Array Girl A - Girl A - My Story

At first it felt good to feel a little bit free. Chloe and I settled into a routine that worked for us. But, after a few weeks, the loneliness started to kick in. There were other girls to talk to, I suppose, but I was shy and I found it hard. And with Chloe only being a baby still, I felt pretty much alone.

It was then that I started to have a drink in the evenings. And then another. As a kid of fourteen and fifteen I’d been drinking normally like teenagers do – getting drunk on a Friday night, maybe, and having a laugh. Getting drunk that is, but not too drunk. With the gang, I’d knocked back the vodka as quickly as I could and it was this thought that remained – that alcohol could numb you.

Now, in my own place, I started to drink more because I felt lonely. There was more, however – I started to rake over what had happened – or rather was not happening – with the gang. I felt abandoned, and it made me scared again because I knew the men were all still out there, and all still free. Then there was Emma. She didn’t know where I lived, but she kept emailing me to get in touch. She still must have wanted me back. I ignored her, but it just made me feel more scared.

I started drinking more and more. Just like before, I drank to forget: the abuse, the abandoned case, everything.

Some mornings I’d wake up and feel as though I was trying to drink myself into oblivion. It didn’t matter what I drank – anything really. Lambrini sometimes – you know, the cider: ‘Lambrini girls just wanna have fun.’ Except that this girl wasn’t having fun. Most of the time it would actually be the very cheapest cider I could find – White Star, which they sold around the corner and was a favourite among all the local alcoholics.

I’d get a three-litre bottle and drink it on its own. On a normal day, I’d start drinking as soon as I’d finished college and collected Chloe from nursery. It could be about four o’clock in the afternoon or maybe even earlier. But I wouldn’t let myself get drunk until the baby had gone to bed. I wanted to drink, you see, but I didn’t want to be too drunk.

So I’d pour myself a glass and then wait an hour for the next one – the way I was thinking by then was that messed up! I mean, who does that? Having one drink and then trying to wait an hour before having the next one?

Part of it was because I knew I’d never survive if the drinking really took hold, but part of it was also because I wanted to be responsible for Chloe.

Through no fault of her own, however, Chloe was part of the problem, too. I was with her 24/7 with no help and no one to talk to. All I had then were different staff workers coming in and out, just checking on me for this and that.

In all the time I was at the housing unit, my mum and dad never came to see me. I thought that with no trial coming up, they must have gone back to seeing me as a prostitute (or, at least, that’s what my crowded head was telling me). After all, that was what everyone was saying, wasn’t it? They’d not disowned me, but I felt they weren’t really interested. I’d speak to them on the phone sometimes, and every now and then go around for tea. But they never came to the flat or offered to look after Chloe. That was part of why I was so depressed – my own mum and dad didn’t seem to want to know.

All the other girls in the flats would be going round to their mum and dad’s, or else their mums would be coming round helping them out and taking the babies out. But my mum and dad never did any of that. I think I was a bit jealous. I was angry as well, that they were only like that because of what they thought I was. Thanks to Social Services, they thought of me as a prostitute and not a victim. That was the conclusion I reached; they might have had their own reasons.

I drank because I couldn’t cope with all the different things going on in my life. Everything was just going around and around in my head. I was trying to live a life after being abused for months and months, but with nothing having happened about it.

I gradually made friends with most of the girls at the housing unit. They didn’t know what had happened to me, and I didn’t know why they were there, either – apart from having got pregnant. Sometimes I’d wonder whether any of them had been caught up in the gang, but it seemed too far-fetched and, anyway, I doubted that any of them would have admitted to it. I wouldn’t have – it was too shaming.

On my bad days, I’d just stare at the walls, completely ignoring Chloe. I’d feed her and clean her and dress her and all those other things, but too many other times I’d blank her out. It got so bad that she’d bang her head on the floor just to get my attention. I could see that her little heart was breaking. It breaks my own heart now to think of it.

Somehow I just didn’t seem to have the motivation to do anything, and I started to feel depressed almost all the time. I could feel myself slipping down into a world away from normal society.

I felt I was being tortured day in, day out. I still couldn’t believe that Daddy and Immy had been allowed to remain free for all that time. It was horrible. I thought, They’ve done this to me and they’ve won. Everyone thinks I’m a prostitute .

And I was still worried that they would come after me. I was in Rochdale, where so much of it had happened. I was just worried in case I bumped into any of them.

I actually did see one of the men, Saj, as I was pushing Chloe through Rochdale town centre in her pushchair once. My stomach dropped to the ground and I thought I was going to be sick. I remember turning around as quickly as I could and pushing the buggy as fast as possible in the other direction. I don’t think he saw me.

I bumped into Emma once, too, in Rochdale town centre. She was with her mum, and her mum shouted across the street, ‘There’s the slut!’ They were calling me a liar, saying I’d tried to send innocent men to jail.

And that, I knew, was exactly what the rest of the world thought about me. That Daddy and Immy were innocent, and that all those other creeps, who would pay their money so they could rape me, were innocent, too.

And so, on days like those, I would nip out to the shop around the corner and buy another three litres of White Star, put it in the fridge, and try to put off the moment I’d walk back into the kitchen area and open it.

Social Services knew about the drinking, and they gave me an alcohol worker who started coming once a week. She was nice enough, but all she really did was have a chat and give me tips on how to cut down. I knew, and I think she knew, that in my case especially, I had to do it myself. And I wasn’t ready to.

The social workers also got me to go to a young parents’ group, where they help you to cope with your baby and train you in how to look after them.

By now my little girl was walking. She’d started off by hauling herself up whenever she reached a chair, then gradually getting the coordination to set off. I used to love to see her tottering towards me, a big smile on her face, desperate to succeed, falling into my arms and giggling with pride and satisfaction. It made me feel good, too.

The young parents’ session on 10 August 2010 should have been as dull and uneventful as the rest, but instead it was terrifying.

I’d just sat down when the last girl in the world that I wanted to see walked in. Emma. I hadn’t even known she was pregnant.

Her eyes locked onto me and I felt a wave of revulsion and fear. A moment later, I was flying out of the door, pushing my way past the staff who were trying to get me to stay.

Stay in a room with the girl who’d controlled me for all those months? Never. Terrified, I fled back to the flat, looking over my shoulder in case she’d decided to follow me.