Broken

by Oliver T Spedding

  Broken

  by

  Oliver T. Spedding

  ©Copyright 2015 Oliver T. Spedding

  Smashwords Edition

  ***

  Smashwords Edition, Licence Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ***

  CHAPTER 1

  “Your Honour.” my attorney, James Foster said, looking up at the judge sitting at his desk on the raised platform at the head of the court. “As my first witness I would like to call Doctor Sydney Thomas.”

  Judge Warren Bester nodded and Doctor Thomas, a tall balding man with thick horn-rimmed glasses and wearing a dark blue suit, walked to the witness stand, took the oath of honesty and looked at James Foster expectantly. I judged the man to be in his late sixties.

  “Doctor Thomas, please tell the court what your qualifications are.” my lawyer requested.

  “I’m a registered child and adolescent psychiatrist attached to the Department of Psychiatry at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town.” the doctor replied.

  “What actually is psychiatry and how does it approach the subject of child abuse?”

  “Psychiatry is a medical speciality devoted to the study, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mental disorders and, with regard to child abuse, attempts to understand and evaluate the causes, symptoms and consequences of this abhorrent behaviour.” the doctor said. “I work with the victims of all three of the forms of child abuse, namely, psychological, physical and sexual abuse.”

  “With regard to sexual abuse, is there a specific age where this begins?”

  The doctor pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

  “Child sexual abuse covers a wide spectrum of activities and not confined to physical penetration.” the doctor explained. “Sexual abuse can therefore begin at a very young age but the most traumatic and lasting effects of sexual abuse are the result of sexual abuse where penetration occurs. Studies have shown though, that children are most vulnerable to sexual abuse between the ages of eight and twelve years. I would like to point out though, that the sexual abuse of children is not confined to females and a huge number of boys under the age of eighteen experience sexual abuse and other forms of sexual violence.”

  “Is there a specific parent profile for child abusers?” James Foster asked.

  “The most common factor in child abusers is mental illness.” Doctor Thomas said. “Mental disorders comprise a significant component of the disease burden of most nations and depressive disorder stands out as the most important factor of child abuse.

  "Depression is a common mental illness and causes significant clinical impairment in most areas that are important for the day-to-day functioning of the parent. Many diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, acute infections, Aids, cancer and anaemia are all associated with depression. Parents with depression are often poorly groomed, resulting in the child not receiving adequate care and grooming and leading to the frustration of cleaning the child repeatedly. This frustration can easily lead to abuse.

  "Parents who consider suicide can be a great danger to children and ailing parents often find that tending to a child can become overwhelming and can lead to abuse.

  "Depressive parents often lack an interest in activities and seldom realise that the child has a future and needs to be prepared for it. Impatience at the child’s continual quest for knowledge and information can easily lead to abuse.

  "Agitation, thought disorders, hallucinations, delusions and a lack of insight cause great harm to children. Sufferers of depression can even come to believe that children are evil.

  "Other contributors to child abuse are a lack of education and skills that deny a stable income, the absence of a father figure, frustration and helplessness as a result of the demands for providing for a family and low social development.”

  “Are there specific characteristics for sexual child abusers?”

  “Men who sexually abuse children are more often violent and likely to extend their activities outside the home.” Doctor Thomas said. “Authoritarian fathers with weak partners who are dependent on them are liable to abuse children sexually although the exact opposite is often noticed. Also fathers who are heavily dependent on their partners for emotional support and men who have excessive sexual demands that are not forthcoming from their partners are possible sexual child abusers. In families where the man feels sexually frustrated but lacks the emotional maturity to break away there is a very real danger of sexual abuse to the children.”

  “Thank you, doctor.” my attorney said. “That will be all for the moment.”

  “Your Honour, I’d now like to call my client and first defendant, Miss Cindy Bedford, to the witness stand.” my attorney, James Foster said.

  The judge nodded.

  I stood up from the hard wooden bench where I’d been sitting next to my co-accused, Garth Gilmore, and looked down at him. He stared back at me, his dark brown eyes unemotional, the fringe of his thick mane of black hair falling across his forehead and the scars and blemishes of his facial acne clearly visible in the bright courthouse light. His small mouth with its fleshy lips was slightly compressed, betraying the anxiety that he kept trying to hide. Although his white shirt was several sizes too big for him it failed to hide his bulky, muscular build that, even at his young age, was beginning to show signs of plumpness. His thick fingers lay intertwined on his lap.

  I walked determinedly to the witness stand and placed my hand on the black bible that the court official proffered me.

  “Do you, Cindy Bedford, swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?” the man asked in an almost bored tone.

  “I do.” I said.

  As the court official walked away towards his desk James Foster smiled at me encouragingly.

  “Miss Bedford, I’m going to address you as “Cindy” as I want you to feel at ease in the court.” he said. “We’re not here to attack you in any way. We’re here to try to determine what caused the events that brought you and Garth Gilmore here.

  "I would like to begin by asking you to describe your formative years as you remember them, especially with regard to your relationship with your parents. Please remember that this is a closed court, as required under the Child Justice Act, and that your evidence will be strictly confidential to this court and will not be open to the public. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.” I said, and taking a deep breath, I began my response to my attorney’s request.

  ***

  I was born in the South Rand Hospital in the southern suburb of Rosettenville in Johannesburg, South Africa on the morning of June the tenth, nineteen ninety, the first and only child of John and Alice Bedford. My first name, Cindy, was chosen for me as it had been my maternal grandmother’s first name.

  According to my mother I was a quiet baby, not prone to bouts of screaming and howling, and when I did cry it was more of a plaintive sobbing. Apparently I smiled a lot and appeared to be a happy and contented baby.

  Most of my earliest memories featured my mother, a short slim woman with short red-brown hair, dark eyebrows that dipped towards the bridge of her nose and gave her a slightly angry look, dark brown eyes, a delicate nose, a thin-lipped mouth and a slightly receding chin.

  My father was several inches shorter than my mother, also slim and, at twenty five, his thin blonde hair already showe
d definite signs of receding. He had small pale blue eyes, bushy eyebrows that hung over his eyelids and gave him a slightly aggressive look, a slender blonde pencil moustache that underlined his battered flat nose, a thin straight mouth and, like my mother, a slightly receding chin.

  I think that my father’s short stature had something to do with his pugnacious attitude and I suspect that the bigger boys at school picked on him at every opportunity. His confrontational attitude didn’t help either and, judging by his battered and flattened nose, his false front teeth, his gnarled and misshapen knuckles and the myriad scars on his face, the idea of walking away from certain defeat never entered his mind.

  My father hardly featured in any of my early memories but when he did, it usually involved him shouting at me and belittling anything that I tried to do. My mother told me that he showed very little interest in my upbringing and avoided physical contact with me whenever possible. His belligerent attitude towards me and my mother was a constant damper to the camaraderie that most families strive for and I received many beatings for misdemeanours that I didn’t understand until I was much older. What soon became very clear to me was that my mother never interfered or tried to protect me during these assaults.

  When not working as a wage clerk at the Simmer and Jack Gold Mine to the east of the city, my father spent all of his free time attending to his small flock of racing pigeons that he kept in a corrugated iron loft in the back yard of our small two-bedroom semi-detached house. The house was situated in the Johannesburg suburb of Rosettenville and had been inherited by my mother from her parents who had died in a motor accident five years before I was born.

  The plastered outside walls of the house were painted a dark beige colour and the corrugated iron roof a dark red. The structure stood on a small piece of land fronted by a brick wall with a wooden pedestrian gate in the centre and two wide wooden gates on the left side closing off the short driveway leading to the garage where my father housed his dark green Morris Minor. A narrow concrete path and three steps led from the small front gate to the veranda that stretched across the front of the house.

  The house itself had a central passageway leading from the front door right through to the back door with the two bedrooms, the bathroom and the kitchen to the left and the lounge, dining room and the scullery to the right. The walls of the bathroom, kitchen and scullery were covered with white tiles and the rest of the rooms were covered in a blue willow-patterned wallpaper. The ceilings consisted of panels of pressed steel while the small windows created a gloomy atmosphere even when the lights were on. The wooden floors creaked ominously, especially during the dry winter months.

  The back yard of the property was bare brown ground with the pigeon loft in the centre of the back part of the high brick wall that separated our land from our neighbours on all three sides.

  Although my father took very little notice of me during my formative years there were many times when he was compelled to assist with my upbringing by helping me to dress or undress and take a bath. Although I only realised it later in my life, whenever he had to help me with these activities he took every opportunity to touch my genitals. Whenever he helped me to bath he always made sure that my mother wasn’t present and then he would caress me between my legs and make soothing sounds.

  When he helped me dress or undress he did the same thing, gently rubbing my genitals with his finger and smiling at me. He never tried to insert his finger into me though and if he noticed any expression of fear or bewilderment on my face he would immediately cease his caressing. At this tender age my father’s actions meant nothing to me although I think that there were times when I experienced vague feelings of fear.

  My father continued to touch my genitals until I reached the age of three when I think he began to notice that his behaviour was disturbing and frightening me. He immediately avoided all physical contact with me except for the beatings that he subjected me to and which, I’ve no doubt, was noticed by my mother, although I never heard her comment on it to my father. This behaviour by my father may have registered in my subconscious but I took no notice of it and never mentioned it to my mother.

  I went to kindergarten for three years as my mother worked mornings at the nearby Post Office but they were obviously uneventful years as I don’t remember any incidents from that time. My mother told me later that I was very quiet as a small child and, although never created any lasting friendships, I was always happy and content. I was friendly and tolerant and seemed to be very considerate towards the other children, letting them play with my toys and never being greedy or selfish.

  At primary school I made friends easily and my marks were good. I loved learning and constantly searched for understanding. Although many of my classmates were more gifted than I was I never felt threatened about my academic achievements and never envied other’s successes. The only dampener in my life was my father and to a lesser extent, my mother.

  Ever since I could remember, my father had been a heavy drinker both at the mine pub after work and at home in the evenings and over weekends. This inebriation often led to outbursts of anger and violence being directed at me and my mother for no reason that I could understand. My mother tried to explain to me that my father was struggling to pay his expenses on the meagre pay that he received and was gradually falling deeper and deeper into debt.

  During my early years at primary school the severe beatings by my father for my indiscretions became more frequent but he always used some article such as a hairbrush or a belt to strike me with and never used his naked hand. I began to develop a deep hatred for my father as well as a desperate feeling of helplessness as I often failed to understand what I had done to anger him so. I also began to feel frightened by the fact that my mother never interfered when my father beat me. The support that I desperately needed and expected from her was never there.

  I remember one particular incident when I was about eight years old and my father beat me so badly that I was forbidden to go to school or even leave the house for a week in case someone queried the welts on my arms and legs and my swollen left eye.

  My mother had baked a dish of spaghetti bolognaise for our supper and I had offered to carry the meal from the kitchen to the dining room. My mother had been hesitant about allowing me to take on this responsibility.

  “Are you sure that you can carry the dish?” she asked. “It’s very hot.”

  “Yes.” I said. “I’ll hold it with a dish cloth.”

  My mother folded a dish cloth and handed it to me, watching closely as I used it to pick up the scorching hot plate. As I turned towards the dining room I could sense my mother watching me anxiously. I felt very confident as I walked towards the dining room. I so wanted to be part of the family and doing little things like this made me feel wanted.

  As I entered the dining room the dish cloth slipped under my grip and my fingers touched the piping hot dish. The sudden pain made me jerk my hands away and I dropped the whole meal onto the floor. The plate shattered and hot spaghetti bolognaise and pieces of china sprayed out across the floor.

  My father stood up from where he’d been sitting at the table waiting for his meal and ran towards me. Thinking that he was coming to help me I looked up at him apologetically as I held my aching fingers close to my chest.

  “You bloody little fool!” my father screamed at me. “You’ve ruined our bloody supper!”

  I stared at my father in shock. He raised his right hand and punched me hard in my left eye. I fell backwards, hitting the back of my head against the wall and slid to the floor. As I lay dazed I saw my father remove the thick leather belt from his trousers, fold it in two, and raise it above his shoulder.

  “I’ll show you what happens when you waste our food!” my father yelled at me and brought the leather belt down across my left arm viciously. I screamed in agony.

  “Please stop, daddy!” I wailed. “I’m sorry! Please don’t hit me! The cloth slipped and I burnt my fingers!”

&nbs
p; My father ignored my pleas and began to beat me fiercely on my thighs.

  “You’ve ruined our supper, you stupid little bitch!” he shouted as he continued to hit my legs and arms with the belt. “You’ve wasted our whole supper!”

  I tried to pull my legs in under my body to protect them and my father began to hit me across my upper arms. The pain was so unbearable that I almost fainted. Vaguely I noticed my mother watching me from the doorway.

  “Please, mommy!” I screamed. “Tell daddy to stop!”

  My mother turned and walked away.

  By now, my father was so out of breath that he had to stop hitting me. He stepped back and his foot landed in the food lying on the floor. He slipped and he almost fell. This enraged him further and he began hitting me once again with the leather belt but his arm was too tired and he quickly stopped. He turned and began kicking the food on the floor, splattering it over the furniture and the walls of the room. He turned back to face me.

  “You fucking stupid little bitch!” he shouted. “No food for you at all, tonight! Get up and go to your room!”

  I staggered to my feet, my legs and arms covered with aching red welts. The pain was agonizing and as I lurched towards the doorway my father kicked me viciously on my upper left thigh. I staggered and hit my head against the door jamb, almost knocking myself out.

  As I left the room I glanced fearfully back at my father expecting to be kicked again or hit on the back with the belt. He stood glaring at me though, and in my dazed condition I noticed a large bulge with a wet patch on it in the front of his trousers.

  I stumbled to my bedroom and fell onto my bed, crying desperately.

  “Cook another dish of spaghetti, Alice!” I heard my father shout to my mother. “But only make enough for the two of us! That stupid little bitch gets nothing tonight! And tomorrow she can spend the whole day here cleaning up the mess that she made!”

  Eventually I managed to gain control of myself. I lay on my bed shivering with shock. I had tried to be part of the family and now I’d alienated myself even more. I hadn’t purposely dropped the dish. The cloth had slipped. Why couldn’t my father understand that all children make mistakes? That’s how they learn. And why hadn’t my mother tried to stop my father? I felt betrayed and my anger and hatred for both my parents seethed within me.