That immediately set us off laughing, which is how our arguments usually ended. They would flare up suddenly, and end just as quickly amidst snorts of laughter.
In time, Becky started having boyfriends, but I made no secret of the fact that I hated her dating. In my eyes, she was far too young, and I was a typical over-protective father. Whenever she brought a boyfriend home and introduced us, I practically snarled in their direction, so they ended up terrified of me. When she was fifteen she started going out with a lovely boy called Luke – the only boyfriend of hers I actually liked. He was blond, blue-eyed and a perfect gentleman, both caring towards Becky and polite to me.
When she turned sixteen, Becky confided in Anjie that she was thinking about having sex for the first time. The two of them disappeared for ages into Becky’s room to discuss it. Of course, being the highly suspicious dad I was, I leaned against the door, trying my best to eavesdrop.
‘The most important thing is that you’re ready,’ I heard Anjie telling her. ‘If anyone tries to push you into it when you’re not ready, they aren’t good enough for you. If someone really likes you, they will wait.’
‘Right, OK,’ Becky replied, and I could tell she was embarrassed. ‘You don’t really need to tell me this stuff, Anjie.’
‘I absolutely do!’ Anjie replied. ‘It’s all part of the job. Now, do you know how everything works?’
‘Of course I do,’ Becky said indignantly.
But Anjie knew as well as I did that Becky could be a little emotionally immature. Her lack of schooling meant that she sometimes needed things explained in full, so Anjie launched into a comprehensive guide to sex. When she finished, she was met with silence.
‘I didn’t know he’s supposed to put it inside me,’ Becky finally said, sounding horrified. ‘I thought he was just going to put it on me.’
I had to cover my mouth with both hands to stop myself laughing. I quickly moved away as fast as I could to the other side of the house. Needless to say, I think Becky got a bit of a shock that day and decided that sex might not have been for her just yet.
As her GCSEs approached, she started to consider her options for the future. Her strongest subjects were English and Art, but for a while she was dead set on becoming a vet because of her love of animals. As time went on, however, she decided that interior design was more her thing. Becky’s talent for drawing came from me. She would spend hours designing her ideal house, complete with the decor and furnishings. She would also watch television programmes such as DIY SOS religiously.
I fully supported her aspirations, as I truly thought she’d be good at design, and I told her that I was happy to work every hour under the sun so that she could go to university or college and achieve her dream. From a young age, Anjie and I had always told the kids that, with hard work and determination, they could be anything they wanted to be.
Chapter 6
Shauna
FRIDAY, 13 NOVEMBER 2015
Nathan Matthews and Shauna Hoare jailed for killing schoolgirl Becky Watts: Cold-hearted killer Nathan Matthews was today locked up for at least 33 years for the brutal murder of his teenage stepsister Becky Watts. His girlfriend and accomplice Shauna Hoare was given 17 years for charges including conspiracy to kidnap and manslaughter. Sentencing judge, Mr Justice Dingemans, told 28-year-old Matthews that he wouldn’t be eligible for parole until he was 61 at the earliest, and broke down in tears as he paid tribute to Becky’s family’s dignity in the face of such horror. It marked an extraordinary end to a dramatic and emotional five-week trial, which heard how Matthews had suffocated Becky during a violent struggle in her bedroom in what the prosecution described as a sexually motivated kidnap plot. He dismembered her body, packaging the eight parts into bags and suitcases that he later tried to hide in a garden shed. Before the warped pair were told of their fate, the court heard powerful victim impact statements from Becky’s family. In the words of her father, Darren Galsworthy: ‘The heartless, cold and calculating perpetrators of this despicable act of evil can never be forgotten or forgiven. These family members sat in our home, knowing what they had done, and watched my very public descent into madness and despair. They said nothing, but continued to pretend to help us, showing no emotion at all.’
In June 2011, Anjie woke up one morning and said something that marked the beginning of a difficult new phase of our lives: ‘Darren, I can’t see.’
I opened my eyes groggily to see her sitting bolt upright on her side of the bed, blinking and waving her arms around frantically.
‘I can’t see anything – I’m blind!’ she screamed, sounding terrified. I jumped out of bed and knelt by her, waving my hand in front of her face. Her eyes looked vacant as she stared straight ahead.
‘Are my eyes open?’ Anjie shrieked, and I swallowed hard, panic rising in my chest.
‘Yes, love, they are. Try not to worry. Let’s get you to a doctor.’
I tried to keep my voice calm for Anjie’s sake but I was totally confused. How does somebody go to bed at night with 20/20 vision and wake up in the morning blind?
I helped her get dressed and we drove to the hospital. All the way there my brain was working overtime, trying to figure out what could possibly have happened, but outwardly I remained calm and practical, telling her that there must be a simple explanation.
The doctors in A&E were as baffled as we were. They told us that Anjie’s eyes looked healthy, and they carried out loads of blood tests to try to determine what was going on.
As we waited in the treatment room, I gripped Anjie’s hand tightly. What if she was permanently blind? What would it mean for the family? I was the only one who worked in our household, but if I quit my job to care for Anjie I wasn’t sure how I would pay the mortgage.
After a while, a doctor came back to talk to us. ‘I’m afraid we don’t know the cause as yet,’ he said. ‘Every blood test so far has come back normal. We will need to investigate further, but in the meantime it’s important that you go home and try to get some rest.’
We were baffled by this. If the doctors didn’t know what to do, that meant there was no treatment, which meant it might not get better. I had never heard of anything like this before, and we simply didn’t know what to do except struggle through the days. I helped Anjie as much as possible and waited for the doctors to come up with an answer.
Thankfully, a few days later, when she woke, Anjie could make out shadowy shapes, and gradually her sight began to return to normal. Each day she could see a little more clearly than the day before, and within six weeks it was as good as it had ever been. I wondered if the loss of sight might have been a reaction to the stress we were under while dealing with Becky’s anorexia. You hear of psychological trauma causing physical symptoms. But I was wrong. It turned out that it was just the beginning of something far, far worse.
As soon as Anjie’s sight returned fully, other parts of her body started to go wrong. She was physically exhausted and needed to sleep twice as much as she had before, then about six months later her legs started to feel weak. When she tried to stand up from a chair, they sometimes gave way beneath her, causing her to fall back onto the seat. She got wobbly walking around the house and became nervous going out on her own in case she collapsed somewhere. We were back and forwards from the doctors every week seeking answers, but still they couldn’t tell us what was going on. I was panicking. Why couldn’t someone at least give us a diagnosis?
After nine months, we were called in to see a specialist, who told us that Anjie had multiple sclerosis – a condition which affects the nerves in the brain and spinal cord, causing problems with muscle movement, balance and vision.
‘What’s the treatment for it?’ I asked straight away.
‘I’m afraid there is no cure,’ he told us, ‘but MS sufferers react in different ways. The symptoms may get better or worse, depending on how your body handles the disease.’
We were devastated. Anjie had always been the fit and healthy one in the f
amily. She was the one who dragged us all out for long bike rides, and she used to walk miles every day. It seemed desperately unfair that she should be struck down by this awful disease and faced with an uncertain future.
We tried to be as positive as we could, but the symptoms continued to worsen. She dragged herself around the house by holding onto doors and furniture, but any objects left on the floor could trip her up. Nathan was very worried about his mum and used to yell at Becky if she left any of her stuff lying around on the floor or the stairs, which I thought was hypocritical since he often left his own belongings all over the living-room floor.
It was alarming for all our children. Anjie had been their shield, the person who protected them, but now the situation was reversed and she was the one who needed protecting.
Anjie tried her best to get on with life, but it was clear to see she was struggling with her limitations. She would get frustrated quickly and often burst into tears when she couldn’t manage something she’d have easily done before, like reaching a plate down from a high shelf or cooking a meal. When we went out she couldn’t walk any distance at all, so we got a wheelchair and took turns to wheel her round the park or to the shops.
Every time Anjie got upset, I struggled not to burst into tears myself. The woman I loved – a woman who had always been a force to be reckoned with – was slowly deteriorating, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was look after her. I was still going to work most days, but I would rush home as soon as I could to prepare an evening meal and see what Anjie needed.
Becky was great at fetching cups of tea and helping her in and out of her wheelchair, but Danny had moved out early in 2011, just after his sixteenth birthday, to go back to live with his mum, Tanya. It was during the period when we were struggling with Becky’s eating disorder, and I think that was hard for him. I kept nagging him about his unwillingness to go to college or get a job, so that was obviously a factor too. He had always felt protective towards Tanya and maintained a relationship with her. I was obviously hurt by his decision at the time, and it meant that the pressure was on Becky and me to look after Anjie. And, given that Becky had just recovered from her illness, it was mostly down to me, with help from Nathan whenever he popped in.
‘You don’t have to worry, my love,’ I told Anjie as I helped her into bed one evening. ‘I’ll always be by your side.’ And I meant it. Anjie had been my rock for many years and now it was time for me to be hers.
Back in 2008, when Nathan was twenty-one, he had announced that he was bringing a new girlfriend home to meet us. He didn’t tell us anything about how they had met or what she was like, but simply said that her name was Shauna.
I was out on the driveway working on my car when they pulled up outside the house. As I wiped my hands and looked up, my first thought was that Nathan was trying to wind me up. In the passenger seat was a young girl who didn’t look a day over fourteen. My mind flashed back to the time I had to tell him to take those twelve-year-old girls home to their parents, and as I watched Nathan get out of the car, I waited for him to erupt into laughter at my expense. The girl was so young it had to be a joke, but Nathan simply looked at me, straight-faced, while she got out of the car. She was dressed in a little black skirt and a revealing top. The style was very provocative for someone so young, and I found myself instantly alarmed by her appearance.
I’m the sort of man who gives people a chance. I like almost everyone unless they give me a reason not to, and I don’t consider myself in a position to judge others for their appearance. But there was a look about that girl that made me wary.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked Nathan as he started to walk towards me.
‘Oh, that’s Shauna – my new girlfriend,’ he answered nonchalantly.
‘Are you trying to get yourself arrested?’ I asked angrily.
Nathan looked stunned at my reaction. ‘Relax, Dar. She’s nineteen …’ he started, but I held my hand up to stop him.
‘I can tell she’s not nineteen, boy. I’m not stupid. Get her back in that car and piss off.’
‘What? You can’t stop me going into my mum’s house,’ he answered, reddening with embarrassment.
‘Your mum doesn’t pay the mortgage – I do. So I think you’ll find I can,’ I replied, standing my ground. ‘Seriously, Nathan – get going!’
He stared at me for a moment, then must have decided it wasn’t worth fighting over any further, because he turned and walked back towards the car.
I was annoyed at Nathan for lying to my face like that. I could tell from her babyish features and slight figure that the girl was nowhere near nineteen. I watched as Nathan told her they were leaving. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she was obviously upset about it, looking very much like a petulant teenager.
I was determined never to allow Nathan to bring underage girls into my home. The way I saw it, Anjie and I had fought hard to get Becky and Danny out of care, and I wasn’t going to let Nathan scupper all of that by having an inappropriate relationship under my roof. My children finally had a normal, settled family life, and I didn’t want to give social services any reason to question the way I was raising them.
I glared at Nathan until he and Shauna got back in the car and drove off, then I went inside to wash my hands.
‘Did you see the girl that idiot boy just tried to bring in here?’ I complained to Anjie. ‘He tried to tell me she was nineteen but there’s no bloody way that girl is nineteen. What the hell’s wrong with him, hanging out with kiddie girls all the time? I told him to sling his hook.’
‘All right, Dar, calm down,’ Anjie began, but I interrupted her.
‘She’s a wrong ’un,’ I said. ‘I can tell she’s trouble.’
‘Maybe you’re just being an overprotective dad,’ she replied. ‘You don’t even even know her yet.’
Anjie always tried to see the good in everyone, sometimes naively so.
‘There’s something about her I don’t like, Anj,’ I replied. ‘She’s far too young for him, for a start. She’s just a kid.’
Anjie was worried because she didn’t want to upset Nathan if he was serious about this girl, but she didn’t argue with my judgement.
We didn’t see Nathan for a few days, but when he did eventually come over to see his mum, he was moody and sullen with me.
‘Is your attitude problem something to do with your new girlfriend?’ I asked him.
He glared at me. ‘Why can’t I bring her over?’ he asked.
‘If you can show me Shauna’s birth certificate to prove she’s over the age of consent, I’ll give her a chance,’ I replied. ‘But I am not risking letting an underage girl into my house when we know social services are keeping an eye on Becky and Danny.’
He shrugged and turned his back on me. He continued to see her for the next year, but there was no further attempt to bring her to the house until one day in 2010, when Nathan arrived at the front door waving a birth certificate. I looked at it and saw that Shauna had just turned sixteen. I had been right when I’d guessed that she was underage the first time he brought her over. Nathan was a full seven years older, which to me seemed too much of an age gap at that stage of their lives, but I couldn’t refuse to let Shauna into the house now that she was sixteen.
A few days later, I arrived home from work to find Anjie, Nathan and Shauna in the living room, having a cup of tea and making small talk. I wasn’t in a great mood, I must admit. There were redundancies being handed out at work and I was waiting to find out my fate.
Shauna gave me a big smile as I walked into the room and jumped up to introduce herself. ‘Hi, I’m Shauna. It’s really nice to meet you.’
I was surprised at how polite she was, compared to the stroppy teenager I had seen the day Nathan first brought her over.
I nodded in reply, and instantly felt awkward. I’m not the sort of man who enjoys chit-chat. That was Anjie’s area of expertise.
After a few minutes I decided to lea
ve them to it, and busied myself by cleaning out the rabbit hutch and doing some general tidying up. I went upstairs to speak to Danny and Becky, but after a while I decided that I had to go back downstairs and be sociable.
When I returned, Nathan was phoning for a takeaway and Anjie and Shauna were watching television. They seemed to be getting on all right.
‘Will you come and help me in the kitchen, Darren?’ Anjie asked when she saw me lingering in the doorway.
‘She’s a nice girl,’ Anjie whispered to me once we were out of earshot.
I growled in response. I still didn’t like the idea of them as a couple. They whispered and giggled to each other when we were in the room, which to me was just plain rude. All in all, there was something creepy about Nathan when he was around her.
‘Come on – you said you’d give her a chance,’ Anjie reminded me.
She was right – I had promised, and, to be fair, Shauna had been very polite so far. But I was still unsettled when I went back to the living room and saw her and Nathan cosied up on the sofa. I had a gut feeling that they were not good for each other.
I spent the rest of the evening being aloof and keeping my distance, but as time went by I got more used to seeing Shauna hanging around the house, and eventually I started to warm to her. To be honest, she gave me no reason not to. She was well-mannered and Nathan clearly adored her. I couldn’t snub her completely because of a silly gut feeling.
I did once ask her about her relationship with Nathan. ‘You’re very young, Shauna,’ I said. ‘Why are you looking at guys Nathan’s age?’
She seemed shocked by my bluntness, but shrugged. ‘I like him,’ she said.
We learned that before she had even reached school age, she had been taken into care and had then been bounced from foster home to foster home while she was growing up. She hadn’t had anyone fighting for her the way Becky and Danny had when I was struggling to get them out of care, and that made me sympathise with her. At the age of thirteen she’d moved in with her mother, with whom she was still living.
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