Array Girl A - Girl A - My Story

Through all this, it was Harry who’d been the one to distract me, however briefly, from the nightmare that I was living with Emma and the gang. For all his weirdness with Emma, he was like a father figure to me, friendly, happy, with a knack of taking me out of myself when things became too much. It was as if he understood.

But when he saw me getting into taxis, the same taxis with Emma, he must have put two and two together. Everyone else in the house seemed to know, so I suppose it was inevitable that he’d realise, too. And, of course, Emma would have been happy to give him all the lurid details.

There began to be a disturbing change in the way Harry behaved around me. He’d never talked about sex in front of me before, and I wouldn’t have expected him to – not an old guy in his fifties, who could have been my granddad. But now he did, whenever any of the girls were around.

Emma and Roxanne seemed to love it, and actually thought it funny when he pointed at the top of my legs and said, ‘You know what that’s for, don’t you? Make whatever you can out of it.’

I would go red and shrink away, mortified that someone like him, someone I looked up to, could have said such a thing. It got worse, though, as he started asking me weird questions when we were alone, maybe when Coronation Street was on, or EastEnders , which he loved. And they always seemed to have something to do with sex.

‘What’s your bra size, Hannah?’ he asked once.

‘Do you shave down there?’

And then, out of the blue: ‘Have you ever come?’

One day I’d gone to school without some of the books I needed. When I returned to the house at around 10 a.m. to pick them up, the other people in the house were asleep, but Harry obviously wasn’t: I could hear the television in his room was on.

At first I was glad. The door to my room was closed but it didn’t have a handle on the outside, so I knocked on Harry’s to ask him if he had anything I could use to open it.

He told me to come in. His room was painted red. The TV was in the corner and Harry’s double bed was opposite the window. Daylight was streaming in.

‘Come and sit down,’ he said, patting the side of the bed. I did, and he shifted towards me.

The things he said next took me back to the day my whole nightmare had started. The more he said, the sicker I felt.

Just like Daddy had done, he was saying how much he liked me. But then the twist.

‘You’ve been living here for free, haven’t you, my darling?’

‘Yes,’ I mumbled.

‘And you’ve had my food and my cider and all the other things for free too, haven’t you?’

I didn’t reply, but then, I hardly needed to. I knew where the conversation was headed, and no matter what I said, it wasn’t going to change anything. Unless I wanted to pay rent or else go back home, I’d have to ‘treat’ him.

‘I’ve always wanted to do things to you,’ he breathed, ‘right from the first day you came here. Don’t you think I deserve something?’

His words hung in the air. He knew I was trapped, knew I’d feel I had nowhere else I could go, and that no matter what he did to me no one would believe me.

It was another betrayal. I wanted to yell at him and scream: ‘You’re a pervert, get lost!’ But I knew that if I did he’d throw me out. And then what?

I was in my school uniform and I shuddered as his hand crept towards me, brushing my knee as it slid under my skirt. The tears were welling up, but I wouldn’t let them fall. I tried desperately to keep my legs crossed so he couldn’t get to me. Then he changed tack, withdrawing his hand and instead pushing back the quilt. I could see he was naked and had an erection. Slowly, he reached out to take my hand and put it on him.

‘I’ve been told you give good blow jobs,’ he said quietly, ‘so suck it, there’s a good girl, and then you can stay.’

I felt the same sense of hopelessness that engulfed me every time Emma took me to the men. I’d been so conditioned that I couldn’t fight them – any of them. It had got to the point that all I could ever think of by then was to get it over and done with as soon as possible, and cling to the idea that it wasn’t me doing it but some other girl, some other victim.

When it was over, Harry looked down at me and said, ‘Get a roll-up if you want. Then get your stuff and get off to school.’

I felt horrible. Doing that with Harry was worse than when I was with the other men because I was living with him. I had to see him every day. I’d trusted him. I thought he was a surrogate father in some ways. And now this. Another paedophile to ruin my life, and another layer of misery to try to shut out.

There would be other times with Harry, of course. And I always did it because Harry, just like Emma, knew everything… including where I lived.

That night, when I told Emma about it, she said she did it to him, too, when she was skint, and he’d give her £10. Roxanne did it as well. To them it was just normal. Normal .

I dreaded the thought that one day it might seem normal to me.

I now had no sanctuary, only differing levels of pain and misery. Harry’s place was a prison filled with hopeless, feral creatures I knew cared less for me than for the fleas that infested their mangy dogs – some nights, after that first time with Harry, I would sit down with a glass of water, picking up scores of fleas and drowning them. I wanted to drown, too.

I was full of self-loathing. I hated myself for letting it all happen, but I didn’t know how to stop it. All the time Emma was telling me my parents would be ashamed of me so I could never go back home, and all the time I was having to do things that would make it even more difficult to return.

I knew that I needed protecting from myself because I’d been making the wrong decisions. I was like a different person. I didn’t have a life any more. It was all a blur, a different world. I didn’t really know how to cope with anything and just blanked everything out. I didn’t have the power to resist the men because they were so intimidating. I needed someone to do it for me – to stop it for me.

I became increasingly unkempt: I smelt, and my hair was always dirty and lank. I was almost feral myself. The men who were abusing me didn’t care what I was wearing, and I didn’t care what I was wearing, so I’d generally just keep on the same tracksuit day after day. I’d go around stinking of alcohol and with wee on my jacket, but not having a clue how it had got there. Sometimes I’d wear boys’ clothes, but it still didn’t bother them – just so long as they could do what they wanted with me.

Aarif’s flat was the gang’s favourite haunt. I was taken there about four times a week from August, through September and October and into November.

The arrangements would be made by Tariq, who would tell Emma what time to get there and how many men were likely to be waiting. He’d then come and pick us up from Harry’s house.

We’d arrive at the flat at about 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. There would usually be food and always vodka. Because I knew what was coming I’d drink as much as I could – usually about half a litre. Once I was drunk, either Tariq or Emma would tell me who I’d be sleeping with and send me into the bedroom.

I had to have sex with Aarif every time. There would usually be three or four others, sometimes five, but he would always go first. Tariq never said why it had to be that way, he’d just tell me to go and have sex with him.

It was the same routine. I’d go into the bedroom and lie on the bed. Aarif, and then the others, would come in, get naked and climb on top of me. I’d just lie there. Afterwards the man who’d just raped me would go back into the living room and the next one would come in.