as they could produce . . .’ I struggled to cope with my anger and horror at what she was telling me. ‘And they’ve been doing it for a long time, ever since the eldest child was born, eleven years ago
.’
‘What, even with a newborn?’
‘Yes,’ she said in a quieter voice. ‘I know all this must be a terrible shock to you, Trisha. But we all thought you ought to be told, if it seemed necessary. We really hoped you would have all these three younger children for us. I know it’s a lot to ask . . . What do you think?’
‘I think you’re right. It may be too big a commitment, with all our other children to think about,’ I said. ‘Now that I’ve seen how sexualised they are, I don’t think we can take the risk of having Sindy and Duane. I don’t think any foster-carer should. I’m afraid they will need a lot of specialist input before that could happen.’
‘Mmm. I thought you might say that. And I do understand. But what about Lulu?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose she has been programmed yet to all that you’ve told me about has she?’
‘No, we don’t think so. The health visitor didn’t notice any bruises on her, so we hope we’ve been able to step in just in time. But apparently they did include their previous babies in some of their films . . .’
‘Yes, we’ll have Lulu,’ I agreed. ‘At least we can help her and give her a normal, safe and loving home. But what will Social Services do with all the rest of the family?’
‘That’s the most difficult thing, I’m afraid. We could try Duane on his own and Sindy on her own in different foster-homes, where there aren’t any other children, but even that would probably be too challenging, knowing what they have already been through.’
‘What about when they were at school? Didn’t their teachers notice their sexualised behaviours?’
‘They didn’t go to school,’ she said. ‘That was why we didn’t know about them before. Their births weren’t registered and they weren’t in any of the local authority’s records, so nobody knew they existed. Their parents simply never sent them to school, or took them out shopping or anything. They had never played with any other children, so that’s why we needed to see what would happen.’
‘It’s a dreadful situation,’ I said. ‘I just can’t understand how this could have been going on for so long, without neighbours, grandparents or anybody knowing.’ I paused. ‘What has happened to the parents?’
‘They’re out of the picture at the moment, and almost certainly will be for several years. They were arrested and charged with a number of crimes against under-age children. They’re currently still being interviewed by the police. They hope this couple will lead them to a paedophiles ring as well as to the sellers of their cine-films. We’re pretty sure that they won’t be allowed bail, given such potentially serious charges.’
‘There is one thing that is still puzzling me,’ I said. ‘Why have you told me all this? Normally, I don’t get to know anything about new foster-children, let alone their families.’
Susie smiled for a moment. ‘You’re right. We have a strict policy not to tell foster-parents anything more than we have to.’ She hesitated. ‘But we’ve never come across anything like this before, and we’re trying to work out a way to help these children. It would be good to think that the older ones at least could stay together. But how? We can’t place all five of them in one foster-home, and who would accept them anyway, with their extreme sexualisation? At the moment, they are all in a police safe house with temporary carers. But we can’t leave them there for more than a few days. The police need it back, for use in witness protection.’
‘Well, they can’t go to foster-homes and I agree it would be best for them to stay together – and away from other children, until they have learnt different behaviours . . . What about having them all in one big house, with live-in foster-carers or social workers, with rotas of visiting carers, teachers, therapists, psychiatrists, psychologists, relief staff and all the other specialists they might need?’
‘Well, that’s the sort of thing we were thinking about, but it would need a lot of organising and you’ve suggested some good ideas. Could you come and talk about it with my boss?’
‘OK. If you want.’
‘You see, that’s why I got permission to tell you.’ She smiled. ‘We need someone with your practical experience. And you’re so wise.’
I laughed. ‘I don’t think Mike would agree with that!’
It was really the job of Social Services to sort out all the arrangements, but they asked me to join their panel to focus on this one family’s needs. So that’s what I did, after signing a confidentiality agreement. There was a good group of people working together and we planned how best to support and care for these badly abused kids, physically, emotionally and educationally, while also protecting them and keeping them safe. Because I was appalled at what these children had suffered, almost every day of their lives, and all for money, and I felt guilty not to be taking them in myself, I felt that at least this was one way I could help them.
It took a lot of my time and energy being part of this team. We had to set it all up; to find a property, recruit and train specialist staff, order furniture, clothing and supplies, draw up rotas, and everything else. All this must have cost the council a fortune, but they had no alternative. I have often said how let down we have been by some local authorities, but this time I could only praise them for doing their best, as sensitively and proactively as possible.
Meanwhile, Lulu became the spoilt baby of our family and thrived in her new home. She was sometimes fractious, to the extent that I did wonder whether anything had happened to her. But most of the time she was a contented laughing child, who loved all the attention she had from our six older ones . . . and from us.
‘Thank goodness they let us keep Lulu,’ said Mike.
‘Yes. I’m sure it’s the best chance for her,’ I agreed. ‘She’s too young to have any memories of what went on, but I can’t help wondering how it will affect her in the years to come, especially when she starts asking questions.’
‘We’ll have to wait till it happens,’ Mike said, always the pragmatist.
22
Down the Chute
Daisy and Paul had been with us for eight years now and they were both doing well, in their own ways. For Paul it was being active, being good at sports and having fun. But he was the untidiest child in the house. He was always in scrapes at school and often at home too. But one endearing thing I do remember about him was the way he always owned up – and apologised. He didn’t have a devious bone in his body. Whenever I asked the kids who broke something, or who kicked another child, he immediately said, ‘It was me . . . sorry.’
Daisy was equally honest and straightforward, but she was the opposite of Paul in almost every other respect. She folded all her clothes neatly; even the dirty laundry, and her shoes, slippers and boots were all lined up with mathematical accuracy in the bottom of her wardrobe.
She always did her homework as soon as she got home from school. She was a child who liked her own company, which all the others understood and they usually steered clear.
I used to teach all the kids to cook, and Daisy was a quick learner, although I wouldn’t say she was an enthusiastic baker. Some children would come into the kitchen and say ‘Can we make fairy cakes?’ Even Paul enjoyed sloshing a bit of cake-mix about, but not Daisy. She only helped me if I asked her, and then she would do it well, but she wasn’t the domesticated type. She much preferred to lose herself in a library book. As the expression goes: ‘good books are like good friends’, and they certainly were to Daisy.
For all the eight years she had been with us, Daisy had been desperate to grow her hair. I tried, several times, to get her social worker to contact the mother if possible and obtain her permission for Daisy to change her hairstyle, now that she was older and painfully aware of how unfashionable it was. She was teased about it a lot at school and I felt I was failing her, not being able to do something about it.
‘If you can’t contact her mother, couldn’t you give her permission to grow her hair?’ I asked John.
‘You know the rules, Trisha. I can’t do that.’
But John didn’t visit much – perhaps once every six months, so in between, Daisy and I had this agreement that I would conveniently forget to take her to the hairdresser’s for a while. And, as it began to grow, I noticed her looking in the mirror more. If she could have pulled her hair to make it longer still, she would have, no matter how much it might hurt.
I spent most of the weekday mornings sorting things out for Lulu’s five abused siblings in the house we had set up for them. We had put a comprehensive domiciliary package in place for them and it seemed to be going well so far, bar the odd hiccups when a teacher was ill, or a carer or therapist got their times muddled.
However, the main problem was that the children’s sexual advances towards each other were so ingrained that we had to put in extra therapists and experienced foster-carers to work on containing and hopefully addressing these behaviours, that were obviously normal to the kids. It was apparently all they had known – the focus of every day of their lives. And we couldn’t send men in to help at all at that early stage. As far as these children were concerned, all men were only there for sex, after all those paedophiles had ‘played’ with them, as they put it. Not to mention their own father. It was no surprise that both parents were convicted and given long prison sentences.
Thank goodness Lulu herself was quite placid and easy-going. I timed her main nap for late mornings, so that I could do any phone-calls and cooking for them. A couple of times a week, Social Services sent a support worker round to look after Lulu, so that I could spend the whole morning at her siblings’ house, helping the carers and doing some play-therapy with the children. It was often a traumatic experience and every day I saw them I wondered how we could ever turn things round for them, but we had to keep trying. It would obviously be a very long and tricky task. Would it ever be possible to ‘re-programme’ them to such an extent that they could eventually live ‘normal’ lives? I had to believe we could.