The Runaway Schoolgirl

by Davina Williams

  Forrest had already damaged Gemma so much and now there was even more for her to deal with. We were all so angry about it and wanted it to stop. I wanted to pick her up and swathe her in bubble wrap. I didn’t want to lock her up and stop her having a life of her own, but I wanted Forrest and the parasites to stop getting to her. Like quicksand falling through my fingers, I couldn’t keep a hold on the situation and it scared me to death. They kept going on and on at her, and it was to eventually lead to the breakdown of our relationship.

  I wasn’t the only one who saw how much Gemma’s personality had changed either: Sarah, our family social worker, also did. Gone was the sweet child that I used to know and before me stood a girl who was behaving like an adult. Now I’m not stupid, I never for one minute thought she would stay my little girl forever, but she had started acting like she had an autocue in front of her, telling her what to say when she was asked any questions. It hit me hard to realise that she really had been groomed by a sex offender; Forrest truly had got under her skin.

  I knew it wasn’t something that I could change overnight. Forrest had known her since she was just thirteen and even if it had been completely innocent, their relationship had been evolving for several years so it wasn’t something that she would just forget overnight. I couldn’t miraculously undo whatever had been going on between them like a piece of bad knitting.

  Gemma spent quite a lot of time with Sarah to begin with, but as time went on, she stopped opening up to her. Sarah arranged for her to continue to receive support from members of her team, but she wouldn’t trust anyone who said anything negative about Forrest. It was incredibly frustrating. I was desperate for Gemma to confide in a support worker rather than one of those evil parasites who had befriended her.

  Meanwhile, she was turning into someone I didn’t recognise anymore. She was her usual self in front of other people, but behind closed doors she was breaking down. To be honest, I didn’t really know how to cope with it. I started doing some research on victims of abuse to find out how they coped with life after abusive relationships; I needed to know how to deal with the situation.

  One of the people I got in contact with was Marilyn Woods, who had set up the child sexual abuse charity Enough Abuse. We exchanged a few emails, but we never got the chance to meet as every minute of my time seemed to be taken up, especially when I had to go back to work.

  Another person whom I considered contacting was the child protection campaigner Lucy Duckworth, who founded the charity See Changes. When Gemma went missing, it was revealed that Lucy had previously contacted the then Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, and our local MP, Stephen Lloyd, about the fact that she had been unable to obtain a copy of the child protection policies at Kennedy High School. Her story was picked up by the press and Stephen Lloyd appeared on TV, talking about the school. I was incensed when I heard him describe Kennedy High as ‘exemplary’.

  I wrote to him, saying how I angry I was that he seemed to be more interested in the school’s processes and procedures than the family of one of his own constituents, but I never heard back from him. Lloyd’s assistant, Jack Short, got in touch and told me that the media had taken his words out of context, and assured me that he had mentioned Gemma in his statement. Short sent me the statement so I could see for myself, but quite honestly it didn’t make up for the fact that the school once more got an easy ride.

  Although I was interested to know more about Lucy Duckworth’s experiences with the school, I didn’t have the energy to fight even more battles at that point. I had enough on my plate at home, not least because my own obsession with Forrest was now starting to get out of hand, too.

  When we had found Forrest’s house, Paul’s curiosity was sated; he knew what he needed to know. But it wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know every little detail about Forrest – what he did every day in prison, how he had become a teacher, what each and every one of his ex-girlfriends was like. I felt that if I could keep on top of the situation, we could move on with our lives.

  It was going to be a long haul for Gemma to find a way through all of the emotional upheaval. Friends and family kept telling me that I was holding everything together really well, but it certainly didn’t feel like it at the time. I was just trying to do the right thing.

  CHAPTER 21

  TRYING TO HOLD IT TOGETHER

  Alfie and Lilly were too little to know what was going on in our strange household, but I could tell that it was really affecting poor Maddie and Lee. After we returned from the safe house, Maddie moved back in with us and took over Gemma’s bedroom, and she was finding it tough at her school (which was not the one that Gemma went to). She was being bullied and had to deal with a constant stream of nasty comments about Gemma.

  Luckily, there was a lovely woman called Mrs Dench at her school who helped her with pastoral care. Sue – we were quickly on first-name terms – used to run the ‘sanctuary’, which was a room where the kids could go to have some quiet time when they needed it. She and I discussed Maddie’s situation and she very kindly made a point of keeping me up to speed whenever Maddie was under too much pressure and allowed her as much sanctuary time as she needed. Sue was wonderful with Maddie and her constant email communication with me really reassured me.

  Some people have asked me if I changed my parenting style as a result of what happened to Gemma. While I did in certain respects, I was already very protective about my children’s safety. I always tried to make sure that I knew where they were and would never allow them to do things like hang around the streets. What happened to Gemma had been beyond my control, although it took me a long time to accept that fact, especially as regards to those incriminating pictures of Forrest that she had on her phone.

  After what happened with Gemma, I became a lot more cautious regarding Maddie’s male teachers. I asked her to tell me all about them – who they were, how old they were, what they looked like, how many lessons she had with them, etc. I had a real hang-up about the same thing happening to her, and I wanted to make sure that I knew all about them. Poor Maddie thought I was mad – to her, they were all ‘so old’ – but I couldn’t stop myself panicking about it.

  Meanwhile, Lee was getting stressed out by how much attention he was getting because of Gemma. His colleagues at the shop where he worked were really respectful of his privacy, but he was often recognised by customers. It wasn’t that they bombarded him with questions or anything, but the mere fact that they would say ‘Hope your sister is alright’ was a constant reminder. When it became too much for him, he was moved to a different department so that he didn’t have to deal with the public. His bosses were great, but he wanted his old life back and eventually he applied for a different job.

  It was another thing that Forrest had destroyed.

  I just wanted the year to be over. It seemed to be one step forward and two steps back all the time. No matter how hard I tried, something else seemed to happen to slap me in the face.

  Some time in November, Gemma came running downstairs with her laptop, shouting, ‘Look what I’ve found!’ The song that Forrest had written for her had been put up on his SoundCloud account. We had been under the impression that he had no access to any kind of social media while in police custody and couldn’t understand how on earth it had suddenly turned up there.

  I was as freaked out about it as much as Gemma was and wondered if perhaps some sick individual had set up an account in his name and put it up as some kind of cruel joke. I asked the police to investigate and they got in touch with Forrest’s family, who later confirmed that his younger brother had been responsible. A day or so later, his brother tweeted: ‘Sorry if I offended by posting my brother’s song. My bad.’

  A series of tweets then followed, which only added insult to injury. There was a link to a Lana Del Rey song that Gemma and Forrest really liked and a message along the lines of ‘For someone special, it was a song that was theirs’. Another followed with a reference to a Jools Holland
show featuring Lana Del Rey that was going to be on that night. It had the message: ‘You can be sure he will be watching’.

  Gemma was tuned into Twitter and the message really hit its target, once more spinning her into confusion. I got straight back in touch with Mark Ling, chief inspector for child protection, to ask if he could stop him. I so wanted to get life back to normal for Gemma and this was just more stress for all of us to deal with.

  The police spoke to his father, Jim Forrest, and warned that further action would have to be taken if his younger son persisted in this kind of activity on social media, as it could be seen as intimidating a potential witness. That seemed to do the trick. The account was shut down and things, for a while, went back to ‘normal’.

  On Monday, 3 December, Forrest appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court, again by videolink from Lewes Prison, and the case was committed to the Crown Court. As before, Forrest, did not enter a plea. He spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth and address, which was now in Petts Wood in south-east London. From this, I gathered that he and his wife had now separated and that he was using his parents’ address.

  Another court appearance over and still no answers. It was punishingly slow. Neil Ralph was as surprised as I was about how little things had moved on with the case, but he assured me that there was nothing to worry about because the case against Forrest was so black and white. But I couldn’t understand why they felt the need to drag it all out so long; I wondered if it was just for the money and the publicity.

  With Christmas coming up, I started making all the preparations for the holidays. Usually I love that time of year and go completely mad with loads and loads of food, the biggest tree we can possibly get and a crazy amount of presents for everyone. I was determined to make it extra-special for Lilly as this would be her first Christmas. I know she was too tiny to appreciate it, but her life hadn’t exactly got off to a good start so far. She had suffered with severe reflux when she was born and we almost lost her when she was five weeks old. Paul and I had to attend resuscitation classes to find out what to do in an emergency, and even had to put those skills into practice on one occasion. As if those first few months hadn’t been tough enough for her, there was all the Gemma drama, of course, which made me feel I hadn’t been totally there for her.

  In the end, and probably not that surprisingly, it was the worst Christmas we have ever had. Somehow we all managed to pick up flu viruses – I think we were just exhausted by everything that had been going on over the previous weeks. In some ways, it was good to be forced to take it easy and have a quieter Christmas than we would normally have had. We spoiled the kids rotten as usual, but it was much more low-key. With everything that was going on, we really didn’t feel like celebrating.

  One of the nicest things to happen was a phone call I received on Thursday, 27 December from Mark Ling, checking that we were all OK. It was lovely to know that the police were still thinking of us. They knew, of course, that things weren’t about to get any easier for us as we got closer to Forrest’s trial, though.

  CHAPTER 22

  SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL

  Early in the New Year, the 2013 Ofsted report was published, and the results of the November inspection of Kennedy High School were revealed. Kennedy High had previously always achieved an Outstanding rating, but on this occasion it had been downgraded to Good. I was relieved to see that their incompetence had been recognised in some small way.

  In addition to the Ofsted inspection, Douglas Sinclair, the head of child safeguarding in East Sussex, visited me to let me know the key findings of a review into Kennedy High School’s safeguarding policies that his team had conducted. They had found that while the school had safeguarding policies in place, teachers there had consistently failed to follow the correct processes.

  I had sent my children to Kennedy High School because I believed it was the best school in the area. Little did I know what was really happening behind closed doors. Through my own research, I had made a number of, frankly, very disturbing discoveries about the school. In 2009, a supply teacher was jailed for seven years after he admitted grooming two girls and having sex with them, and in March 2012, the school’s former chair of governors, Canon Gordon Rideout, was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting young people in the late-1960s and early 1970s. In May 2013, Rideout was found guilty of 36 separate offences at Lewes Crown Court and was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

  Jeremy Forrest was number three in a colourful history of offenders working at the school.

  On top of that, there was a lot of worrying gossip about other members of staff doing the rounds. It had been alleged, for example, that another teacher, who was no longer at the school, had been having a relationship with a girl around the same time as the Forrest–Gemma scandal, but this was never officially confirmed.

  I was also told that another teacher had joked about what had happened to Gemma. Apparently, when one of his pupils was being disruptive in class, he said to them: ‘If you behave, I’ll let you go early, but don’t think I’m going to treat you to a trip to France …’

  His sickening words quickly got back to me via friends of Gemma’s. Furious, I couldn’t believe that he would dare joke about something so disturbing. Of course I wasn’t there at the time, so I appreciate that it may well have been that the situation was exaggerated, but it sounded totally believable to me.

  I was desperate to find out more about the school. Why hadn’t Kennedy High School reacted more quickly to the concerns raised by pupils when the Forrest–Gemma rumours began? Why hadn’t they tried to contact me with more urgency if the concerns were so worrying? I only lived round the corner, after all.

  If I was truly a mother who didn’t care, who didn’t act when they contacted me previously, or who didn’t show an interest in the education of my children, why didn’t they report their concerns to the social services or the police sooner?

  Where was the genuine care any parent should expect from a school? How had this been able to happen right under the school’s nose for so long with no one taking any action? Moreover, how had they previously been able to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating? Kennedy High School continued to publicly declare that they had ‘robust safeguarding policies’, but Douglas Sinclair’s review had shown that they weren’t exactly acting on everything they preached.

  There were so many questions swimming around in my head, but I couldn’t focus on them right now. I had a family to look after and now that the East Sussex Local Safeguarding Children Board had confirmed that a serious case review was to go ahead, I had to trust that the full truth would be revealed. I would be expressing my views to the panel for my part in the report and eagerly awaited the meeting I would be called to. More than anything, though, I was waiting for this process to finish so that I could get some answers.

  CHAPTER 23

  FACE TO FACE WITH FORREST

  While the process of adding the charge of sexual activity with a minor was still being argued over at the European Court of Justice, things were moving on with the abduction charge over here.

  On Friday, 25 January, Forrest went before the court again, this time for a plea and case management hearing at Lewes Crown Court in front of Judge Mr Justice Singh. At this hearing, he would have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty rather than just keep silent when asked.

  I had never been able to understand why he had not already pleaded guilty at his previous court appearances. There was so much overwhelming evidence of an abduction. No way would he be able to get away with his crime, so what would have been the point of him pleading not guilty?

  I couldn’t see how he could be anything other than guilty. The police told me the definition of child abduction is the unauthorised removal of a minor from the custody of the child’s natural parents or legally appointed guardians. Had I given Forrest permission to take Gemma to France, he would have had no crime to answer to but I was 100 per cent certain that I had never signed any ki
nd of permission slip and, given Gemma’s biological father refused to have his name on her birth certificate, I am the only person who would have been able to sign anything like that to allow her to go.

  I had racked my brains trying to work out if there was any way that a permission form could have slipped through without me remembering. Over and over I replayed events in my mind, wondering if maybe this was the key defence that Forrest’s legal team would eventually pull out of the bag.

  While I had not been in court on the previous occasions when Forrest had been called to enter a plea, I decided to go along to this hearing. By this point, I had become increasingly obsessed with what kind of man he was and so I wanted to see him for myself. At the earlier court sessions, Forrest had appeared via videolink, but DI Neil Ralph told me that he expected him to attend the Lewes Crown Court session in person.

  Naturally I was incredibly nervous about seeing him in the flesh. I wasn’t intending to go to the court to make a scene or anything, I just wanted to see the creature who had taken my daughter. It would have destroyed Gemma if I’d been unable to control my feelings in court and ‘kicked off’, as she put it, and behaving in that way would have put me in contempt of court. There was no way that I was going to let that happen.

  Out of courtesy, Neil Ralph let Judge Mr Justice Singh know that I was going to be attending court that day. I was legally entitled to be there, but he wanted him to know anyway.

  Neil also briefed me about some of the other people who might be in the public gallery for the hearing. With so much publicity about the case, Forrest had attracted a weird fanbase of supporters and very likely some of them would be there for him. Several ‘followers’ claiming to be in love with Forrest had attended his last court session. They didn’t have any connection with him, they were just swept up in the ‘romance’ of the story.