The Runaway Schoolgirl

by Davina Williams

  Unlike the other requests we’d had, we thought this idea actually sounded constructive. First, though, I wanted to talk it through with Nick Cloke, the head of Sussex Police’s media team – I wasn’t going to do anything without the police’s approval. When I called him, he seemed a bit lukewarm about the idea. He explained that he was on a train so he couldn’t talk properly and would get back to me about it as soon as he could. He sounded a bit off with me and I wondered if I’d said something to annoy him.

  I was a bit disappointed – I wanted to do something proactive instead of just sitting around, waiting for the phone to ring. Paul was confused and disappointed, too.

  Little did we know but Nick Cloke had just received more information about Gemma …

  A little while later, at 12.30pm, the phone rang.

  It was Hannah. She sounded very serious as she confirmed it was really me that she was talking to, and my heart skipped a beat.

  Then she said the words we had all been desperate to hear: ‘We’ve got her!’

  CHAPTER 12

  SHE’S SAFE

  I screamed and screamed with every breath in my lungs. Poor Paul didn’t know what the hell was going on.

  He wondered if it was terrible news and looked ashen as he ran in and found me holding my head as I tried to find out more information from Hannah. I turned to him and said: ‘It’s OK, they’ve got her!’

  Chloe and Lee had popped out to get us fish and chips for lunch, and they came back to find Paul and me jumping around the kitchen with joy. There were chips flying everywhere as we all hugged each other and danced around – it was madness, the best feeling in the world. I didn’t know what to do with myself. Excited, thrilled, relieved, hysterical … I wanted to run out into the road, screaming ‘They’ve got her, they’ve got her!’

  Sky News had been on in the living room and almost immediately a ticker- tape news alert appeared on screen: GEMMA GRANT FOUND. Meanwhile, I was frantically phoning Mum and Max, and trying to Facebook friends and text people to say she was safe.

  I couldn’t believe how quickly the news filtered through on social media; it was mayhem in the house with all the phone calls. Chloe tried to encourage me to get dressed and ready for when Hannah came to pick me up, but I didn’t want to leave the kitchen as that was where I had received the good news. I didn’t want the bubble to burst. The adrenaline was just incredible.

  At 1pm, Hannah arrived and warned me to be prepared for even more reporters than before. There were swarms of them outside the house and I wondered if we were going to be able to get out of the street. As soon as we opened the front door, the cameras and questions started firing. ‘How do you feel about the news?’ ‘Are you flying out to see her?’ ‘Are there any comments you’d like to make?’ It was crazy.

  I remember thinking how frightening it must be to be famous and to have to deal with this kind of press attention every single day of your life. Hannah told me to give them a smile, but it felt so strange. I cringed when I later came across the picture on Google – it looks as if I’m gurning!

  In the car on the way to the police station, Hannah explained that Forrest had been arrested on suspicion of abduction and that Gemma had been taken into protective custody in Bordeaux. It turned out that someone had recognised Forrest from one of the pictures that appeared in the press and the police had set a trap for him.

  The media presence had felt quite intrusive at times, but I couldn’t thank them enough for their help in finding my daughter. I wrote a short statement thanking the press and emailed it to Nick Cloke for his approval.

  What I didn’t realise at the time, however, was that there were now restrictions on what could be said about the case in the media. As a minor who had potentially been the victim of a sexual crime, Gemma automatically had rights to anonymity. From this point on, the media would not be allowed to reveal her name, or the names of anyone else that could lead to her identity being revealed.

  People have asked me why Forrest wasn’t charged with ‘kidnapping’. That is when a person is taken away by force, while ‘abduction’ refers to when a minor is taken without parental consent. In this case it was one permission slip that Mr Forrest had neglected to get me to sign …

  Throughout the whole of this book, I have referred to my daughter as Gemma, as this was the name that she had given herself while she was with Forrest in France. She had chosen the name Gemma Grant as it is connected to the real name of her favourite singer, Lana Del Rey. It was also a name that the media picked up on after she and Forrest were found. The press always referred to her as ‘Gemma Grant’ or the ‘Runaway Schoolgirl’.

  Unfortunately for me, Nick Cloke said that I couldn’t contact the press to give them my thanks. I would have loved to have had an opportunity to say how grateful I was, but this was out of my hands. For my part, I had only done a press conference to put my own message out to Gemma. After that, it was the media who kept the message alive and helped spread it far and wide.

  When we reached the police station in Eastbourne, Hannah took me up to the major incident suite, where I was met by a group of senior police officers with big smiles on their faces.

  There was Mark Ling, Neil Ralph and the assistant chief constable, Robin Smith. Mark jokily said, ‘The assistant chief constable wants to take full credit for finding Gemma!’ Assistant chief constable Robin Smith was actually a very straight-backed, unassuming man who would never have said anything like that, and the rest of his team thought it was hysterical when I threw my arms round him and gave him a kiss to thank him for everything they had done.

  Behind them was a white board headed up with the title Operation Oakwood, which was the name the case had been given – as I was later to learn, the names for police operations, like hurricanes, are chosen alphabetically. It was really interesting to see a police-eye view of the case. The board listed sightings, unconfirmed and confirmed, the possible clothing that Gemma would be wearing and other facts about the search for her.

  Hannah, meanwhile, was now on her way to Gatwick, from where she was going to fly to Bordeaux. Mark Ling told me that he would have loved for me to be able to go, too, but there was only one seat left on the plane and Gemma had to be accompanied home by a police officer. While I was disappointed that I couldn’t go straight to her, I completely understood.

  The next thing that Mark said more than made up for it, though.

  ‘Would you like to speak to your daughter?’

  ‘Would I?’ He didn’t need to ask me twice! And he got straight on the phone and put me through to Gemma.

  Mark and the team left me alone to talk to her. ‘Hello, sweetheart, are you OK?’ I said, then I heard her burst into tears. ‘I’m so sorry, Mum …’

  From the moment Gemma had been found, I began to wonder if she wanted to come home to me. I’d always believed that we had a great relationship, but maybe she didn’t want to be with us. I knew I had to ask.

  I took a deep breath. ‘Do you want to come home?’

  She sounded so young and frail, so full of sadness and despair: ‘I didn’t even want to come here in the first place, I just want to come home.’

  Her voice was a sound that I had feared I would never hear again. There was so much that I wanted to say to her, but I was happy just to listen to her, to know she was truly alive and that I wasn’t just dreaming. At that point, it was totally irrelevant what had been happening, I was just so happy to know that she was coming back. In any case, I didn’t want to overwhelm her with questions after everything she’d been through.

  We only spoke for about five minutes, but I explained that a lovely lady called Hannah was on her way over to meet her and bring her back to the UK. I told her that we had got to know Hannah really well and that she had even held Lilly for me. I wanted Gemma to know that she could trust Hannah and that everything would be alright.

  I then found myself clicking into ‘mum mode’, asking her if she’d been eating enough, if she was tired or needed a
nything, but she said she was OK and that I didn’t need to worry any more. It was such a relief to hear her voice.

  I could hardly speak because of the grin on my face, but before I ended the call, I made Gemma promise that she wouldn’t run away again. I was so confused about what had happened. Who was to say that she wouldn’t want to just escape from the drama and run away again?

  Mark Ling then asked me if I would like to be introduced to the team who had been working on the case and led me into the main operations room. I couldn’t believe the scale of it. There were at least 30 officers behind their desks and they all started clapping and cheering as I walked in. It was just incredible. On the walls there were more white boards, each with much more detailed information on them, showing what a huge operation it had been. I was awestruck by how many people had been involved and the amount of work it had taken to find Gemma.

  Completely blown away, I made up a little speech on the spot, thanking them for everything they had done. I said that words couldn’t actually express how grateful we all were for how much support and care we had all received from them. I added that I hoped we hadn’t been too demanding and joked that the only thing I had ever asked of an officer was a cigarette! One of the officers stepped forward and said, ‘If it’s a fag that you want, then that’s what you shall have!’ They were all so lovely to me and it was so nice to be able to smile and joke around with them. It was such a contrast to the nightmare that I’d been through over the previous seven days.

  A group of about five of us went outside for a cigarette together. ‘It’s so fantastic to have her back,’ one of the police officers told me. ‘Tonight will be the first time in a long while that I have been able to tuck my children up in bed.’ It really hit me very deeply to see how many other people had been affected by what had happened.

  Next, I met up with Jim, the family liaison officer who had helped us over the weekend when Gemma first went missing. It was lovely to see him at the other side of the investigation; it felt like the whole episode had gone full circle. Jim introduced me to Sarah, the family social worker, and they explained to me what was going to happen next.

  There had been some stories in the media saying that Gemma would be taken into care when she returned to England. The reports had really upset me because they seemed to me to be suggesting that I must have been a terrible mother for letting this kind of thing happen to my daughter in the first place.

  Jim reassured me that this wasn’t the case at all. Gemma was being kept in protective custody while she was in France to keep her safe while she was there, but she would come straight home to the family as soon as she returned to England. There was no question that the social services were going to take her away from us.

  Sarah told us that the Children’s Services department had arranged a safe house in the country for us so that we could all lie low for a few days. It would give us time to regroup and would keep the press at bay.

  We also discussed what Gemma’s state of mind was likely to be after the experience. In order to work out how I was going to handle the situation, Sarah asked me a series of questions and evaluated my responses. She needed to be sure that Gemma wouldn’t come home to a barrage of interrogations and demands that she just forget about Forrest and move on with her life. I also needed to be prepared in case Gemma said she was in love and wanted to be with him. It was going to be a challenging time for everyone concerned.

  I wanted the whole episode to be over, but I had to be realistic about the situation. My first priority was Gemma. I had a hundred unanswered questions, but I knew that she had to tell me on her own terms. She was fifteen, still a child – still my little girl – and had been through so much. She needed time to process everything that had happened.

  Unbeknown to me, Max was giving a press conference with Jason Tingley at Sussex Police HQ while I was meeting the team in Eastbourne. I only found out about this after the event, but I was glad to be able to go home and breathe.

  It was lovely to have a house full of happiness again. Maddie and Lee were there, and we were all enjoying being together as a happy family. There were loads of messages on Facebook from well-wishers and the phone kept bleeping with texts from friends.

  Jason Tingley phoned on his way home from the press conference to tell me how happy he was for us. I could hear the elation in his voice. He too has children and I knew he had been deeply touched by the incredible outcome.

  Once Paul and I had got Alfie and Lilly tucked up in bed, we sat down together with his parents, who had come up to stay for the weekend. At some point, we switched on the TV and there was a Sky News journalist reporting live from outside our house, saying how there were no signs of life inside and that I had flown to France to be reunited with Gemma.

  It was so funny. There we were, eating our dinner and watching her live on TV from the other side of our window! Paul begged to put the outside light on and show her that there was someone home, but I was scared it would only make the reporters start knocking on the door again. ‘No signs of life, eh?’ my father-in-law laughed. ‘I’m in here eating my dinner! What more life does she want?’ I’m surprised they didn’t hear us laughing.

  I was so happy – and not even the news that Gemma’s biological father Gary had spoken to a newspaper about her disappearance was going to ruin things. Even though she hadn’t seen him or spoken to him for several years, he was going on about how upset he was about her going missing. He said he thought she would be sensible and mature about the situation, though I don’t know how he could possibly know that as they’d had so little contact over the years.

  After all that had happened, I was too exhausted to get wound up, though. The important thing was I knew Gemma was coming home to me.

  Finally, I could go to bed and get some proper sleep rather than just passing out, exhausted, on the sofa. I was so excited about seeing Gemma, though I knew I couldn’t completely relax until I had her safely in my arms again …

  CHAPTER 13

  OPERATION CAR SWITCH

  The next morning was crazy as we packed bags in preparation for our mystery tour to the safe house in the country.

  Max and I agreed that Alfie should stay with him while we were away; he often stayed with his dad and we felt it would be too confusing to upset his routine by taking him off to the country. He had been bewildered enough by all the cars in our street and the strangers that had been coming round, and we wanted everything to be as normal as possible for him.

  It was the worst packing I have ever done and I ended up leaving loads of things we needed for Lilly at home. What we packed was really quite random. I didn’t have a clue where we were going, or what we would need, and I seemed to have packed loads of one thing and not enough of another. As you may have gathered, my mind wasn’t really on what I was doing!

  Jim called to explain how the police planned to make sure we weren’t followed to the safe house. He would pick me up and drive me to Eastbourne police station, where we would then swap cars and go on to pick up Gemma from Gatwick airport before heading for the safe house. Paul was going to come along later with Lilly, while Chloe would follow on with Lee and Maddie the following day.

  Jim came to pick me up and at Eastbourne police station we duly swapped cars. I had to duck down in my seat in case any of the reporters there spotted us. It was so surreal. It was only when we got a few miles away from the station that we felt sure we weren’t being followed to the airport.

  Meanwhile, Paul was at home with Lilly when all of a sudden he heard car doors slamming out in the road and looked out to see a mass exodus of press speeding off in their cars. They had obviously been tipped off that Gemma was going to be on the flight from Bordeaux that was arriving at Gatwick at 3pm.

  I don’t know which route Jim and I took to get to Gatwick, but eventually we pulled up at a small building set apart from the main airport terminal. The building was surrounded by armed police officers, and we were taken inside by two smartly dressed h
ospitality people. They asked if I needed anything and I nervously asked them if I could have a coffee. The next thing I knew I was being served a coffee in a very nice china cup and saucer. I didn’t realise that we had actually arrived at the Royal Suite and were getting the full VIP treatment!

  We were led into an immaculate reception room with leather sofas, televisions on the walls and tables laden with muffins, sweets and drinks. It looked out on to the tarmac at Gatwick and we were told that it is where the royal family and foreign dignitaries fly out from. Next to that room was another airy room with fresh fruit on the table. It was very smart and spotlessly clean. One of the hospitality people told me that it was always kept ready in case a VIP needed to use it, but they were never informed who the VIP was beforehand for security reasons.

  While Jim and I waited for Gemma’s flight to arrive, we watched the news on TV and read more of the press coverage of Gemma’s story. The Daily Mail claimed that Gemma had used my passport, which was completely untrue – she had taken her own passport with her. She subsequently threw it away when she and Forrest arrived in Paris, which meant she had to get special clearance to travel back to the UK without one.

  After what seemed like the longest wait, the plane landed and Gemma, accompanied by Hannah and Andy Harbour, was brought to us in a minibus.

  The next thing I knew, Gemma was standing there in front of me. She dropped her bag and flung her arms around me, and we both cried as we held each other tightly.

  She looked tired and drawn; she felt like a bag of bones and smelt unfamiliar. Although she had only been away for a week, I could see on her face that the stress of it all had taken its toll. She had tried to bleach her hair to disguise herself, but it had gone a bit wrong and it was now a strange orange colour. Her clothes had been taken away for DNA testing, so she was wearing clothes that the British consulate had bought for her. They were a bit too big, which only made her look even thinner.