Little Girl Lost: The true story of a broken child

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I’m no cook. I can handle the basics, but my mum could have been a professional and she makes the best Christmas cake you’ve ever tasted – rich and moist, but not too heavy, and just the right amount of brandy to bring it alive. I’ve never had one that could compare and my mouth waters just thinking about it. On Christmas Eve at about 4 p.m., a friend and I race down to the supermarket to pick up any Christmas bargains we can find. ‘How many turkeys do you need this year, Mia?’

‘Two as usual.’

‘Well, hopefully they’ll be knocked down in price by now.’

‘Fingers crossed.’

I never go away at Christmas and there is usually twenty-plus for Christmas dinner. I always just want to be at home with my family, and with the preparations taking up every spare minute, there was no chance to think of Kira.

Christmas and New Year ended, and the pure volume of traffic had made our house look somewhat sad and tired. I felt a bit like a wilted Christmas tree myself, my sparkle had gone and I was worn out.

It never did snow in December but by January there was so much snow it covered the front door step, and it became impossible to get out of the house. We were all milling around at home waiting for it to thaw, but the kids had plenty of new games and toys to keep them occupied, so everyone was happy.

On 6 January I was in the middle of taking the decorations down and clearing up the debris of the festive season when I heard Francesca shout: ‘Mum!’ She had picked up the phone, which I had missed ringing as I had been vacuuming. ‘It’s for you!’

I turned the vacuum off and took the handset from Francesca. ‘It’s Roz,’ a voice said. I was stumped for a minute. ‘It’s Roz from social services. I collected Kira from you in December,’ she said. ‘Of course. How are you?’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied. She went through the niceties, asking how my Christmas had been, but we both knew she hadn’t called just for that.

‘I’m calling about Kira,’ she said. I hadn’t thought to ask about Kira because I assumed that, as I hadn’t heard anything, her carers were coping and Roz was calling about another child. I was wrong. ‘I was wondering if you could have her on a regular respite care basis. We’re trying to save her placement but physiotherapy is taking up more time than they expected. Not surprisingly, Kira is being quite demanding and they’re struggling a bit.’

I paused, remembering Kira looking at the front door with her coat on, waiting to escape. ‘I think it’s a good idea if I meet her carers before I make that decision, and we would really need to like each other for this to work,’ I said. It’s like any relationship that involves children and multiple adults. A child will thrive if they see you getting along with the other adults in their life. Kira needed to see us together so I thought we should organise to meet.

‘We can do that,’ Roz said. ‘Are you free tomorrow?’

‘I can be,’ I replied.

‘Okay. I’ll pick you up at nine in the morning and drive to meet James and Claire.’

‘Fine. See you then.’

Claire and James were both teachers and their five-bedroom detached house was lovely. James was about fifty and greying at the temples, but he still had a full head of hair. He was average build and smartly dressed in corduroys and a checked shirt. Claire was about forty-five and short. She looked like a stern school teacher, I thought.

They welcomed us with tea – always a good sign, I think – and we sat round their large kitchen table. Kira wasn’t there but would be coming back at lunchtime, they said.

Claire explained: ‘My hip is taking longer to heal than I thought. My sister can help out with Jo, but because Kira is quite “difficult”, my sister doesn’t think she can manage both of them.’

‘I understand,’ I said.

‘She’s a lovely girl really,’ James said, ‘but she needs more than we can give her at the moment.’ They looked at each other, but I wasn’t unduly concerned. I knew that Kira would be struggling and that it would all be coming out in her behaviour. ‘If you could take her at weekends we can probably cope during the week,’ James added. I liked them, they were honest and I could see that we could work together, so I said, ‘Yes. I’d like to take her.’

Just then the doorbell rang and it was Claire’s sister with Kira. ‘Hello Kira,’ I said. ‘Do you remember me?’ She nodded.

‘Mia’s going to look after you at weekends while Auntie Claire has her treatment,’ James explained. ‘Oh,’ said Kira, before running upstairs. We all talked for a while then it was time to leave. ‘I’ll see you at the weekend, Kira,’ I called up. ‘We’ll have some fun. Bring a favourite toy with you.’ She didn’t answer.

In the car on the way home Roz asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘Of Kira? I think she has had a hard time.’

‘You’re right. We need to sit down and go through it all.’

When we got home I went through my calendar and offered her some suitable dates. ‘Twelfth of January looks good to me,’ I said.

‘As well as her background, we need to discuss Kira’s day to day routine, her likes and dislikes, and to complete the paperwork,’ Roz said.

This preparation is essential because without it you might as well be wearing a blindfold trying to care for a child. In some cases there is very little information available, but in Kira’s case there was lots of detail. Roz said that she had been placed on the at-risk register since birth. After I heard that, I knew that Kira would have a desperate story, but I wasn’t prepared for just how desperate.

It’s a comfort in some ways that when I hear the awful truth about the lives of some of the children I’ve cared for, I realise that my imagination would never be able to conjure up the horrific tales I hear, even if I tried to imagine the worst thing someone could possibly do to a child. This was certainly the case with Kira.

Roz arrived on 12 January with her face red but healthy-looking from the bitter weather. ‘Tea?’ I asked.

‘Yes, please. Lovely,’ she said as she began removing endless layers of clothing. ‘You have already met Kira so that makes it a bit easier. There’s a lot you don’t know about her. I’m sure we don’t have all the information but I’ll tell you what we have found out so far.’

So over our steaming cups I learned that Kira had come into care six months earlier. She was the product of an affair. The word ‘affair’ paints a picture of illicit romance, secret meetings and love. But this affair had nothing to do with love, it was just two desperate people looking for affection and having sex. The result was Kira, so calling her a ‘love child’ was just all wrong;

‘Kira’s father Hafeez was from Pakistan, a married man with two young sons. To the outside world he was a good man from a close-knit family who worked hard. The family supported each other; although a large part of his family was still in Pakistan, those who were in the UK were all involved. Kira’s mother Mary was English and she was also married with children. Her family was far larger and she had eight children altogether. She was blonde and blue-eyed while Hafeez’s appearance was typically Asian.’ That explained Kira’s dark eyes and Asian colouring.

The fact that Mary had eight children was a signpost in itself. There are only a few reasons why people have large families these days and they are either because they absolutely adore children, they’re religious and don’t use contraception, or they’re chaotic and don’t take proper precautions. Quite often chaotic parents start out thinking children will fill a hole in their lives, providing them with love that’s missing, but it rarely works out like that.

Mary had grown up in a dysfunctional family herself so had married young to get away, hoping to find the love she had never had at home. But finding happiness was a pipe dream, because no matter how hard she tried neither a partner nor her own children could fill the void left by her rocky childhood. There would be no fairy-tale ending for Mary, and she found out the hard way that she was never going to be Cinderella and her new husband was no Prince Charming.

‘Mary’s husband Bob had his own issues,’ said Roz. He was violent, he drank and he beat Mary, and before long, alcohol was playing a big role in both their lives. They are very needy individuals and similar in many ways. That was the attraction, but it was a recipe for disaster.’

Neither had ever been parented so they had very little chance of making a success of parenting themselves. They had nothing to give their children other than rejection because that was all they had experienced.

‘How many times have we heard this story?’ I asked Roz. ‘I know,’ she said.

We had seen this scenario a hundred times before, and I wondered what and who would eventually fix this destructive cycle in people’s lives. I would happily have given up my job as foster carer if someone could have solved this problem. Would I ever see the day when my services as a foster carer would no longer be needed, I wondered. Unlikely, I thought.

‘So Mary had an affair with Hafeez?’ I asked Roz.

‘Yes. And Kira is the result. She was born prematurely, but we’re not sure how premature she was because Mary didn’t go to any antenatal classes and tried to keep her pregnancy a secret. The hospital estimated that Kira was about five or six weeks early so she spent her first four weeks in an incubator.’

I learnt that those four weeks were the first four weeks of rejection that Kira experienced. Mary rarely went to the hospital so the hospital staff contacted social services. ‘She had told the nurses that she was too busy looking after her other children, but they weren’t convinced.’

‘She probably had a point,’ I said.

‘I know, but anyway, the nurses discovered that Mary was already known to us, as were the other children in her family.’

After hearing Kira’s history, I realised why I felt an affinity with her. The rejection she’d suffered wasn’t dissimilar to the rejection my dad had suffered as a young boy. I thought back to how his mother had been cast out by her family after she became pregnant with him, how he’d always thought his grandparents were his parents, how after they died he was sent to live with a mother he’d never known and never knew he had. She rejected him and, years later, when he found his real father, his dad rejected him too. I’d come to realise over the years that part of the reason I wanted to foster children who had families who hurt them was because of my dad. If someone had been prepared to care for him and love him, maybe his life could have been happier.

In Kira’s case, the authorities were alerted and the system moved into action. Unfortunately for Kira, it was another three years before she was taken into full-time care. Three long years in which Kira suffered more than any child should ever have to.