Darren Galsworthy - The Evil Within - Murdered by her stepbrother – the crime that shocked a nation. The heartbreaking story of Becky Watts by her father

Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Foreword 1. Becky 2. The fight 3. Happy families 4. My boy 5. Becky’s teenage years 6. Shauna 7. The day that changed our lives 8. The search 9. The arrests 10. Saying goodbye 11. The funeral 12. Limbo 13. The trial begins 14. The trial continues 15. Verdict and sentencing 16. Aftermath Afterword by Anjie Galsworthy Picture Section Acknowledgements Moving Memoirs eNewsletter About the Publisher

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First published as Becky by HarperElement 2016

FIRST EDITION

© Darren Galsworthy 2016

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2016

Front cover photograph © Enterprise News and Pictures

Picture section © Darren Galsworthy (unless stated otherwise)

A catalogue record of this book

is available from the British Library

Darren Galsworthy asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780008179618

Ebook Edition © March 2016 ISBN: 9780008179625

Version: 2018-09-13

For my beautiful Bex

Cover

Title Page Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Foreword 1. Becky 2. The fight 3. Happy families 4. My boy 5. Becky’s teenage years 6. Shauna 7. The day that changed our lives 8. The search 9. The arrests 10. Saying goodbye 11. The funeral 12. Limbo 13. The trial begins 14. The trial continues 15. Verdict and sentencing 16. Aftermath Afterword by Anjie Galsworthy Picture Section Acknowledgements Moving Memoirs eNewsletter About the Publisher

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

1. Becky

2. The fight

3. Happy families

4. My boy

5. Becky’s teenage years

6. Shauna

7. The day that changed our lives

8. The search

9. The arrests

10. Saying goodbye

11. The funeral

12. Limbo

13. The trial begins

14. The trial continues

15. Verdict and sentencing

16. Aftermath

Afterword by Anjie Galsworthy

Picture Section

Acknowledgements

Moving Memoirs eNewsletter

About the Publisher

I’ve always enjoyed the outdoors. When I was growing up, my father would teach me all about the wonders of nature, and there was nothing I enjoyed more than pulling on my wellies and running outside to explore. To me, it was the only place where you could be free and let your imagination run wild. An open clearing would become a kingdom, a wooded area would turn into a secret, magical garden. A large tree would become my castle for the day. When I had children of my own, I taught them that their imagination was limitless. As they grew up to love the outdoors too, I rediscovered it through their eyes. For me, that was part of the magic of having children.

I still love taking long walks, but these days I tend to be alone. It gives me a good opportunity to think and to set the world to rights. I never feel completely alone anyway – everywhere I look I can see memories of my daughter Becky, from when she was a toddler, clutching her microscope to examine the bugs on the leaves, to when she was a teenager, examining her nail polish as we walked together, talking about her hopes and dreams.

Becky was at the beginning of adulthood when she was cruelly taken from us. She was just starting to figure out who she was, and who she wanted to be in the future. She was growing into a beautiful young woman, with a wicked sense of style and an attitude to match.

These days, I take a long walk whenever I want to feel her presence around me again. I often stroll slowly along the familiar winding lanes and sit down by the edge of a pond, enjoying the film reel of memories as they play out in my head. It’s there that I usually have one of my many one-sided conversations with Becky.

‘Hello, Bex. I hope you’re happy and safe, wherever you are. I hope you’re with my nan and she’s showing you all the love she showed me when I was your age. I wish you were with me so much. I miss everything about you – your laugh, your sense of humour, even the way you would make fun of me all day long.

‘I miss trying to embarrass you with my “dad dancing”. I even miss the practical jokes you used to play on me – like the time you waited until I fell asleep on the couch and then you painted me with as much make-up as you could find. I wondered why the man at the door was looking at me so strangely when I greeted him, but when I heard you giggling from your room I knew instantly that you had something to do with it. I was horrified when I looked in the mirror and saw my red lips and bright blue eyelids – but you thought it was hilarious, and the sound of your laughter was enough to make everyone smile.

‘I miss having fun with you when you were a little girl, scrunching up my face into all sorts of shapes just to make you collapse into giggles, baking cupcakes with you in the kitchen, and reading to you in bed. My favourite part of the day was always watching you fall asleep then kissing you goodnight.

‘Bex, I even miss the rows we used to have. We were so alike, we used to rub each other up the wrong way, but we’d always end up rolling around with laughter. I miss the way you used to hurl yourself at me when you came in, winding me in the process. I miss you pulling my right arm around you and cuddling in. You could stay like that for hours, and I used to thank my lucky stars that you still wanted to do that, even when you were a teenager.

‘Not an hour goes by that I don’t think about you, Bex. From the moment I open my eyes to the moment I rest my head on my pillow at night, I see you. I see you in your room on your phone, I see you messing about with your friends at the front gate, I see you in our living room, cuddled up watching a film – you are everywhere. In a way, I’m glad because I don’t ever want to forget anything about you.

‘I try very hard not to think of the way you were taken from us, but it’s difficult. All I ever wanted to do was protect you, and I’ve tortured myself that I wasn’t there for you on that fateful day.