A Father’s Betrayal
A True Story
By Gabriella Gillespie
&
Edited by Peter Yakoob
Acknowledgements
I’d like to say thanks to Peter Yakoob for all his help, support and encouragement. Without your help my memoirs would still be hidden in the back of my cupboard.
A huge thank you to both Peter and Ben Seales for helping me edit my book.
I’d also like to thank Chris Sansom and Sam Ceccatty from Authoright, for putting up with my endless phone calls and changing my mind while my book was being made.
Gaby
Cover:
Clockwise; Ali Yafai (My father), Issy, Muna (Gabriella Gillespie) & Yas
Contents
Title Page
Acknowledgements
Chapter One: Mum
Chapter Two: Given Away
Chapter Three: Dad’s Secret Family
Chapter Four: Girls, Let’s Go Home!
Chapter Five: Goodbye Sweet Sister
Chapter Six: Yas Pulls the Trigger!
Chapter Seven: The Secret Matchbox
Chapter Eight: It’s Yas, She’s Dead!
Chapter Nine: Mana, Never Talk of Dying
Chapter Ten: The Pregnant Black Widow
Chapter Eleven: What Really Happens When a Girl Says “No”
Chapter Twelve: The Wealthy “Muhamasheen”
Chapter Thirteen: The Scorpion Bite
Chapter Fourteen: Losing a Child
Chapter Fifteen: I Never Wanted to Marry You
Chapter Sixteen: Please Don’t Hurt My Children!
Chapter Seventeen: Disowned
Chapter Eighteen: Forbidden Love
Chapter Nineteen: The Evil Stepmother
Chapter Twenty: The Marble Step
Chapter Twenty One: Dad’s Confession!
Chapter Twenty Two: Not Without My Children!
Chapter Twenty Three: A Promise to Myself
Copyright
Chapter One
Mum
“Ouch!” I screamed, as Yas smacked me in the face, “I’m telling Dad on you!”
“Go ahead, he was the one who told me to do it,” she replied.
Yas and I had been sitting on the floor in our living room watching TV. I was around five years old and Yas, my older sister, around six and half. I’d picked up a bad habit of making funny movements with my face without realising I was doing it, stretching my nose and mouth in a downwards position. I ran out of the living room screeching as loud as possible to get Mum’s attention, and towards the kitchen where Mum was, straight into her arms.
“Muna, baby, what’s wrong with you?” she asked as she picked me up and cuddled me while wiping away my tears.
“Yas punched me in the face,” I lied.
“No I did not!” Yas came storming in. “You’re such a liar! I just gave you a little slap to stop you from making those stupid faces, and anyway Dad told me to do it!”
“Dad told you to do what?” Mum asked. She wasn’t happy with Yas for hitting me, but hearing Dad told her to do it made her angry.
“He said if you catch your sister pulling those silly faces again give her a slap!” Yas replied.
“No, Yas, that’s not the way to stop her from doing it, so I’m telling you to apologize to your sister and do not hit her again.” Yas was always the stubborn one.
“No way that’s not fair! Dad told me to do it so get him to apologize when he gets back; it’s not my fault, why do I always get the blame?” Yas stormed out of the kitchen and upstairs, stomping her feet as she went along so we would get the message that she was upset; the next thing we heard was the bedroom door slam.
“Don’t worry baby, I will talk to your Dad, but you really need to stop making those faces, they spoil your pretty face!” Mum kissed me and told me to go upstairs and make up with my sister.
I went upstairs into the bedroom that I shared with Yas. I sat next to her on her bed but she shoved me off with her feet. “Get off my bed!” she sulked.
“Sorry for telling Mum on you Yas, but you hurt me,” I replied.
“Yea I know Moo, and I’m sorry, but if you keep pulling that stupid face you’re going to end up staying like that forever, so if I see you doing it again I’m going to smack you! Anyway you know Mum and Dad are going to argue now, don’t you?”
There were four of us sisters, Ablah was around nine and half years old and Issy, whose real name was Ismahan, was about eight, then there was Yasmin who we called Yas, and me, Muna, who they called Moo. Yas also called me Moo cow because she said I was a cow bag, and I had big eyes like a cow! She also said I talked a load of bull and had a wild imagination! That evening after dinner we all sat down to watch TV in the living room. As usual we girls would all sit on the floor in front of the TV. Yas sat to the side of me, her eyes glued to my face, and as soon as I pulled the face, smack! I let out a huge scream!
“I can’t believe you did that again!” Mum shouted at Yas.
“Dad told me to do it, didn’t you Dad?” was my sister’s calm reply, as she looked at Dad.
Dad was sat comfortably in his chair. “She needs to learn,” he mumbled. That set off an argument between Mum and Dad! Mum didn’t believe in smacking whereas Dad apparently didn’t have a problem with it. Mum sent us all to our rooms while they kept on arguing, the next morning everything seemed fine. Yas and I tiptoed downstairs as quietly as possible, we made it to the kitchen.
“Come on, bunk me up,” I whispered. Yas was still trying to bunk me up onto the kitchen top when mum came through the door!
“Caught red handed once again, you two!” she teased as she started to chase us around the kitchen. “You need to wait for your sisters. Ablah, Issy, come on, hurry up!” Mum shouted out.
As they were coming downstairs Mum reached up into the kitchen cupboard and took out a bottle of malt. As she turned around to get a spoon from the drawer she laughed when she saw I was already stood there with a spoon in my hand! “It’s a good job you love this stuff isn’t it?” she smiled.
Since we were babies Mum had propped us on the kitchen top every morning come rain or shine and given us each a spoonful of malt. She would always tell us, “This will help you grow to be tall and beautiful!” We loved it so much we would always beg for more.
Mum was called Mary Yafai and she was from Birmingham. Every morning she would take us to school without fail, and she always watched us go in and waved us goodbye. Then she would go off and see her friends, mum had lots of friends in the area, even though she wasn’t from the area that we were living in. We were living in Grafton Road, Newport, South Wales.
She was really beautiful and when she walked down the street heads would turn; she was tall and slim with long dark hair, and long legs that she liked to show off!
She had met Dad when she was really young. Dad was also a good looking guy with his Middle Eastern looks; he was Ali Abdulla Saleh Yafai, a Yemeni guy who had moved to England around 24 years earlier. I think they met when Mum was only around 15 because she married really young and she had Yas when she was only 16.
Ablah and Issy were not Mum’s biological daughters, although Mum loved them just as much. Mum insisted she bring them up when she found out they were in a care home because their real mum had given them up after she left Dad. Mum insisted she wanted us all to grow up together, she believed sisters shouldn’t be apart.
Yas and I never knew at first that our older sisters were not Mum’s daughters. We found out when I was around five and Mum and Dad had a huge argument and Mum took us to her parents’ house in Birmingham.
Dad refused to allow my older sisters to come with us, saying Mum wasn’t their real mother s
o had no rights to take them. We returned after a couple of days because neither Mum nor us could stand being away from our sisters.
Mum’s family hated Dad and were not supportive of her relationship with him. We visited them every once in a while, usually when our parents had an argument. Dad never came with us, he wasn’t welcomed in our grandparents’ home.
Dad worked away a lot; he had different part time jobs. He was a part time butcher and would deliver meat in a van he owned. He also worked in Llanwern steelworks in Newport Gwent and part time as a labourer up and down the country.
He had lots of friends from his home country; he would take us to their homes and would chat to them for hours in a language we couldn’t understand. He and his friends would say to us, “You need to learn Arabic, you will need to speak it one day!” We would run off laughing blurting out, “Blah, blah, blah!”
Mum hated it when Dad took us to his friends’ houses and they would constantly argue over it. If she found out we had gone alone to play with other children and gone inside their houses without permission she would be furious with us!
Even though Mum and Dad argued a lot we girls were happy. We would hardly ever leave Mum’s side and she always loved to dress us up in the latest fashion. She and Dad had different ideas on what clothes we should wear, but Dad was never around so Mum got to dress us up just like she wanted, skirts instead of trousers like Dad wanted!
Mum loved having a house full of kids. At one time we had four other children living with us. There were two boys and two girls whose father was also Arabic. I think they lived with us because their Mum had left them and their Dad had a new girlfriend who didn’t look after them properly. Whatever the reason, they stayed with us for many months.
It was the day before Mum’s 26th birthday, on 2nd September 1971. Mum took us to school and told us she would see us that afternoon. My sisters and I were excited because we always did something special on someone’s birthday. After she dropped us off we were secretly planning what we could do or give her for her birthday; we decided to make her a card that evening.
It was Dad who picked us up in his meat van, something he had never done before. When Yas asked where Mum was he told us she had gone to stay with her parents and wouldn’t be back for a while.
At first we all thought Mum would come back the next day, it was her birthday and she would never celebrate without us, but she didn’t. We held on to her birthday card and cried, asking questions about where she was and why we couldn’t go and see her, but all Dad would say was she had left and he didn’t know where she was.
Three days later when Mum failed to return home Dad reported her missing.
The police started a huge nationwide search, one of the largest of its kind back in those days. Over 30 police offices and two police dogs were involved in the search. Newspapers reported sightings of her in different cities, none of them turned out to be true.
Dad participated in the search with the police travelling up and down the country handing out leaflets with Mum’s picture on them; he spent a fortune searching for her. Months went by with no sign from Mum. The newspapers even put an article from my sister Yas on her birthday in November begging Mum to come home, but again nothing.
It wasn’t long before the newspapers started printing stories about Mum having an affair before she disappeared. It was alleged she was intending to leave Dad and take us girls with her. They said that she had intended to meet her lover the day she went missing but had never turned up. Of course this was talk that my sisters and I were not supposed to know about.
Sometime in early 1972 we were asked by the police to leave our home in Grafton Road; they needed to search it for evidence. We moved into another house in Corporation Road with Dad’s friends.
The police started searching Grafton Road; they were searching for Mum’s body or any evidence that she was killed in our house. They dug up the garden, ripped up floorboards and even smashed into walls. They reportedly found blood stains under a carpet in one of the rooms but couldn’t identify who they belonged to.
Around August 1972, after questions were raised about our welfare, Dad voluntarily handed us over to social services care and we were put into a care home. Dad was interviewed more than 30 times before he was arrested more than a year after Mum disappeared.
The Regional Crime Squad and CID started gathering witness statements. One witness was our next door neighbour who gave evidence that she heard Mum screaming, “No! No! Please don’t… I’m sorry, don’t,” the day mum disappeared. She also said she heard a fight going on, sounds like furniture being thrown against the walls, then she said it went silent. A little while later she said she heard scrubbing sounds coming from our kitchen. She also told how she saw Dad and two men carry out a big rolled up carpet later that night and load it into Dad’s meat van.
The two other men, who were Dad’s Arabic friends and who were identified as those seen carrying out the carpet the night of Mum’s disappearance, were also arrested and charged.
The jury found Dad guilty of manslaughter, even though Mum’s body was never found; he was given six years in jail. The judge told the jury they needed to take into consideration the fact that Mum had provoked Dad into losing his temper and killing her by having an affair, therefore not to find him guilty of murder. The two Arabic men were cleared of all charges.
We were distraught. Even though Mum and Dad argued all the time, we were convinced our father was innocent.
We were rescued from the care home by Jim and Thelma. Jim was from Fiji and Thelma was a Welsh lady. Jim had been living in the UK most of his life; both of them had been friends with my parents and decided they couldn’t see the four of us separated so took us in.
Jim and Thelma already had three daughters of their own. Carol, Linda and baby Keeran. Carol and Linda were from Thelma’s first marriage, while Keeran was Jim’s only child. Carol and Linda were the same age as Yas and I while Keeran was about three years old. Our foster parents were loving towards us; although strict with us, they truly cared for us.
We were abandoned by Mum’s family after Mum’s disappearance so Jim and Thelma had a lot to take on. Their family became our family, and Thelma had lots of family in Newport that we visited regularly. Our foster parents didn’t get much assistance from social services. Every now and then they would get bits of food from them, but not much. Jim worked long hours on the railways to bring in extra money.
When we arrived at our foster home we were all displaying problems in one way or the other from losing our parents. We were four little girls whose lives had been turned upside down, we had been left confused, angry and feeling lost; I’d already claimed to have seen Mum’s ghost come out of a cupboard in our bedroom, which I was told was part of my wild imagination. We didn’t receive any help or support from social services and were never asked how we were managing after Mum’s disappearance, or Dad’s imprisonment.
I was around eight by then and I’d also started pinching things and getting into trouble at school. Yas was a tomboy and wanted to fight everyone. Issy was around twelve and very into her image from an early age, but more the quieter one. Ablah was the oldest at around thirteen and a half and very independent. She was more mature and despised Dad and out of all of us she was the only one who always felt he was guilty. She also hated the fact that we were in foster care and couldn’t wait to be of an age where she could leave.
I won’t be mentioning Ablah much more in my book, other than to say I love her very much.
We called our foster parents Uncle and Aunty from the beginning. They did everything they could to make our time with them a happy one. My happiest memories of our foster home were our holidays.
Uncle Jim owned a caravan in Pembroke, South Wales; this was where we had our holidays every summer. When we were home we had constant homework or chores, it was a busy house and there was always something to do. Our holidays were the one time we were all allowed to run free and play! All seven of us
girls would leave the caravan early morning and head to the beach to spend our days catching crabs, cockles and mussels. We built sand castles, did acrobats in the sand, squabbled over boys and would only return to the caravan to grab our food before we headed back out to play.
Uncle Jim would proudly follow us around with his camera to take the ‘family shots’ to show off to his family back home in Fiji, Aunty Thelma’s family and friends back home in Newport, and of course our neighbours!
When we moved into our foster home we moved up a school and things changed even more for us. Everyone knew us as the girls whose Dad murdered their Mum. Even though I don’t remember being bullied or asked about it, I remember I didn’t have many friends.
Issy was cool and beautiful and got on with everyone, but she was also quiet and kept her head down. Yas was known as the hard girl in school so nobody would mess with her, whereas I was also known as the trouble maker and the mouthy one.
I would always run to Yas for help; even though she was allowed to push me around and smack me whenever she felt like it, nobody else was! Yas has always been my protective big sister and has always protected me. If anyone wanted to fight me they had to fight my big sister first; and back then Yas always won.
I was always in trouble for one thing or the other when we first went into care. I remember one time in school when I was sent out of PE for misbehaving and told to wait in the locker room until the class had finished. At first I was upset for being sent out of class, but then I realised I was all alone in the locker room with the bags of both teachers and students. I quickly emptied out the purses of the teachers, not worried about leaving anyone any money, or the fact that I’d been the only one left in the locker room by myself, therefore the only suspect! It wasn’t long before lunchtime where I generously shared out my good fortune to my sister and a few students, hoping to make new friends.
Soon afterwards I got called into the headmaster’s office. I was caught with lots of money on me and made to tell what I’d done with the rest! Then I was escorted by a teacher and made to go around collecting the money back off the students I’d handed it out to! I was even less popular after that.
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