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Stolen Voices: A sadistic step-father. Two children violated. Their battle for justice.
Terrie Duckett
He beat them, he abused them, and he tortured them. He broke their dreams. But they came back stronger.‘Terrie and Paul are two of the bravest people I have ever met. I have only shared the briefest glimpse into the true horrors this brother and sister have endured, but I rarely come across cases this bad. After the unspeakable abuse and shocking betrayals, two incredible human beings came through – to inspire us all.’Sara Payne OBE, co-founder of Phoenix SurvivorsTerrie and Paul’s step-father had been living with them for six months when the abuse and grooming began. What started as innocent conversations and goodnight kisses quickly developed into something far darker and depraved.Everyday Terrie was assaulted and abused; her rapes were photographed, filmed and shared. Paul was regularly taunted and mercilessly beaten. But despite the bruises and the scars, and the desperate pleas for help, no one saw their pain.But through it all they stuck together, battling for their childhoods for over a decade and masterminding creative ways to outwit their stepfather and buy themselves fleeting moments of joy.In March 2013, thirty years on, Terrie and Paul made the brave decision to give up their right to anonymity to tell of the years of abuse they endured at the hands of their recently convicted step-father and raise awareness for the ongoing battle for justice for victims of child abuse. A powerful testament of what can be achieved through courage and love, this is their inspiring story.
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Contents
Cover (#u3db53ae0-ad8f-542e-bc3f-d34e1d041009)
Title Page (#ulink_0850af03-c3a2-5148-979c-2f6f4f16e493)
Dedication (#ulink_a099e6b5-d971-5b63-934c-c6da081432b4)
Prologue (#ulink_7f0fed5a-1c86-5dd2-8158-ac9bed522824)
Chapter 1: ‘Humble Beginnings’ (#ulink_1276699c-bd9c-5d31-ae5b-fc860e9afd59)
Chapter 2: ‘In the Picture’ (#ulink_36d8702d-32ae-5d8c-8a8e-d0da0cd8e1f6)
Chapter 3: ‘Last Laugh’ (#ulink_542c5c8f-a35f-5709-afbc-26f85b2a4b38)
Chapter 4: ‘New Beginnings’ (#ulink_ebd95fc4-c99c-5fb3-bb08-f48809fb7a84)
Chapter 5: ‘Family Games’ (#ulink_ee3a4f0b-f013-5962-90e2-631c9c8bf1b0)
Chapter 6: ‘Eye of the Storm’ (#ulink_7efdb55f-cda0-538a-9138-ca49c9e778a4)
Chapter 7: ‘A Dog’s Life’ (#ulink_f391c4f8-20be-5bd7-b92d-c9b811213073)
Chapter 8: ‘Hidden Hurt’ (#ulink_9df62ab7-8d03-5931-908f-cceebb132ac8)
Chapter 9: ‘Fighting Back’ (#ulink_8ef909ff-a77f-56ef-b265-1a3d42ea2d62)
Chapter 10: ‘Tipping Point’ (#ulink_88dfd70b-7bf6-5ad5-915c-e7581cdc882e)
Chapter 11: ‘Down not out’ (#ulink_3105689d-316c-53e7-a368-9d91b143d4c8)
Chapter 12: ‘Into an Abyss’ (#ulink_676994c6-30f4-560b-b5f0-742ebb332ba7)
Chapter 13: ‘An Eye for an Eye’ (#ulink_e999cbea-4996-5c24-be4c-edeb8e19e168)
Chapter 14: ‘Holiday Hell’ (#ulink_78c53e02-44b7-56ca-ac84-b705604f874e)
Chapter 15: ‘Timed Torment’ (#ulink_21ab731f-2f87-5e88-998b-7cc0dac6a4e3)
Chapter 16: ‘Fresh Hell’ (#ulink_9c6f2f19-b022-54c1-94cb-1d943b64707f)
Chapter 17: ‘Betrayal’ (#ulink_e37a724f-d953-51fe-bf57-cf51396c38df)
Chapter 18: ‘Best-laid Plans’ (#ulink_a4fb4345-565b-5cc0-ae65-1c4b5886ef0d)
Chapter 19: ‘Thwarted’ (#ulink_597f42da-74ce-57da-9a9b-995207d62e60)
Chapter 20: ‘Thumbscrews’ (#ulink_1ed7075a-45f3-5a39-b4a8-512c825284ed)
Chapter 21: ‘Work Life’ (#ulink_d84784c9-3aeb-54c8-8cb7-2486b706c59c)
Chapter 22: ‘Triggered’ (#ulink_90a80b41-12c3-5a37-af41-8cabbf7224d9)
Chapter 23: ‘Cycle of Life’ (#ulink_daa320eb-cf0e-5344-b0f4-afe02d877db2)
Chapter 24: ‘Taking the Bullet’ (#ulink_bf728e7c-5acc-5336-b4a5-21dbeb5e4666)
Chapter 25: ‘Hope’ (#ulink_d730330c-25e0-5f80-80bf-59880dd81738)
Chapter 26: ‘Straightjacket’ (#ulink_5ac20ba1-a4ea-5faa-a236-1d26a80f2dfb)
Chapter 27: ‘Gloves Off’ (#ulink_2db866a9-033d-5844-8bf9-2eca26e86843)
Chapter 28: ‘Shadow in Sun’ (#ulink_956ad2c0-e754-591b-9061-00946d451303)
Chapter 29: ‘The Truth’ (#ulink_bc899349-11ca-52db-bc43-f8727b5ed132)
Chapter 30: ‘Police Searches’ (#ulink_e6686711-fcb9-51a2-b111-0c112dca0de3)
Chapter 31: ‘The Trial’ (#ulink_32d69c3b-1d67-59b5-ad47-be0869e73e33)
Afterword (#ulink_30b39048-4885-584c-8199-973039c8237e)
Exclusive sample chapter (#u33b2ee8f-11e4-5ee0-bce5-f684beb0e79f)
Moving Memoirs eNewsletter (#ud6f41165-2f12-5428-a3b5-d2b2a98225c3)
Copyright (#ulink_fa747ee6-e787-5008-9883-3d951c715f32)
About the Publisher (#u69a479ce-e2c9-5deb-8b27-f57f6ac30d5a)
Dedication (#u8c3278d8-cde6-50c1-809b-e54a04f9df02)
We dedicate this book to each other and to every other brother and sister struggling to survive: with strength, humour and love we came through this together. Our bond is unbreakable.
Prologue (#u8c3278d8-cde6-50c1-809b-e54a04f9df02)
June 2012
‘What’s up?’ I yawned into the phone to my brother Paul. It was almost 1 a.m. and I was feeling bloody tired.
‘I’ve just got off the phone to the police,’ Paul blurted out. ‘You know they arrested Peter today and searched the house? Well, you’re just not going to believe this!’ He took a breath. ‘Apparently, it’s been designated a crime scene and they’ve left police outside all night, to make sure no one gets in. There was so much evidence they ran out of time and need to go back and collect the rest. They reckon it’s an “Aladdin’s cave”. Their words, not mine.’ There was a slight pause. ‘I’m gonna drive over. Do you wanna come?’
I didn’t even have to think twice. ‘Yes! Come and get me. I’ll be waiting outside.’ I hung up, threw on some clothes and ran outside. I stood waiting impatiently by the side of the road, trying to calm my breathing. A few moments later, Paul’s car turned the corner and pulled up next to me. I jumped in and we screeched away.
‘Fasten seat belt,’ Paul’s car lectured me repeatedly in a mechanical monotone.
‘All right, all right, shut the fuck up,’ I muttered, cutting the car off as I clicked the belt in place. Paul rolled his eyes and drove on.
We drove silently towards our childhood home, lost in our thoughts. We were both feeling numb, not able to believe they had finally arrested him. We had had a couple of intensely stressful weeks waiting for the police to call, and now here we were driving towards the place we had barely survived as children, not knowing quite what to expect.
None of the events of the past few weeks had actually sunk in; whether it was the police telling us it was the worst case they had dealt with in a long time, the pitying looks we had received as we gave our interview, or the fact that we’d been brave enough to tell anyone at all.
My thoughts snapped back into focus as the car turned into Churchill Avenue, an ordinary estate filled with neat council houses; a place we’d avoided for over 10 years because it evoked so many traumatic memories. As the well-trodden pavements swept past, my stomach twisted into a hard knot.
In the distance the familiar silhouette of our childhood home loomed: the box-shaped porch, the white wooden cladding, the thin paving snaking from the public footpath to the front door. Such an innocent-looking house, yet one that hid so many dark secrets. Today Number 59 looked tardy and neglected.
As we approached, we saw a police car parked opposite the house with two men inside it. With a quick glance at Paul, I could tell we both felt weird and in some ways wrong to pass by the empty house. The reality was starting to sink in, and although neither of us was sure how as victims we were meant to act, we knew that together we’d get through it, just as we did through our childhood.
Paul accelerated so that we passed the house at normal speed.
‘Well, it looks like we’ve got the ball rolling now,’ breathed Paul as he sucked long and hard on his roll-up.
‘I’ve got a feeling this isn’t going to be an easy journey.’ I sighed.
‘Can’t be any harder than what we’ve been through,’ Paul commented.
‘Don’t you wish we could have told our younger selves how things would work out?’
‘I wouldn’t change a thing; the struggles we went through have made us the people we are today. I believe if we changed one thing in our past it would change who we are now.’
I glanced at Paul and nodded. ‘True.’ I was full of apprehension about the days and weeks ahead. I was just glad we had each other.
Chapter 1
‘Humble Beginnings’ (#u8c3278d8-cde6-50c1-809b-e54a04f9df02)
Terrie
My parents, John and Cynthia, were childhood sweethearts. Their relationship had begun like a storybook romance, but with their marriage their dreams died.
Mum intended to follow in her father’s footsteps in Northampton’s traditional calling, designing shoes, until she naively showed her designs to a local shoe manufacturer during one lunchtime, who stole them. Dad joined the parachute regiment and aspired to be part of the SAS – until he failed their selection course.
In 1968, with both their dreams in tatters, life was to change irreparably again. Mum discovered she’d accidentally fallen pregnant. To say Dad was not best pleased was an understatement, but in 1968 pregnancy meant marriage and that was that. So Mum abandoned her place in college and went up the aisle – or at least the corridor – of Northampton register office.
She didn’t tell her parents, my Nan and Pap – Gladys and George – at first. Not only had she let them down, but they believed she could do better than my dad. However, by the time she told them the damage had been done, and at the very least they felt he’d done the honourable thing.
I arrived on 27 June 1969 in Aldershot, the garrison town where Dad was based. For the first month of my life we lived in married quarters, though Dad was desperate to be released back to Civvy Street, not being able to face being returned to his parachute regiment after failing the SAS selection course. The only way he could be discharged was to buy himself out, so Mum raided her savings and stumped up the required £200 – a prohibitive sum, but a small price to pay to keep her new husband happy.
Mum and I lived my first year with my Nan and Pap in their cosy two-bedroom house. But the first home I remember clearly was a council maisonette in Moat Place. It was a bit sparse; the kitchen and lounge were downstairs and the bedrooms were up a white-painted stairway that had a thin carpet runner tacked loosely to the wood. Two wooden slats ran down the side of the stairs, with a narrow gap between them, so that as a small child I could peer through. I spent a fair bit of time sitting in nervous silence on those stairs, listening to Mum and Dad argue their way through life.
Dad worked away a lot of the time, stopping home for clean clothes and food maybe once a fortnight. When he wasn’t there to argue with Mum, I felt happy and relaxed. I had my mum all to myself and we had our routine. We didn’t have a lot of money, or many belongings, but she had time for me – even though I could be more of a hindrance than a help, as a simple trip to the shops could turn into an adventure.
At the age of four, whilst I was dawdling back from the shops with a loaf of bread for tea, I thought of Hansel and Gretel. ‘I wonder what would happen if I dropped a trail of bread slices?’ Imagining a magical creature might appear, I pulled slices of bread out of the bag and began placing them carefully on the pavement. Skipping along, I looked over my shoulder, pleased at the snowy trail … until Mum suddenly appeared, looking up the road for me. ‘Terrie!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing? That’s our tea!’
I held a slice of bread mid-air and my face crumpled. ‘Sorry, Mummy.’
She scurried to scoop up the slices and put them carefully back into the bread bag for later.
The weekends Dad came home left their impression on me. One such weekend, when I was three, I was sitting in the kitchen waiting for Mum to dish up dinner when he arrived. I looked up as he walked in, but he didn’t seem to notice me.
‘Hurry up, I’m hungry,’ he complained to Mum. Mum seemed flustered and rushed to place the plates of macaroni cheese in front of us. ‘Is this it?’
Mum looked up. ‘I have some Spam if you’d like some?’
He laughed sneeringly. ‘This’ll do.’
I was actually relieved. I hate Spam – no, I detest Spam. Poor Mum was running out of new ways to cook it. Fried, battered and deep-fried, diced and sliced. For me any way was disgusting, and I would often gag trying to swallow the pink sludge.
I hated macaroni too. I couldn’t stop thinking about slugs as I tried to swallow the slimy pasta pieces. Dad would become frustrated with the faces I was pulling and send me up to my room, telling me not to come back downstairs until they had both finished dinner.
A few minutes later, as I cautiously slid back down the stairs on my bum, I could hear our budgie was squawking loudly. Dad was standing up shouting as Mum turned to look at me. He followed her gaze and saw me. ‘Get out! This is adult talk. Get out, now!’
I ran and sat on the stairs, scared and alone, peering through the gap.
At three years old, I was confused. I still wanted and needed to be loved by my dad, but I felt anger towards both of my parents for letting him come home and ruining my time with Mum. The rage had to get out somehow, so I began destroying things Mum had lovingly made for me. I picked apart a crocheted waistcoat made with squares of colourful pansies all sewn together. I cut the silky lining out of the green felt coat she’d made. And I carefully hacked my way across my fringe.
Dad’s presence at home meant rows and arguments, slammed doors and tears. Mum never really explained why it happened; I just thought it was my fault, because I was stupid and ugly.
It may have been that Dad felt trapped at home and would rather have been back amongst the camaraderie and banter of his army friends. Dad had joined the Territorial Army after being discharged out of the service, as it was more relaxed than the regular army. I enjoyed watching him with his mates in the TA, laughing and joking, so very different to how he was at home. Drill weekends often included family gatherings, lots of delicious food and kids running about, playing games amongst the lorries and heavy gear outside the drill hall.
But Dad did let a glimmer of his home face show there occasionally. Like the time he was supposed to be keeping an eye on me while Mum was inside with the other mums setting up for dinner. I was on my hands and knees pushing my new green plastic train that had two carriages attached. He warned me not to go near a large stack of bricks by the wall, but, me being me, I pushed my train a little hard. It sped off behind the brick stack. The top of the pile was leaning in towards the building, but there was a me-sized gap between the stack and the wall. I squeezed between and reached out for my train. I heard Dad yelling just before the pile fell onto my legs.
As he yanked me out by my arm, I said my leg felt funny and I refused to stand on it. ‘You’re just being a baby,’ he said.
I cried and he yelled for my mum. She gave me a look over and said I needed to get my leg checked. Later that day, as I showed my broken leg, plastered to the knee, to my Nan, she was horrified. She gave me extra cuddles to make up for it.
To me, Nan and Pap were perfect. Their house was an oasis of calm and I loved every brick of it, from the Indian-style felt-covered living room, where Nan saw faces and shapes in the patterns (‘Look, Terrie, there’s a goat!’ she’d laugh), to their conservatory where Pap would proudly show off his small cucumbers hanging around the door.
Nan had blonde wavy hair and sweet, flowery perfumed skin. She was always quick to cuddle me whenever she could. Nothing was ever too much trouble, whether it was cooking up delicious treats in the kitchen, playing pretend games or re-telling every fairy story I could absorb. Nan would pull up a chair in the kitchen, so I could stand and help her make dinner. Afterwards we’d play snap, or she’d get out a big tin of assorted buttons she’d collected over the years and we’d sit and thread them onto coloured cotton.
Pap was as round and cuddly as Nan, and they adored each other. He always had a twinkle in his eyes when he told me stories of when he was a boy and how mischievous he was.
All too soon, it was time to go home.
In late 1973, I was holding Mum’s hand as we walked across the Northampton market square, when she turned and knelt in front of me.
‘Mummy is going to have a baby.’ She looked a little worried, patting her tummy. I’d seen it getting rounder and fatter.
‘Okay.’ I shrugged, not really understanding. It was obviously something I was thinking about, though, as later that afternoon I pointed to Nan and Pap’s tummies. ‘Are you both having babies too?’ They laughed.
That evening I played with my only dolly, Baby Beans, named because she was filled with dried beans. I could hear Mum and Dad downstairs, and he didn’t seem happy. I tried banging my head against the wall to block out the sound of their voices. It didn’t work, but I did eventually manage to fall asleep.
