All My Fault: The True Story of a Sadistic Father and a Little Girl Left Destroyed (15 page)

So back I went.

Myself and Tyrone moved into the spare bedroom and tried to stay out of
Joseph’s
way as much as possible. It wasn’t pleasant but we got by. Well, really, my best mate Mary helped me get by. Everyone needs someone to support them in times like that, and she was my someone.

I went into labour with my second baby a week early. Ma was with me when my waters broke and she rang a friend of
Joseph’s
who took me to the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin where I was shown to a waiting room full of other expectant mothers. Most of them had their partners with them. I envied them.
Joseph
hadn’t been around for any of the check-ups or the antenatal classes, because we had agreed to separate. I loved being pregnant but I think it was probably the loneliest time in my life.

The fluid was still gushing out of me while I was seated in the waiting room. A small puddle had formed at my feet that was quickly becoming a lake. It was mortifying—I felt like I’d just gone to the loo in front of everybody. While the mothers-to-be all broke into a chorus of, ‘Ahhh look, her waters just broke. She’s going to have her baby,’ the blokes beside them grew pale and looked like they were having second thoughts about holding their partners’ hands during the birth.

For the second time,
Joseph
came back into my life for the birth of our child. I was annoyed at him for showing up. It felt like a charade but he was trying to make the best of a bad situation. Several hours of labour later, I had a beautiful baby girl who I named Robin.
Joseph
held her for a few minutes and oooh’ed and aaah’ed. At the time, I hated him for having come to the hospital at all but, looking back, I guess I’m glad he was there. Nowadays, my two kids love poring over old photographs and their eyes light up when they see the ones from the hospital with their da in them. It means a lot to them that their daddy loved them enough to see them being born.

Joseph
eventually moved out of the house in Celbridge and moved to England. This time we split for good. So it was just me and my two babies now. With only me left to pay the mortgage, and no real income to my name, it wasn’t long before I fell behind with payments and the mortgage company started threatening to repossess the house. I was left with no other choice but to put my babies in a crèche and get a job. It nearly tore me in two to leave them with strangers. But it was either that or become homeless.

I was thousands of pounds in arrears at this stage so the new job barely made a dent in things, but I liked the job and they liked me. I wasn’t used to compliments or at least I never accepted them, but here I was told that I was a breath of fresh air around the place, and how intelligent I was. I had been feeling so utterly low after the breakdown of my relationship, so the timing was utterly perfect from my point of view. Beautiful things were said and my work was appreciated, and I began to feel someway towards ‘normal’. I worked hard and remained focused on my children, choosing to remain celibate and on my own for the foreseeable future.

At home when I was alone at night, the horrors would start again. I’ve been a fan of the band Aslan for many years, and in the evenings I would put on their music and attempt to drown my sorrows with some wine. One song in particular tore at my heart when I listened to it. The title was ‘Crazy World’, and when I would hear the lyrics ‘how can I protect you in this crazy world’ I would sob deeply. It meant so many things to me. I couldn’t help thinking of my own children and how desperately I wanted to protect them. I also cried because that’s what my da should have been doing; it was his job to protect me. I’m proud to say that my children know I would do anything to keep them safe. It was when I was at home crying to this song that I realised I wasn’t really keeping them safe as long as Da was still out on the streets. There was only one thing to do. As I sat listening to this anthem about protecting the ones you love, I knew I had to press charges against Da. It took me a little more time to build up the strength.

*

One day Ma rang me out of the blue to tell me that Da had been admitted to hospital ’cause of problems with his heart. I hadn’t seen Da in years but I remember thinking to myself that I’d be in hospital too with a heart problem if I had the same things on my conscience as Da. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. It even crossed my mind that I didn’t care if he died. But the second that thought occurred to me, I realised it wasn’t true. I did care. Not because I felt sorry for him either or ’cause I wanted to make my peace with him. He was the one who had broken the peace. No, I didn’t want him to die because I wanted justice. I wanted acknowledgement. I wanted to make sure that he never hurt another child again. I didn’t want him to have a funeral with people crying over him. I knew exactly what the mourners would be saying:

‘The poor man. And did you hear his horrible daughter stopped talking to him long before he died? Sure she didn’t even come to his funeral.’

I wanted justice not just for me but for anyone else Da had hurt in the past. I guessed I wasn’t the only one. They deserved to know that none of it was their fault. I felt that because I was his daughter it was more my responsibility than anyone else’s to make right this wrong. And I wanted my children to be safe from people like my da in the future and for them to be proud of me for standing up to him.

I couldn’t bear the thought of Da living in an estate full of small children and no one knowing how dangerous he was. I’d had enough.

After years and years of building up the courage, brick by brick, I finally decided to go to the gardaí.

When I made the decision to report Da, the gardaí began an investigation which located other women he had abused over the years. I managed to get in touch with these women and realised we were all on the same page and our objective was to press charges against my da, and name and shame him. It wasn’t going to be easy and I was full of nerves but at least now I wasn’t alone. The only thing that did isolate me from these girls was the fact that it was my da behind it all so while my family was affected they still had theirs to support them. We were all equally terrified though: terrified both for ourselves, and for the people around us, that a court case would have negative ripple effects on their lives.

Each meeting we had, I came away more and more shocked by what was revealed by the other girls. We started as a group of five but before long there were seven of us, all willing to prosecute. There were plenty more girls that we either heard of or spoke to directly who my da had abused too but, emotionally, they just weren’t ready to go to the gardaí.

The courage and bravery of these women still astounds me and I’ll never be able to thank them enough. For the first time in my life, I was surrounded by people who understood what I had been through; the shame and the guilt that had been weighing down on me since I was six years old. I’ve been asked countless times why I feel guilty and ashamed when I was just an innocent child and Da was clearly the one in the wrong. But unless you’ve been in the situation, then you can’t possibly understand. And even if you have been there then, like me, you probably still won’t fully understand it and will spend all your life trying to come to terms with it in your head.

Chapter Twelve

When I told my brothers that I was going to the guards,
Mark
offered to speak to them first, as a sort of icebreaker. He spoke to Detective Peter Cooney in Blanchardstown Garda Station and it was arranged that two female gardaí would talk to me. Before I knew what had hit me, I made a statement. The ball was rolling and there was nothing to do now but follow it all the way to its final resting point.

As a teenager, I hated the gardaí. They were the enemy— out to spoil our fun. Then again most figures of authority are a teenager’s mortal enemy. But I found the gardaí from Blanchardstown fantastic to deal with all these years later. They handled my situation very delicately, even calling to my house to take my statements because they knew I’d be more comfortable there. I really felt like I could talk to the two female gardaí. It was like I had their trust from the very start. They were on my side. I spent hours and hours talking to them and telling them the gruesome details of the abuse that I’d never spoken aloud to anyone else before— not even my counsellor. The words didn’t come out easily; every single one was a struggle. For example, I’d refer to ‘down there’, and one of the gardaí would interrupt and ask, ‘Is that your vagina you’re referring to?’ I’d just nod in reply. But the more I got to know these women, the more comfortable I felt revealing these details to them.

The statements went on for months until eventually, after I’d dissected every last memory from my childhood, the gardaí gave me back my finished statement to read over and make sure it was correct. Reading my statement was like reading about someone else’s life. Had these things really happened to me? I felt sorry for the little girl in the statement. I wanted to gather her up in my arms and take her home with me so that I could mind her. I think that was when it hit me—the little girl in the statement was me. My da hadn’t hurt Audrey Jude the adult, he had hurt Audrey Jude the child. And nobody was going to take Audrey the adult home and protect her. So I decided that I was going to have to start taking care of myself.

I thought once the statements had been given that Da would be arrested almost straight away and the court case would get underway. But it wasn’t that straightforward. The statements were just the beginning of a process that would take several years.

Countless files were sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions and after each file a whole series of new questions arose and new evidence was unearthed. It was never-ending. But I had faith that in the end we’d get justice. I even found myself praying that nothing would happen to my da in the meantime. It would just leave me and all the other girls hanging in mid-air; my sanity depended on getting justice and acknowledgement for what had happened to us.

So I waited and waited.

I contacted Detective Cooney as regularly as I could. He was in charge of dealing with the mountain of paperwork and all the interviews for our case. In the beginning, I wouldn’t talk to him about the case at all as he was a man and the details were just too intimate. But as time passed I started to trust him a great deal. He kept me informed on any development in the case—however small. But there could be months at a time when I wouldn’t hear from him and I’d be climbing the walls in frustration. I just wanted— needed—to know that something was happening. But it was such a slow process. Detective Cooney was as frustrated as I was that it was taking so long. Like me, no garda officer likes to think of a child abuser living in a housing estate where none of the neighbouring families have any idea of the threat they pose. During this time, he moved to Cabra Garda Station (which happened to be the only other police station I’d gotten in trouble with when I was a teenager) but he continued to be my investigating officer and lifeline on the case.

While I was waiting for the case to come to court, I had plenty of other things on my plate to keep me occupied. Since the age of three, my son Tyrone had been behaving a little oddly, blinking his eyes uncontrollably and slapping himself every so often. He had also developed obsessive ritualistic behaviour. If the colour yellow wasn’t featured somewhere on his clothes, he would refuse to leave the house. I’d have to get a yellow marker and draw a little dot on one of his socks to calm him down. Once we left the house, every few steps he took, he would jump into the air. When he spoke, he made occasional barking sounds or broke into high-pitched screeches. So I took him to doctor after doctor to try and find out what was wrong with him. Eventually a child psychiatrist diagnosed him with Tourettes Syndrome, accompanied by Obsessive Compulsive Behaviour. Attention Deficit Disorder was also later added to his diagnosis. Tyrone was never bold or hyperactive; he just had a short attention span.

I’d never heard of Tourettes Syndrome so when he was first diagnosed I was convinced that it was all my fault and that I had somehow transferred all my problems on to my poor baby. But I read up on the condition and found out that it’s a gene defect that is mainly carried by males.

Tourettes Syndrome has gotten a fair bit of coverage in the media but the focus seems to be mainly on sufferers who blurt out bad language. This happens only with a small percentage of people. Although Tyrone blurts out words uncontrollably, they are never vulgar. Every so often he will have a good few weeks where the syndrome doesn’t affect him too badly but then the next few weeks can be a nightmare. He seems to get worse at night-time. His body twitches a lot and keeps him awake. I have spent nights lying beside him, pinning his body down, while he cries out.

‘Mammy, hold my body down. I’m so tired but it won’t stop.’

My heart goes out to him.

I’ve found that the best way of dealing with it is to just do the best I can and even have a sense of humour about it if possible. I remember one time we were in a playground and Tyrone was walking about the place, with about eight little ones in a line behind him, copying his every move. He would take a few steps forward, stop, slap his thighs and jump in the air, genuflect and then start the pattern from scratch. The kids thought this was great fun. I find it’s adults who lack patience and understanding.

So in the lead-up to the case I had my babies to mind and my finances to straighten out. I was so broke that I decided to speak to the Money Advice Bureau. They couldn’t give me any financial assistance but they did talk to my bank and my mortgage company for me. They also contacted the Society of St Vincent de Paul and arranged for someone to come out and have a chat with me. They were very friendly but it still felt like an interview and I found the whole experience humiliating. I could remember donating tins of food to the St Vincent de Paul collections in the past and now here I was at the receiving end. As embarrassed as I was though, I was still extremely grateful. They gave me food vouchers for Tesco that I could use once a week, and at Christmas they gave me money to buy toys for the kids as well as a big hamper of food. They never made me feel like I was begging but rather that this was just a rough patch and that they were my training wheels until I could support myself again.