Array Girl A - Girl A - My Story

‘Well, I saw Paige getting on a bus with Emma,’ I said, once we’d got settled with some tea. I wanted to help, but was scared about telling Jane too much – especially about Emma. ‘But that was last week,’ I went on, a little too quickly.

‘Hannah,’ said Jane, patiently. ‘I know you still see Emma, so you really don’t have to lie to me.’

I reddened, then smiled at her in relief. ‘OK, OK, it was yesterday.’

She smiled back. ‘Thanks, Hannah. And what about Ruth? Do you know anything about her? Is she involved with Emma? With Paige?’

I shook my head. ‘Not that I know of,’ I said tentatively, holding out on her again.

Jane looked serious, studying my face, trying, it seemed, to gauge just how much I really did know.

‘Paige hasn’t been home in days,’ she said, ‘and people are very, very worried about her. So, come on, Hannah, tell me. You know how important this is.’

I did, and so I told her the bit that might help Jane find her. ‘She will be with Emma,’ I said. ‘And, most likely, they’ll be with Parvez.’ Once the words were out, I felt better. ‘I’ll take you there if you like – to show you.’

She declined the offer, saying it would be best to wait for the police to take me.

The waitress came over to clear up the empty plates then, so the conversation ended. As we headed off, out past McDonalds before stopping at the traffic lights beside the motorway, I kept thinking about Paige.

‘Jane,’ I said. ‘Will you ring me if she doesn’t come home?’

It turned out there was no need, because the next day the police found Paige – not at Parvez’s place, but at Harry’s. I never did find out what happened to Ruth.

I’m guessing Paige was found around the same time as I was going out in an unmarked car with a detective sergeant called Daniel; another police officer, Susan; and Jane.

I’d been at my parents’ house for a few nights, so Jane called there to pick me up and take me to the police station.

The idea was for us to drive around, with me pointing out as many of the gang’s hang-outs as I could.

It was frightening to drive around the town in the daytime, especially because we looked so obvious – two police officers, admittedly out of uniform, with a teenage girl and a woman who looked like a social worker. I kept thinking we’d see some of the gang because this was their territory.

I’d pointed out seven different addresses by the time we pulled back into the police station car park.

‘You’ve been very brave.’ Jane smiled gently as we came to a standstill. ‘You should be very proud of yourself.’

I didn’t feel proud.

It had been a huge thing for me to go out with the police, because I still thought that if the gang found out they would kill me.

It didn’t occur to me to ask the detectives for help because I simply didn’t know you could do that – however much I may have wished to. I didn’t know they could help a girl like me beyond doing the normal police things.

Once I’d told the police, and once we’d been out in the car looking at addresses, they set up a big surveillance operation. At one stage one of the detectives told me: ‘Even if we don’t get them to court, at least we’ll have disrupted them; at least they’ll know we’re on to them, and that may have a deterrent effect’ – as if surveillance alone could combat a gang who put no value on human suffering.

I felt sick – I knew that wouldn’t help me. Quite the opposite. In the days and weeks that followed, I lived in constant fear that I’d put myself in an even worse situation.

I felt I’d been let down so terribly by the police the first time around, I just prayed it wasn’t going to happen again. They wouldn’t abandon me a second time, surely?

Ultimately, it was my baby who ended the abuse that had taken over my life.

As February 2009 approached, the gang seemed to be growing tired of me. It’s one thing forcing yourself on a girl in a padded bra, but when she’s pregnant and her breasts have finally begun to develop there’s a problem: at least, for a paedophile. There were fewer and fewer phone calls telling Emma to take me to whichever address, and more for the new girls she was trying to recruit. If I did go, I’d hear members of the gang telling Emma she had to bring younger girls next time, and not one who was pregnant.

The baby had been growing in my womb for nearly three months now, content, oblivious to the fact that he or she was the accidental offspring of an under-age girl whose only reason to carry on was to protect the life inside her. In quiet moments, I’d look down at the now distinct, visible bump and stroke it.

Whenever I went home to Mum and Dad I was still a nightmare: stubbing out cigarettes on the floor and the kitchen worktops, swearing and, one night, drunk, dancing in the front room and saying to my dad – I am so ashamed now to think of it – ‘Do you want me to dance naked for you, Dad?’

He had looked utterly appalled that I could have said so vile a thing. And me? The next morning I just thought: Your mind’s not right, Hannah. How could you have said that to your own dad?

It got to the stage where he couldn’t bear to be in the same room as me, and Mum felt the same.

I’d also scared both of them by saying the baby could have any one of five fathers. It’s not the sort of thing your mum and dad want to hear. They were worried, too, that I was still heading off to stay at Harry’s place whenever I could. I’d just wait for the chance to climb out of a window, onto the roof of the porch, and away into the night.

I still wanted to break away from Harry’s place, but the brainwashing effect Emma had on me was too strong.

Jane, wonderful, patient Jane, tried her best to help me find the courage.

A week or so before my sixteenth birthday, close to Valentine’s Day, the two of us were at Asda again, her drinking tea, me hot chocolate, when out of the blue she said: ‘Hannah, I know you’ve been going to Harry’s again – and I know you’ve been staying overnight there.’ She let it sink in. ‘So stop lying to me, and please, for your own safety, stay away from there. It’s all being dealt with by the police. Just let them get on with it while you concentrate on looking after yourself and the little one.’

She said she’d spoken to my parents, and that they were worried sick. ‘You do realise, don’t you,’ she said slowly, deliberately, ‘that even when you’re sixteen you can be referred to Childcare Services if people think you’re putting your baby at risk?

‘And you can’t expect your mum and dad to do all the looking-after of it once the baby is born.’

As she went back to sipping her tea, I tried to focus on the significance of what she’d just said. She was right – I knew I had to get away from Emma, from Harry’s place, if not for me then for the baby. It was doing me no good – and could I really picture a baby living there? The thought of it made me shudder.

As I thought about the baby, I tried to picture it – wondering whether it was a boy or a girl, and wondering, too, whether it was half-Asian. Another worry rose to the surface of my mind.

‘I’ve worked out my dates,’ I said, ‘and I’m really worried the dad might be one of those men. If it is, I won’t be able to feel the same about it – not ever, because I’d know it was from being raped. I’m really not sure I could keep it.’

For the next few minutes I sat there, morose, trying to block out the turmoil I felt about my baby’s identity.

My sixteenth birthday was actually a laugh. I spent most of it with Lizzie, heading off to Manchester on the bus and spending some money Mum and Dad had given me as a present.