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Little Prisoners: A tragic story of siblings trapped in a world of abuse and suffering
Casey Watson
From the Sunday Times bestselling author comes a harrowing and moving memoir about two innocent and frightened ‘unfosterable’ children who do not know what it means to be loved.This is the third book in the series.The shock that strikes Casey and her family when Ashton and Olivia arrive is immeasurable. Two dirty, frightened little waifs stand before them, huge eyes staring around their new surroundings. Ashton – 9, Olivia – 6, have the same urchin look; hair running wild with head lice, filthy nails and skin covered in scabs. And the smell is horrific. The eldest two children of a group of five siblings, Casey had only been told they were coming two days earlier. But it was an emergency, temporary placement, and they were only due to stay a couple of weeks…Casey is desperate to help these poor, lost children, who have been taken away from their family because they were considered at risk, but before she can even start to understand the horrific things that have happened in the past, she has to teach them the most basic of behaviours. Ashton and Olivia have no barriers and no sense of what’s right and wrong – her challenges begin with the toilet and eating habits.The weeks roll into months and the months roll on, but bit by bit the children are starting to feel like they truly belong to a family, for the first time. With this new found security and love, gradually they start to reveal what really happened to them and their siblings at home, and slowly Casey can help them start to rebuild their young lives.Includes a sample chapter of Too Hurt To Stay.
Sunday Times Bestselling Author
Casey Watson
Little Prisoners
A Tragic Story of Siblings Trapped in a World of Abuse and Suffering
Copyright
This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences.
In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.
HarperElement
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
and HarperElement are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
First published by HarperElement 2012
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
© Casey Watson 2012
Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
LITTLE PRISONERS. © Casey Watson 2012. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007436606
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007436613
Version 2016-11-25
Dedication
To my wonderful and supportive family
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
My husband, Mike, always bagged the window seat on planes,…
Chapter 2
Fighting the need to gag, I ushered everyone inside, pasting…
Chapter 3
When Mike and I returned to the living room the…
Chapter 4
It felt like the middle of the night when I…
Chapter 5
‘We come bearing gifts!’
Chapter 6
The type of fostering Mike and I had originally been…
Chapter 7
Finding out they were ‘in care’ upset the children dreadfully,…
Chapter 8
It was a Saturday afternoon, towards the end of September,…
Chapter 9
If I was frustrated by a lack of action on…
Chapter 10
The main finding Anna wanted to share with me concerned…
Chapter 11
The journey back home from Wales was a tense affair.
Chapter 12
I had decided, during one of many bouts of sleeplessness…
Chapter 13
It took Ashton some time to act normally around us…
Chapter 14
I didn’t have a clue how to turn things around…
Chapter 15
I called Anna the next morning. I felt helpless; I…
Chapter 16
‘You know what?’ Mike said to me the following evening,…
Chapter 17
I brooded about that meeting all week. After we’d left…
Chapter 18
It had been such a delight to see Justin. He…
Chapter 19
Only a couple of weeks after the birth of Olivia’s…
Chapter 20
I grew more convinced, with every passing day, that these…
Chapter 21
It wasn’t that I wanted to label the children –…
Chapter 22
Just as had happened at Christmas, Easter passed almost unnoticed…
Chapter 23
The call came from Anna just over a week later.
Chapter 24
It was agreed that we’d say goodbye to the children…
Epilogue
This letter takes pride of place underneath the photograph of…
Exclusive sample chapter (#ud91241f8-6827-5531-bf6c-8b041936b826)
Casey Watson (#u1adb1762-6dcd-5f56-9069-0d92f8192c53)
Acknowledgements
About the Publisher (#u7deb7704-758d-5a8c-9cba-de30121295da)
Chapter 1
My husband, Mike, always bagged the window seat on planes, so I had to lean across him to watch ours land. He ruffled my hair.
‘Hey, look at you, eager beaver!’ he said. ‘Can’t wait to get home again, can you?’
We were returning from a glorious week in Corfu. Just the two of us. A rare break, and one we really needed. We’d just said goodbye to our most recent foster child, Sophia, and the impromptu holiday had been a real tonic. Sophia’s had been a two-week emergency stay that had stretched to almost a year. It had also been a pretty bumpy ride.
I snuggled up as far as my seat belt would let me, anxious to reassure him that that wasn’t the case. Well, not quite. ‘Oh, love,’ I said. ‘It’s been a fantastic holiday, really. But you know what I’m like. I’m missing the kids now. Especially baby Levi.’
Levi was our little grandson and one of the joys in our lives. ‘I know,’ Mike said, squeezing over so I could see out. ‘Me too, if I’m honest. But we’ll be home in next to no time … ah, here we go. Let’s see how he lands it.’
We both watched as the plane seemed to float towards the runway. No bumps today. The pilot touched down perfectly.
Looking after Sophia, who was now 13, and in temporary residential care, while they tackled her mental health problems, had been an experience we wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The outlook was positive, and we were still seeing her regularly, but what we’d been through when she was with us had taken its toll. Not just on the poor child but on us as a family, and now we were safely back on terra firma I realised just how much I needed to see my own children. Riley, my eldest, and mother to my gorgeous Levi, had given us the news, just the evening before we’d left, that she was now pregnant with our second grandchild. We’d been so thrilled, and now I was itching to get back to her and give her another hug.
I also couldn’t wait to see Kieron, our son, who I knew wouldn’t relax till he had us safely home again. He has Asperger’s syndrome and one of its features is that changes in routine made him anxious. Though he’d been away himself for a few days’ holiday with his girlfriend Lauren and her family, I knew it wouldn’t stop him fretting about whether we were okay.
And now we’d touched down, I couldn’t wait to actually get home and see them, so getting away from Manchester Airport couldn’t happen soon enough. I hate airports, especially in the middle of the day, when they’re at their busiest, and today wasn’t going to be an exception. We were herded along blindly down endless white corridors, then, due to all the extra security procedures, stood in one interminable queue after another. I sometimes wondered if we wouldn’t be better off going by boat. Finally, we emerged into the baggage reclaim area, but typically, there was no baggage yet in sight.
Sod this, I thought. I hadn’t had a cigarette in ages. ‘Mike,’ I said, making a familiar gesture. ‘D’you mind waiting for the cases, love, and I’ll see you outside?’
He smiled indulgently, bless him. ‘Go on, then,’ he said. Which was kind of him – as a non-smoker, I knew how much he wished I’d give up. Which I would, very soon. But not today. Giving him a quick peck, I headed off towards the arrivals hall and outside, rummaging in my handbag for my cigarettes as I went.
As I did so, I also pulled out my mobile. Time to switch it back on and catch up with everyone. I was particularly keen to speak to Riley, of course, just to check all was well with the new pregnancy. Plus I knew she might be anxious to speak to me too. We were close, and she knew just how much looking after Sophia had taken out of me. I knew she’d would want to catch up.
My thoughts were confirmed within seconds of turning my phone on. A series of bleeps, as text after text began appearing – though the texts, I could see, were all from voicemail. Hmm, I thought. Someone’s keen to welcome me back. The much-needed cigarette shelved for the moment, I dialled voicemail, put my ear to the phone and listened.
It hadn’t been Riley, but they were all from the same person. John Fulshaw, the link worker at the fostering agency Mike and I worked for. They’d all been made today, and were all pretty much identical. ‘Casey, can you please call me as soon as you get this?’
I was immediately alert. This could only mean one thing. That he must have another child in mind for us.
