Array Girl A - Girl A - My Story

She hadn’t, but the next day I heard that Social Services were thinking of giving her a place at my housing unit.

I told them I’d leave if they did. How could I feel safe if she was there, too? Because if she knew I was there, so would the men. Thankfully, they held a meeting about it and decided she wouldn’t be allowed to come.

Still scared, I rang Jane for an appointment, and met her on 12 August. We had a real heart-to-heart. I told her how upset I’d been to see Emma at the parenting session, and how scared I felt that she might already know where I was living. I told her how dangerous I thought Emma still was, even though she’d been turned down for the place at the housing unit: imagine someone like Emma having such easy access to vulnerable kids, all of them struggling, all of them broke, all of them weak enough to maybe fall into her trap.

She simply nodded when I told her how I’d hated her at the time for telling people what was happening to me. But now I was grateful because it had eventually made my parents realise the truth. I felt different about other things too, including boys. I’d applied to university by then, and I told her how I felt I’d grown up loads since moving into the housing unit.

‘From now on I only want to go out with lads who are normal and have a job,’ I said with a laugh. And then, almost in triumph: ‘And Chloe will have to come first!’

Jane reassured me that everything was fine between us, and then began talking about other things for a while – babies and stuff, families. And then, with one of the faint smiles that let me know she had something up her sleeve, she moved on to talking about the police, and how they wanted to re-interview me.

I could hardly believe it. After all this time, and all the rejections and all the failings, the police wanted to take me through it all again . Two years had passed since I’d been raped and trafficked by Daddy; two years since I’d told the police about it; and two years since they’d collected the DNA evidence that proved I was telling the truth.

But the delay had also given me time to ask myself about why they’d not brought the case to court. I knew some of the reasons, but I had also begun to wonder whether it was partly my fault. Had I not given them enough detail? Had I been too scared to give all the names, all the addresses, for fear of what they’d do to me? Should I have cried more? By the time I spoke to the police I’d become so used to it – desensitised, my dad says – that maybe I had come over as a kid who just wasn’t as obviously upset as they had expected I should be. I thought about that a lot, but the bottom line was, I’d done all the crying I could do.

Sitting in Jane’s office that day part of me, an ever-increasing part of me, wanted to try one more time. In fact, if Jane hadn’t mentioned it, I realised I would have found a way of trying, anyway. It was weird. I think that sometimes in your life you have to be totally ready to do something, and it just seemed to be fate when Jane put it to me, as I was ready, finally.

I thought it was high time Daddy paid for what he’d done, and that Emma paid for taking me to him, knowing I’d be raped. And it was time for Tariq, too, and all the others.

Maybe I’d matured over the last two years. Maybe living on my own, being a mum, had changed my perception. I felt braver. Hindsight had given me a clearer picture of everything.

Jane held out a hand to me. I held it, just briefly.

In the silence, I thought about the girl who’d recruited me for all those men. I’d been away from Emma for ages by then, and I think I’d finally begun to understand the hold she’d had on me: that so much of it was down to my vulnerability at the time – my youth, my need to find some kind of life for myself, no matter how on the edge it might have been.

The difference all the way through was that Emma loved the sex and I didn’t. In my mind, I had known it was wrong.

‘She liked to be abused,’ I said now slowly, out loud, ‘because in her mind it wasn’t abuse.’

Maybe not just then, but with that realisation I could see a time when I’d stop being afraid of her and stand up for myself. She wasn’t my mate. Looking back, she’d never been my mate. She’d just used me.

I realised I still hadn’t answered Jane’s question, about whether I’d speak to the police again.

The more I thought about that, the more I felt I was doing the right thing. I knew that if I helped the police now I could help to save other girls from suffering the same fate as me.

So in the end I said yes, I’d go ahead with it. Jane looked so pleased, and so sad, too, in a way, as if she was thinking of all the previous disappointments. But then, briskly, she picked up the phone, dialled a number and waited for it to be answered.

‘Hi, Susan,’ she said. ‘I’m with Hannah now, and she’ll be happy to meet you. Can we say next week?’ She glanced at me. I nodded. It was agreed.

A few days later Susan, the detective Jane had been speaking to, turned up at the flat and began to explain it all in detail. She and Jane’s boss, Sara, worked together on the Sunrise team – the people from different agencies who were trying to get a grip on things.

I warmed to Susan straight away. I think she has that effect on people because she’s really level, really reassuring. She told me how she’d been investigating other cases, and when she looked back at the video interviews I’d done, she could tell I’d been telling the truth.

She knew how much I’d felt let down, the way I’d not been kept informed the way I’d wanted to be. ‘We’re looking at it from a different perspective this time,’ she said. ‘I can’t give you absolute guarantees that we’ll get convictions, but we’ll be doing our very best to gather all the evidence together so that it can be presented in court.

‘What we’d like you to do is to be patient and just keep telling the truth.’

Apparently other girls had come forward, so this time around there would be more witnesses, and not just me. She asked me if I’d be OK to go through it all again – my story was the biggest one, but with all the girls together, it all looked really hopeful.

I felt an immediate difference between her and the police I’d dealt with before. It helped that this time around it was women officers who were dealing with me. What’s the word? Empathy? Maybe it’s because Susan was a woman, with the same body, but I felt she understood more. I thought, They have the same bodies as me, and maybe more of the same emotions . I felt there was more of a connection, because no matter how sensitive a man might be, he’s still a man. And so were the people who’d attacked me.

I wanted to know what Emma’s situation would be. ‘Will she be in the dock with the men?’ I asked Susan.

‘No,’ she said, gathering herself. She looked at me. ‘She won’t be in the dock because she’s a victim herself. I’m not dealing with her. One of my colleagues is doing that. But remember, Hannah, she was fifteen too, and a lot of the things that were happening to you were happening to her too.’

Part of me was furious about that, but then I thought about how long Emma must have been involved with all the men. She’d have been really young when she started, maybe even younger than Roxanne and Paige when they got involved. Everything about her had been skewed. She’d always say how much she loved shagging all those men. But had she? Had she really? I just think she never knew anything different.

I listened as Susan told me how she wanted me to give another video interview, and how important it was to think about what I wanted to say so I could give them as much detail as I could possibly remember. I told her I’d try, but that some of it had been so long ago I might struggle. But I felt I could do it.