I learned about the drug trade from Mohammed but what I didn’t know was that he had been speaking to Spider about me and a project he was working on. They had other business interests – young girls – and I was part of their plan.
I was drinking increasing amounts of alcohol, all supplied by Mohammed. At first I drank because I thought it was cool and after that I carried on to block out everything else that happened. In the beginning, I was enjoying alcohol and the more I drank, the more I seemed to be sucked into the underworld of the city. I was starting to see the dark underbelly of Oxford. There was a life and community below the surface hugely at odds with the image the city has; it was also hugely at odds with the household I had been adopted into. It was full of seedy, menacing characters; also victims, junkies and runaway, vulnerable children.
There was a prevalent underage drinking culture in the city and, through it, I met a whole new group of friends. It centred on Bonn Square, where a gang of kids used to meet, loiter and get drunk. I had a head start on this scene because I was always given alcohol by Mohammed, and Oxford lends itself to drinking because it’s a student town and there are a lot of pubs and bars – there were drunk people around all the time.
My friends then included Dean, Joey and Kasey, who were part of a gang of feral children who hung around the city. None of them was schooled and they practically lived on the streets and largely didn’t care. Kasey’s parents were deaf and had learning difficulties. Dean was a street kid – his mum had died when he was young and he lived with his dad. Joey was disturbed. He once threw a brick through a residential window and almost killed a baby sleeping inside. Mum’s house was fairly central and I would see these kids hanging around outside; they also hung out in a sink estate called Friars Wharf and an area known as Thames Street. Mum once took two of them home when she caught them running wild in the street and breaking windows.
I spent a lot of time with Kasey. We met when she asked me for a cigarette at a fair in the city. She was a couple of years younger than me and tall and skinny. At 12 she looked 16 but mentally she was very young. She looked like she was on drugs. Kasey had red hair and pale grey skin; her cheeks were sunken and there were dark shadows under her eyes. She was wild – her moods swung up down. She was like a fizzing bottle of cola. Always cheeky and a bit rude to adults, she had had a very hard life. Her mother and father had a range of health issues and so she had to grow up fast. Kasey was wild but there was something vulnerable about her too. She wouldn’t open up readily and talk about her life and, like me, she seemed stuck in a self-destructive pattern.
This surreal other world was like a layer beneath normal life. Soon I was able to spot the people who lived there in the same way experience had taught me how to pick out a child in care: the people in this world had a look of loneliness and empty eyes.
Now I had two lives. I had my normal friends who went to school. Always having a go at me and telling me to sort myself out and get back into school, they loved and respected my mum and could see what a good person she was. They sat with her when I disappeared to Mohammed’s, and they texted me to tell me to come back because Mum was worried sick.
The months passed and Mohammed strengthened his links with me. Always he reminded me what a good friend he was, and how much he knew about me. On a few occasions, when I was very drunk, he touched me. Once, when I was paralytic, he persuaded me to perform a sex act on him, but we were never in a relationship. Increasingly, he talked about sexual subjects and made sexual remarks: he would tell me what he wanted to do to me, he would say he had done this with other people. I just thought he was being a lad. He told me I could always trust him.
There were always drugs around and I became increasingly nonchalant about them. Mohammed supplied me with cocaine and on one occasion he made a joint for me. I smoked it, but it made me feel ill. Also, he continually talked about crack – it was like he was a salesman. He exposed me to it daily and got me used to seeing it around, to the distinct smell of it and the sight of people smoking it. For me it had lost its shock value and, once it did, he started to get me curious about it. He told me how good it felt and that it was no big deal – he and his friends smoked it so regularly it was like they were smoking cigarettes. I started to get interested in trying it but was still apprehensive. On a few occasions, he asked outright whether I wanted some and I said no.
Subtle pressure was being placed on me. Everything was building up to getting me to try it, but in such a way that I wouldn’t be scared off. Finally, I gave in. One Friday, Mohammed told me we were going to have a weekend session.
‘We are going to have a drink session and a party,’ he stated. ‘It will be a late one.’
I took this to mean that it was planned to be an all-nighter.
‘Why don’t you try some crack? It’ll keep you awake.’
‘OK,’ I nodded.
The next evening I went to the flat as usual after running away from home. I knew Mum was worried sick about my constant disappearances, and she regularly called the police when I went, but I didn’t care. Like Mohammed said, she was the enemy: she was jealous because I was having a good time.
He was there with two other men.
‘Remember you said last time that you will try it,’ he reminded me as he tapped some crystals from a plastic bag.
I was nervous but there was pressure on me to do it, and I wasn’t one for stepping down from a dare.
He handed me a small glass pipe. At one end was a funnel-shaped opening in which he placed a crack rock. I lit a lighter and held it over the rock as I inhaled the acrid smoke that filled the tube – I had seen him and the others do so a hundred times so he didn’t have to tell me what to do. I held the pipe and lit the flame but it might as well have been his hands on it because it was his work and persistence over the months that had got me into a position where I was willing to try hard drugs for him: I was 13.
The feeling was instant. A wave of tingly euphoria swept over me and all my cares evaporated; I felt great and happy.
I looked up and Mohammed and the other men were watching and grinning. When the hit wore off after a few minutes I craved another and Mohammed delivered. The music sounded better, everything looked and felt better.
I didn’t immediately notice the change in the atmosphere of the room. I didn’t think much of it when Mohammed said that I was his bitch and later called me a ho. I was high and, as long as he kept satisfying my cravings, I didn’t care what he said. He started talking about sex and about what I would do for him; I didn’t understand what he meant. Lost in a haze, I was grinning and nodding at the words as the faces around me swam in and out of focus.
‘Next time you come round there will be a couple of lads here. You are going to do me a favour, aren’t you?’ he whispered as my eyes rolled in my head.
That night I took lots of drugs and felt shaky when he sent me home. I cried myself to sleep – I thought I was addicted and then I got scared about what was going to happen to me. Before I met Mohammed I had hated drugs – I thought they were disgusting. I saw people in the city who were obviously on them, and I didn’t want to be like them: zombies, empty shells. That day I was vile to Mum. I argued and sulked and, when she asked where I had been, I spat back that it was nothing to do with her and I had been with friends.
As the fog in my head cleared, I tried hard to fight the cravings but I really wanted more. I told myself it was a one-off but I knew it wouldn’t be – it felt so good and it was so easily available. I could see why people got addicted. And I had a nagging fear: Mohammed wanted me to do something for him and I had agreed. He knew so much about me. I could trust him, couldn’t I? I was too scared to say no because he could give me drugs and make me feel so good. I tried to work out what was happening. Why was I so worried about how Mohammed was acting? What did he want me to do?
Somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind I knew and the thought terrified me so I shut it away. He told me I owed him because I was smoki
ng his drugs but he didn’t want money from me. Instead, he wanted a favour from me: I owed him because of all he’d done for me since I’d met him. I was confused about it all but the overriding feeling was that I wanted to take more drugs – and I wanted to please Mohammed.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter eleven
PAYBACK
When I got up the following day, I had a bath and put my phone on loud because Mum was at work and I was scared of missing the call I knew was coming. I was supposed to go to anger management classes, which had been booked for me through social services. It was part of the effort everyone was making to get me to address my behaviour, so I could get to a place where I was able to go back to school. But I had no intention of going back.
As I got myself ready, I looked in the mirror. The girl staring back at me was pale and thin; I was anxious and I felt sick. I hadn’t been eating properly over the previous months, due to the amount I was drinking and the drugs I was taking. Usually I vomited if I ate. Whenever I came home, Mum always tried to make me eat but I wasn’t hungry. She knew I was drinking and she probably suspected I was taking drugs. She was worried sick and tried again and again to speak to me, and discover what was happening and how she could help, but I shut her out.
I went downstairs and got myself a glass of water but it came back up seconds after I drank it. Scared and nervous, I felt cornered. I worried that if I didn’t go and do what Mohammed was going to ask me then he would come to my house and get me anyway. When my phone buzzed, I jumped. I grabbed it quickly and read the message.
‘Make sure you are here on time, my friends will be waiting,’ he texted.
My hands were shaking as I read it.
It was easy leaving the house because Mum was at work – at least I didn’t have to argue my way out the front door or climb out the window. I got to the flat early. When I arrived, Mohammed’s whole demeanour had changed. He talked down to me and he ordered me around; he was hostile and I didn’t like it. He gave me drink and then he smoked a crack pipe. When I smelled the acrid smoke, I started to shiver. He looked at me, smiled and offered me the pipe. I inhaled. All my senses cleared.
Mohammed reminded me how much I’d smoked the night before. It was around £100 worth, about four rocks. He made it plain that I owed him for it and that, to repay him, I was to have sex with the men he was about to introduce me to. That was the way it worked. If I wanted to enjoy the drink and the drugs, and be part of his life, I had to do things for him. Ever since that day, I have struggled to understand why I didn’t just walk away at that point. Why didn’t I call the police or tell my mum? And for years afterwards I blamed myself. I thought it was all my fault, but I had been brainwashed. It had taken months of careful grooming to get me to the point where I was unable to make rational decisions for myself. I had been targeted and manipulated. Mohammed knew exactly the kind of girl I was; he knew I came from a disruptive background, that I was vulnerable and easily led. He knew that, because I was sexually abused when I was young, I was averse to physical relationships so he didn’t try to be my boyfriend, instead he positioned himself as a trusted friend. If I had been a different girl, he would have used different tactics: he would have positioned himself as a long-term partner and spoilt me with gifts and promises of love. I later learned that he did just that with one of the other girls he controlled; his methods depended on the history of the target.
The psychological work done, he started with drink and then progressed to drugs until I was reliant on him. And then he switched from trusted friend to malevolent master. There was a threat in the way he ordered me around; he was in complete control. And so I did what he told me to do. He made it plain what was expected of me. And I knew it was coming. I was already a mess, already on drugs and crack was the next stage; I was in thrall to the way it made me feel and it also served to numb me against what was going to happen. I told myself I could get through it.
The drugs made me unaware of the environment I was in; I didn’t feel in any danger. I convinced myself I wasn’t in a crack den; I shut out thoughts about what I was about to do. Now I was his – I was a piece of meat. Through the crack buzz he told me what I was going to do: his friends would arrive and I would have sex with them.
‘You are mine now,’ he sneered.
He led me into a room where there was a bed, on which he’d placed a carrier bag.
‘Get that lot on!’ he ordered me.
Inside was a range of underwear. All adult and highly sexualised, with stockings and a corset, it left nothing to the imagination. Obviously, given my young age, I’d never worn anything like it.
I challenged him at that point and told him I didn’t want to do it. That’s when he made the first threat.
‘Do as I say, bitch, or you’ll get a smack!’ he said, raising his hand to me and I cowered.
I knew I had no choice. Had I refused, he would force me into the clothes, or worse. I knew he was capable of violence and was left in no doubt that he would hit me. In the past he had spoken freely about hitting women. He once talked about an ex of his, explaining she got ‘chopsy’ and that he gave her a slap to sort her out. I didn’t know what ‘chopsy’ meant but it didn’t matter; he had no moral hang-ups about beating women. It was a side of him I didn’t like and it made me feel uncomfortable at the time. But I thought he was my friend and I assumed he would never do anything to hurt me. I owed him, and the underwear and what went with it was part of the deal. So I took off my jeans, sweater and underwear, and did what he told me. I’d never worn a corset and it was fiddly trying to get it on correctly; I felt embarrassed and exposed.
Once I’d put on the clothes, he switched back to being nice to me – he was making sure I knew what the boundaries were.
‘You look good,’ he leered.
He pulled out his crack pipe and offered me a hit. I took it – I knew it would help me with what was to come.
Then he held up his phone and started taking photos of me. I didn’t know why he did this at the time, but later I realised that he would text out those pictures to customers to advertise me.
I was a girl for sale.
A short while later, two men came round. I was given more crack and told to sit on the sofa while Mohammed talked to them briefly and took money from them. They had sex with me. I shut it all out – I did what I was told to do and didn’t look them in the eye. Mohammed stood in the background, watching. They didn’t even bother to undress, they just pulled their trousers down.
When they’d finished, they said goodbye to Mohammed and left.
‘Change now,’ he sniffed. ‘Leave the clothes here.’
I was in shock and traumatised. In my mind, I was trying to justify what I’d just done and attempting to come to terms with it. Before I left he told me to come back the following day as there was another job. That’s how he described it – as work.
Back home I ran a steaming bath. The water was scalding when I stepped in but the pain felt good. I wanted to bleach myself and remove any trace of the men. I scrubbed myself hard until my skin was red. Mum had cooked food and I asked her to cut it up into tiny pieces and feed me – I wanted to be a child again. I sat on her lap and asked her to stroke my hair. I knew now that I had crossed a line. I was scared about what I’d done and what had been taken from me. I belonged to Mohammed, but I wanted to be a little girl again – I wanted a second chance at childhood.
It happened again the next day, and the day after that. Each time I pushed against the waves of panic that threatened to swamp me. And it got easier. I drank, I was given drugs and I went off into a place in my mind where no one could touch me. It was different men each time. Sometimes the men wanted to have a drink first and a chat. I ignored them and Mohammed would tell me menacingly to be nice. It always happened in the same place.
Around the third or fourth time I discovered some men were violent. The ‘customer’ that day started to choke me. He was doing it for his own gratification and
, as he squeezed my neck, I panicked and lashed out at him. He hit me back and swore at me. I was frightened but Mohammed did nothing. I was crying and refused to comply with the man’s wishes so he walked over and produced his crack pipe to ease me. Like a baby, I was suckling for comfort. I inhaled the smoke and relaxed. He was medicating me, I was being anaesthetised but I wouldn’t have got through it any other way.
Mohammed knew just what dosage to give me. He balanced the drink out with the drugs, knowing the more drunk I was, the more incapable and compliant I would be; he used the crack to keep me lucid because crack takes the dullness off being drunk. Whenever I’d start to waiver or looked as if I wasn’t going to do what I was told he would give me crack. It made my head feel like it was exploding in a burst of rapture and I would suddenly smile. The feeling was fleeting but lasted long enough to get me through the moments of deep doubt and fear. Away from the source of the drugs, I was anxious and jittery. All I could think of was how to get more: drugs and drink wiped the slate clean.
After the man hit me and had left, I shouted at Mohammed.
‘Why did you let him do that?’
I slapped him because I blamed him. He was there and he saw me being choked, but did nothing to protect me. In return, he punched me in the face with a clenched fist. But it didn’t shock me – I held my face and glared at him.
When I got home as usual Mum tried to find out where I had been. She noticed that my face was swollen and asked what had happened so I told her I had had a fight with a girl. But I wasn’t going to tell her a thing. I didn’t respect her – I was always fearful of adults until I met Mum and then I realised she wasn’t violent, so I assumed I could get away with anything. She wasn’t ever going to hurt me and I took advantage of that.
I was determined to keep pushing and pushing her. I am not a nasty person but I became nasty to her. On the occasions when we were getting along, I would look for ways to upset her. I stole money from her – I took her debit card after memorising her PIN. I wanted to get money out to try to pay Mohammed back for the drugs I was using in the hope that I could stop myself from being sold. But it didn’t work: he refused the cash and I was arrested for theft: Mum reported me because she wanted me to learn a lesson. But I didn’t care what she or the police said. She would always call the police when I went missing and they contacted social services. Everyone was involved and she was desperate. She tried to get help but social services treated her as a nuisance. Over the years there were over 80 reports of me missing and in the end she was told to stop reporting me until I had been gone for more than 24 hours.
Girl for Sale Page 12