I realised I must have been there for hours because a faint morning light was beginning to filter through the curtains. Then I heard a commotion outside: voices and the crackle of a radio.
‘Police! Open the door,’ someone called. For the first time since the ordeal started Bassam looked worried.
‘It’s the police, they are here for you,’ I told him. The relief I felt was immense. I started to call out but Bassam grabbed me by the throat and put his other hand over my mouth to muffle my voice. I heard the sound of a door being forced and waited for them to come in and save me. But they didn’t: they raided the room next door. I heard them look around and then I heard them leave. The sound of their radios echoed down the hall.
Bassam held me down until he was sure they had gone and released me. I didn’t care if he caught me, my instincts took over and I jumped up, grabbed a towel from the bed and bolted for the door. I didn’t look round to see if he was following me and ran down the stairs and into the car park.
‘I’ve been raped, he’s going to kill me!’ I screamed.
It was light outside and people were starting to make their way to work. They walked past, looking at me strangely. No one stopped to help. Barefoot, bloodied, I was in obvious distress. I heard Bassam call out from behind me.
‘Come back!’ He was laughing.
I glanced over my shoulder and he was hanging out the window of the room.
I wanted to find the police – I knew they couldn’t be far away because they had only been there minutes before so I ran into the main reception.
‘Help me, please, he is going to kill me! I’ve been raped,’ I begged hysterically.
The man told me to be quiet but didn’t seem to be taking me seriously and instructed me to wait in a store cupboard. He shoved me into the tiny space, which was full of catering-sized tins of marmalade.
Someone must have called the police because within minutes the door opened and a police officer beckoned me out. It was Becky, a WPC I knew from one of my missing episodes. I begged her to call Mum and she did. Grabbing the phone from her, I screamed and sobbed hysterically down it. I couldn’t get the words out. Mum said later that she had never heard me so distressed; all I managed to get out was that I’d been raped and was in a hotel on Iffley Road. Mum said she was coming.
I must have looked awful. Tears and snot smeared my face and I was crying uncontrollably.
‘He’s going to kill me,’ I kept repeating.
Becky held me gently by the shoulders and made me look at her.
‘It’s OK, we have got him. He has been arrested; he cannot hurt you,’ she said.
Mum arrived a short while later. I collapsed in her arms when I saw her.
It later transpired that the police had turned up at the hotel after another guest called them because he had heard me being attacked. He was a businessman who was there for the night but he was not sure what room the noises were coming from and so the police turned up at the wrong door.
There was a 999 recording of the witness call, which I heard later. He had a West Country accent.
‘I’m just calling to report what may be an emergency in Oxford,’ he told the operator. ‘I was staying in a place in Oxford – I’ve left now but I could hear a woman getting slapped around next door to my room. It was 20 minutes ago. I’ve left because I didn’t want to hear it. It sounded like the guy had a prostitute in his room and started turning a bit sour on her.
‘She was screaming. I could hear him slapping her. It sounded like there was a lot of messiness going on in there; she was shouting.’
Once I knew that Bassam had been arrested, I calmed down. I was still naked apart from the towel and I just wanted to go home and climb into bed. The adrenaline coursing through me had started to subside and I was beginning to ache. Every part of me hurt where he had attacked me and forced himself on me. But there was a process that needed to be followed: I had been the victim of a serious crime.
‘Lara, love, this is very serious. He can’t get away with this and the police need to be able to do their work and get evidence so this man can pay for what he has done to you,’ Mum reasoned. ‘It’s important they examine you.’
I couldn’t bear the thought of being touched again. Although exhausted, thirsty and hungry, I knew Mum was right and I trusted her and agreed to be medically examined.
This meant that I had to be taken to the force’s rape suite, the custom-made facility I had gone to before. In effect, my body was a crime scene and so I couldn’t do anything to contaminate it. It was the middle of November and frosty and all I had on was a towel – I wasn’t allowed clothes because they needed to preserve the evidence. I was led out of the hotel and into the police car, where I had to sit on a plastic bag. It was early morning on a weekday and Oxford was starting to come to life. I was so traumatised I didn’t even notice the early morning commuters beginning to make their journeys to work.
The rape suite was in a former council house on one of the main roads into Oxford and there was no parking outside so I had to walk to it wearing a towel, crunching barefoot through the frost in the rush hour. Sex crime victims who need to be medically examined must be seen by a registered forensic medical examiner (the police have to find one from a register the force holds). But the Oxford-based examiner was not available on the morning I was attacked and the nearest one they could find was based in Northampton. It was early morning and I waited for three hours before he arrived. I was starving and one of the officers swabbed my mouth for evidence, which then meant I could at least eat and drink, although I still could not wear clothes and had to sit on the same plastic bag to preserve any evidence. Leaning on Mum’s shoulder, I drifted in and out of sleep.
Eventually a man in late middle age arrived. The fact that he was old made me nervous and his bedside manner didn’t help: he was pompous and rude. The police were delighted to see him because they had waited so long. He introduced himself, then turned to Mum and said curtly: ‘Mother, I presume.’ I could see her bristle.
The examination was humiliating and uncomfortable. He conducted it in a businesslike manner. After a few minutes his mobile phone began to ring. I was shocked he hadn’t put it on silence but what was more shocking was that he left me on the examination table and answered it. Then he started arranging a golf trip for a group of men with the caller.
When he hung up, he carried on the examination but his phone rang again. Once more he stopped what he was doing, left me lying in stirrups and walked over to the window to get a better signal. It was incredibly insensitive and afterwards Mum made her feelings plain.
By the end of the examination I’d had enough. Exhausted, aching and miserable, I wanted to go home. The police asked me if I wanted to give a statement there and then but I didn’t want to stay and told them I would do so later. This was a mistake because it gave me time to think.
Mum was very understanding and she didn’t push me. When we got home, I was still tearful.
‘Can I sit on your lap?’ I asked her.
‘Of course you can, dear,’ she told me.
Like a little girl, I climbed onto her lap and curled up, sucking my thumb while she stroked my hair and gently rocked me back and forth. She started singing nursery rhymes.
Whenever bad things happened that was where I found peace and calm: on Mum’s lap being rocked like a baby as she sang lullabies to me. Her face would be etched with worry and she would stroke my hair and tell me everything would be OK. I don’t know how she held it together. Pure love radiated from her.
Chapter fifteen
LARA VS LAUREN
The next morning I struggled to move. I was aching and the bruising had started to come out. There were angry marks, cuts and scratches on every part of my body. The police came and wanted to take statements and photographs of my injuries.
Already I had started to have doubts. Bassam was obviously connected to the gang in some way as he had mentioned people he knew whom they dealt with. I wou
ld have to go to court and give evidence. What if it came out in court that I took drugs? What if all the other stuff came out, details about the men? And the gang would know I was a grass. How would they react to that? And what if the case collapsed, like it had against the other man? There were too many ways it could all go wrong.
I convinced myself it was all my fault for going with him in the first place.
The police explained there was a lot of physical evidence and that Bassam was saying the sex was consensual. Mum could tell I was becoming doubtful about going ahead and tried to reassure me that I was doing the right thing but she didn’t want to push me and she told me that ultimately it was my decision and she would support me, no matter what. I didn’t appreciate it at the time but the support Mum showed in such testing circumstances was amazing.
I gave a brief statement and the police said they would come back in a few days.
A few days later, I was out in town and ran into a girl I knew. Her name was Vicky and she was one of the kids I hung around with. She was a tearaway, a binge drinker and a troublemaker.
‘I heard about you and Bassam,’ she said. ‘I’ve just started seeing him.’
My stomach turned. How could she get involved with such a vile man?
‘He phoned me yesterday and he was in tears,’ she said. ‘He’s in a real state. He wanted me to speak to you – the thing is, it all got a bit out of hand. Did you know he has two young children?’
I didn’t.
‘Those kids are going to grow up without a father if he gets sent to jail,’ she continued.
I knew how that felt – I’d grown up without a dad too.
The conversation was left hanging but the seeds of doubt had been sown in my mind. I couldn’t be responsible for leaving two children to grow up without a father.
So I made a decision: I would drop the charges and withdraw the statement.
When the police came back to question me further I explained that I didn’t want to go through with it. They asked why and questioned whether I’d been threatened. I clammed up and told them nothing and so, without the co-operation of the victim, they put the case on file.
The officer in charge was disappointed. ‘We have enough evidence,’ he said, ‘certainly to get him on a charge of sex with a minor. The evidence will always be there so, if you change your mind at any point, we will take the case up again.’
A few days later, I found myself drawn back into the gang and their activities. It started as always with a text. I obeyed and made my way to meet Mohammed and the selling began as if nothing had ever happened. To me the only way out was death. I was brainwashed – I knew they had big families and networks and I was scared.
The point was brought home to me a week or so after the rape when I was in the flat, drinking with Mohammed, and Bassam walked in. I immediately recoiled and he started laughing. Mohammed joined in.
‘Alright, bro?’ Mohammed said.
‘What…?’ I was confused.
‘We’re brothers, you dumb bitch!’ laughed Bassam.
It made me angry. On some level, Bassam getting away with it made me feel even more helpless. There was nothing I could do to get away from the situation and in a fit of anger I stormed over to Bassam and slapped him across the face.
‘You raped me, you bastard!’ I said.
He stopped laughing then and raised a fist to hit me. I cowered and Mohammed stood in the way. He stared defiantly at his brother and shook his head. At the time, I thought he was protecting me out of feelings but he wasn’t: I was his property and he didn’t want me damaged.
Bassam backed off and then started taunting me.
‘How did you enjoy your shower?’ he sneered.
Mohammed laughed at the reference. Bassam had obviously told him all the details of what had happened in the Nanford.
After the rape, Bassam seemed to become more involved with the gang. I found it intimidating and have no doubt it was another subtle way of controlling me and reminding me that I belonged to them.
At home Mum was desperately trying to stop me disappearing. I would go almost daily and each, time I did, I would return in a state of anxiety. After each runaway incident I came back broken. Psychologically traumatised, I regressed to being a little child, sitting on Mum’s lap and sucking my thumb. Sleep became a real problem. I used to sleep in my mum’s bed with her – I would start off in my own room and try to sleep but would be tormented by anxiety and panic. Then I would go up to her room, creep in and ask, ‘Can I sleep in your bed?’ She would open her arms and say, ‘Of course you can.’ I started to take my own duvet with me so I wouldn’t steal the covers from her. Sometimes we’d sit up and have hot chocolate and biscuits, and she would talk to me. She tried to get me to tell her what was happening. Sometimes I nearly did as I was dropping off. At night I started to think and I hated being on my own. When I slept, I dreamt of faceless men.
But Mum couldn’t have done anything to stop me – I was hell bent on destruction, my actions were nothing to do with her. I had to go out otherwise they would have come to my house to get me. Even now Mum is convinced she could have done more but she couldn’t have; she couldn’t restrain me because I hurt her. When she locked all the doors and windows, I broke out. I chiselled the window locks off and I broke the door, desperate to get out, even though what waited for me was abuse. There was nothing anyone could have done to stop me.
To this day, I have a lot of guilt about the way I treated Mum. There was always an expense and I never thought about it. I broke things and smashed them up but the emotional expense dwarfs the financial one.
I did things to Mum that were horrendous – I said nasty things to her, I told her I wished I was back in care, I told her she was a useless mum. All the while I could see my words hurting her. When I argued, I became physically violent. I used to bend her fingers back until they cracked if she tried to stop me leaving; I tried to push her down the stairs. I broke her belongings – I once threw a vase against the wall in the middle of a row, I smashed a laptop up, I stole from her. The anger was fuelled by the drugs. Often the police would be called; sometimes by Mum if I hurt her, other times by Jean or another neighbour. One argument started over cigarettes: Mum tried to limit the amount I smoked and I exploded. I lashed out at her, threw an ornament and smashed a door. She told me she was going to call the police.
‘Go on then!’ I screamed at her.
When they arrived I resisted arrest and needed to be restrained.
Other times when I knew the police were coming I would sit in the bathroom and wait to be arrested.
I never meant any of it – I had no control over my emotions and I hated myself for the way I acted. If I hurt anyone else, I couldn’t have cared less but, as soon as I hurt Mum, I was devastated.
I found it very hard to come down from violent episodes. Usually it ended up with me being arrested and I would only calm down after I’d been in a police cell for several hours. Jean would come to the station with me and be my appropriate adult (a legal guardian) because I was still classed as a minor in the eyes of the law and the offences were against Mum, and she was therefore classed as the victim.
I was never charged with anything but I was issued with a behaviour order, which was like an ASBO. It laid out what rules and behaviour were expected of me and I had to sign it. But I ignored it – I got away with a lot of things because the authorities suspected something else was going on. At one point Mum was third on the list of people most at risk from domestic violence in Oxford because of me.
The police in the town knew me by name. Even if I wasn’t missing, I would be stopped in the street and asked whether I had run away because I was so often reported as a ‘misper’ (missing person). Sometimes I was actually missing and they took me straight home. At one stage, Mum was reporting me missing almost every single day.
I got to know the lady who headed up Oxford’s small Missing Persons Unit very well. WPC Jane Crump was a regular visitor at
our house. She would attend the child case conferences about me, which were meetings between social services, the education department and the police to try to work out a plan of action for me. Jane ended up playing a significant role in my life and always suspected there was something much bigger and more sinister going on in the town, but she was a lone voice at the time.
She was short and lovely. She had a natural bubbly personality, which you couldn’t help but warm to and she was understanding. Whenever I had disappeared and returned, she would come to the house and sit with me to chat. She would ask what was happening and try to gain my trust. I nearly told her once: it was a summer’s day and we were sitting in the garden; I forgot I was talking to a police officer. We started talking about people I knew and I almost gave her a name. Somehow I stopped myself but she was very persistent.
Paul Phillips was another regular police officer in my life. I first met him when I was 12 and had gone missing; he took me back home. He was very easy to talk to and I could have a laugh with him and trust him – he was like a friend. Paul was very good to Mum and would often drop by to check she was OK. He had white hair and soft features and, even though he arrested me on occasion, he would never shout at me. I would see him in the street and he would stop what he was doing and come over to talk to me. He too knew something was going on.
‘You got any news for me today?’ he would ask. ‘Gonna dob anyone in it for me?’
‘No, Paul,’ I’d tell him.
Once he found me in a crack den he raided. It was a flat belonging to an old man who was an addict – the gang had their claws in him and used his place to deal from. He was a sad man and lived there with his dog. I was friends with a young black drug dealer called Alan at the time. Like me he’d had a difficult childhood and was being used as a courier by the gang. I happened to be with him in the flat when the police raided. Alan had gone outside to make a deal with a customer and, as I looked absent-mindedly out the window, I saw about 10 officers in riot gear running up the short path to the front door. It was open but they still used a red metal ram to smash it off its hinges.
Girl for Sale Page 16