The Runaway Schoolgirl (10 page)

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lfie and Lilly were too little to know what was going on in our strange household, but I could tell that it was really affecting poor Maddie and Lee. After we returned from the safe house, Maddie moved back in with us and took over Gemma’s bedroom, and she was finding it tough at her school (which was not the one that Gemma went to). She was being bullied and had to deal with a constant stream of nasty comments about Gemma.

Luckily, there was a lovely woman called Mrs Dench at her school who helped her with pastoral care. Sue – we were quickly on first-name terms – used to run the ‘sanctuary’, which was a room where the kids could go to have some quiet time when they needed it. She and I discussed Maddie’s situation and she very kindly made a point of keeping me up to speed whenever Maddie was under too much pressure and allowed
her as much sanctuary time as she needed. Sue was wonderful with Maddie and her constant email communication with me really reassured me.

Some people have asked me if I changed my parenting style as a result of what happened to Gemma. While I did in certain respects, I was already very protective about my children’s safety. I always tried to make sure that I knew where they were and would never allow them to do things like hang around the streets. What happened to Gemma had been beyond my control, although it took me a long time to accept that fact, especially as regards to those incriminating pictures of Forrest that she had on her phone.

After what happened with Gemma, I became a lot more cautious regarding Maddie’s male teachers. I asked her to tell me all about them – who they were, how old they were, what they looked like, how many lessons she had with them, etc. I had a real hang-up about the same thing happening to her, and I wanted to make sure that I knew all about them. Poor Maddie thought I was mad – to her, they were all ‘so old’ – but I couldn’t stop myself panicking about it.

Meanwhile, Lee was getting stressed out by how much attention he was getting because of Gemma. His colleagues at the shop where he worked were really respectful of his privacy, but he was often recognised by customers. It wasn’t that they bombarded him with questions or anything, but the mere fact that they would say ‘Hope your sister is alright’ was a constant reminder. When it became too much for him, he was moved to a different department so that he didn’t have to deal with the public. His bosses were great, but he wanted his old life back and eventually he applied for a different job.

It was another thing that Forrest had destroyed.

I just wanted the year to be over. It seemed to be one step forward and two steps back all the time. No matter how hard I tried, something else seemed to happen to slap me in the face.

Some time in November, Gemma came running downstairs with her laptop, shouting, ‘Look what I’ve found!’ The song that Forrest had written for her had been put up on his SoundCloud account. We had been under the impression that he had no access to any kind of social media while in police custody and couldn’t understand how on earth it had suddenly turned up there.

I was as freaked out about it as much as Gemma was and wondered if perhaps some sick individual had set up an account in his name and put it up as some kind of cruel joke. I asked the police to investigate and they got in touch with Forrest’s family, who later confirmed that his younger brother had been responsible. A day or so later, his brother tweeted: ‘Sorry if I offended by posting my brother’s song. My bad.’

A series of tweets then followed, which only added insult to injury. There was a link to a Lana Del Rey song that Gemma and Forrest really liked and a message along the lines of ‘For someone special, it was a song that was theirs’. Another followed with a reference to a Jools Holland show featuring Lana Del Rey that was going to be on that night. It had the message: ‘You can be sure he will be watching’.

Gemma was tuned into Twitter and the message really hit its target, once more spinning her into confusion. I got straight back in touch with Mark Ling, chief inspector for child protection, to ask if he could stop him. I so wanted to get life back to normal for Gemma and this was just more stress for all of us to deal with.

The police spoke to his father, Jim Forrest, and warned that further action would have to be taken if his younger son persisted in this kind of activity on social media, as it could be seen as intimidating a potential witness. That seemed to do the trick. The account was shut down and things, for a while, went back to ‘normal’.

On Monday, 3 December, Forrest appeared at Brighton Magistrates’ Court, again by videolink from Lewes Prison, and the case was committed to the Crown Court. As before, Forrest, did not enter a plea. He spoke only to confirm his name, date of birth and address, which was now in Petts Wood in south-east London. From this, I gathered that he and his wife had now separated and that he was using his parents’ address.

Another court appearance over and still no answers. It was punishingly slow. Neil Ralph was as surprised as I was about how little things had moved on with the case, but he assured me that there was nothing to worry about because the case against Forrest was so black and white. But I couldn’t understand why they felt the need to drag it all out so long; I wondered if it was just for the money and the publicity.

With Christmas coming up, I started making all the preparations for the holidays. Usually I love that time of year and go completely mad with loads and loads of food, the biggest tree we can possibly get and a crazy amount of presents for everyone. I was determined to make it extra-special for Lilly as this would be her first Christmas. I know she was too tiny to appreciate it, but her life hadn’t exactly got off to a good start so far. She had suffered with severe reflux when she was born and we almost lost her when she was five weeks old. Paul and I had to attend resuscitation classes to find out what to do in
an emergency, and even had to put those skills into practice on one occasion. As if those first few months hadn’t been tough enough for her, there was all the Gemma drama, of course, which made me feel I hadn’t been totally there for her.

In the end, and probably not that surprisingly, it was the worst Christmas we have ever had. Somehow we all managed to pick up flu viruses – I think we were just exhausted by everything that had been going on over the previous weeks. In some ways, it was good to be forced to take it easy and have a quieter Christmas than we would normally have had. We spoiled the kids rotten as usual, but it was much more low-key. With everything that was going on, we really didn’t feel like celebrating.

One of the nicest things to happen was a phone call I received on Thursday, 27 December from Mark Ling, checking that we were all OK. It was lovely to know that the police were still thinking of us. They knew, of course, that things weren’t about to get any easier for us as we got closer to Forrest’s trial, though.

E
arly in the New Year, the 2013 Ofsted report was published, and the results of the November inspection of Kennedy High School were revealed. Kennedy High had previously always achieved an Outstanding rating, but on this occasion it had been downgraded to Good. I was relieved to see that their incompetence had been recognised in some small way.

In addition to the Ofsted inspection, Douglas Sinclair, the head of child safeguarding in East Sussex, visited me to let me know the key findings of a review into Kennedy High School’s safeguarding policies that his team had conducted. They had found that while the school had safeguarding policies in place, teachers there had consistently failed to follow the correct processes.

I had sent my children to Kennedy High School because I believed it was the best school in the area. Little did I know
what was really happening behind closed doors. Through my own research, I had made a number of, frankly, very disturbing discoveries about the school. In 2009, a supply teacher was jailed for seven years after he admitted grooming two girls and having sex with them, and in March 2012, the school’s former chair of governors, Canon Gordon Rideout, was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting young people in the late-1960s and early 1970s. In May 2013, Rideout was found guilty of 36 separate offences at Lewes Crown Court and was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment.

Jeremy Forrest was number three in a colourful history of offenders working at the school.

On top of that, there was a lot of worrying gossip about other members of staff doing the rounds. It had been alleged, for example, that another teacher, who was no longer at the school, had been having a relationship with a girl around the same time as the Forrest–Gemma scandal, but this was never officially confirmed.

I was also told that another teacher had joked about what had happened to Gemma. Apparently, when one of his pupils was being disruptive in class, he said to them: ‘If you behave, I’ll let you go early, but don’t think I’m going to treat you to a trip to France …’

His sickening words quickly got back to me via friends of Gemma’s. Furious, I couldn’t believe that he would dare joke about something so disturbing. Of course I wasn’t there at the time, so I appreciate that it may well have been that the situation was exaggerated, but it sounded totally believable to me.

I was desperate to find out more about the school. Why hadn’t Kennedy High School reacted more quickly to the
concerns raised by pupils when the Forrest–Gemma rumours began? Why hadn’t they tried to contact me with more urgency if the concerns were so worrying? I only lived round the corner, after all.

If I was truly a mother who didn’t care, who didn’t act when they contacted me previously, or who didn’t show an interest in the education of my children, why didn’t they report their concerns to the social services or the police sooner?

Where was the genuine care any parent should expect from a school? How had this been able to happen right under the school’s nose for so long with no one taking any action? Moreover, how had they previously been able to achieve an ‘Outstanding’ Ofsted rating? Kennedy High School continued to publicly declare that they had ‘robust safeguarding policies’, but Douglas Sinclair’s review had shown that they weren’t exactly acting on everything they preached.

There were so many questions swimming around in my head, but I couldn’t focus on them right now. I had a family to look after and now that the East Sussex Local Safeguarding Children Board had confirmed that a serious case review was to go ahead, I had to trust that the full truth would be revealed. I would be expressing my views to the panel for my part in the report and eagerly awaited the meeting I would be called to. More than anything, though, I was waiting for this process to finish so that I could get some answers.

W
hile the process of adding the charge of sexual activity with a minor was still being argued over at the European Court of Justice, things were moving on with the abduction charge over here.

On Friday, 25 January, Forrest went before the court again, this time for a plea and case management hearing at Lewes Crown Court in front of Judge Mr Justice Singh. At this hearing, he would have to enter a plea of guilty or not guilty rather than just keep silent when asked.

I had never been able to understand why he had not already pleaded guilty at his previous court appearances. There was so much overwhelming evidence of an abduction. No way would he be able to get away with his crime, so what would have been the point of him pleading not guilty?

I couldn’t see how he could be anything other than guilty.
The police told me the definition of child abduction is the unauthorised removal of a minor from the custody of the child’s natural parents or legally appointed guardians. Had I given Forrest permission to take Gemma to France, he would have had no crime to answer to but I was 100 per cent certain that I had never signed any kind of permission slip and, given Gemma’s biological father refused to have his name on her birth certificate, I am the only person who would have been able to sign anything like that to allow her to go.

I had racked my brains trying to work out if there was any way that a permission form could have slipped through without me remembering. Over and over I replayed events in my mind, wondering if maybe this was the key defence that Forrest’s legal team would eventually pull out of the bag.

While I had not been in court on the previous occasions when Forrest had been called to enter a plea, I decided to go along to this hearing. By this point, I had become increasingly obsessed with what kind of man he was and so I wanted to see him for myself. At the earlier court sessions, Forrest had appeared via videolink, but DI Neil Ralph told me that he expected him to attend the Lewes Crown Court session in person.

Naturally I was incredibly nervous about seeing him in the flesh. I wasn’t intending to go to the court to make a scene or anything, I just wanted to see the creature who had taken my daughter. It would have destroyed Gemma if I’d been unable to control my feelings in court and ‘kicked off’, as she put it, and behaving in that way would have put me in contempt of court. There was no way that I was going to let that happen.

Out of courtesy, Neil Ralph let Judge Mr Justice Singh know that I was going to be attending court that day. I was legally entitled to be there, but he wanted him to know anyway.

Neil also briefed me about some of the other people who might be in the public gallery for the hearing. With so much publicity about the case, Forrest had attracted a weird fanbase of supporters and very likely some of them would be there for him. Several ‘followers’ claiming to be in love with Forrest had attended his last court session. They didn’t have any connection with him, they were just swept up in the ‘romance’ of the story.

Gemma wasn’t allowed to attend court because she was the victim of the crime, but I promised her that I would get in touch with her as soon as the session had come to an end and tell her all about it.

Before we went into court, Paul, my friend Chloe and I went for a coffee. I was shaking like a leaf. It was such a surreal experience that I would be coming face to face with my daughter’s abductor any minute now. It was incredibly frightening.

I then met up with the prosecution barrister, Richard Barton, and he was lovely with me. I know I say that about almost everyone connected to the case, but I really have been so very lucky with the teams of people who have worked on it. Richard took me to one side and reassured me that everything was going to be fine and said that if there was anything that I didn’t understand, he would be more than happy to explain any details. I knew we were very lucky to have him on our side, as there seemed to be nothing he didn’t know about the law. I had every faith in him that he would do his utmost for us.

There was so much going on. People seemed to be rushing from one office to another and pieces of paper were being handed round as the legal teams got everything in order before the session began.

It was then that Mark Ling dropped the bombshell that he had heard that Forrest was likely to be entering a plea of not guilty. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. In pleading not guilty, there would have to be a trial and that would mean that Gemma would be forced to give evidence in court.

Completely thrown, I couldn’t take in what Mark was saying. There was going to be a trial – and what’s more, in all likelihood it would be smack-bang in the middle of Gemma’s final GCSE exams. I was told that the Crown Prosecution Service would be calling 14 witnesses at the trial, and I could only guess that these were likely to be police officers, teachers, other pupils, Forrest’s wife and, of course, Gemma and myself.

It was only when we got into the court and saw a video screen that we realised that once again Forrest wouldn’t be appearing in person. I was disappointed – I had fretted for days and got myself so psyched up that I was going to see him in the flesh. I wanted to have a chance to take in every detail of him – to see what he looked like up close and to try and understand how he had made Gemma fall for him.

The videolink was switched on and the next thing I saw was Forrest coming to take a seat in front of the camera. He seemed to be having a joke with the cameraman. I was so angry that he had the audacity to act like that – this was no laughing matter. He then slumped down in the chair, which made me dislike him even more. His attitude really got under my skin.

As in previous court appearances, the judge asked him to plead guilty or not guilty. The bile rose in my stomach as I heard him speak.

‘Not guilty.’

I still didn’t believe it. I wanted him to say it again and again, just so I could be sure of his words. After that, the next
part of the hearing was all a bit of a blur as I was still trying to get my head around the idea of him pleading not guilty. At one point, I recall that Judge Mr Justice Singh asked Forrest’s team if they had prepared their defence statement, and they said that they still had nothing to offer. The judge seemed to be furious and set them a deadline of mid-March to submit the necessary information.

I was totally confused. What kind of game was his team of hotshot lawyers playing? But they just smugly looked on as if biding their time.

It was announced that Forrest would face a two-week trial at Lewes Crown Court from Monday, 10 June. The whole session was over in a matter of minutes.

Standing outside the court afterwards, we tried to take stock of what had just happened. I was trying to make sense of his not guilty plea. Why had he done it? I started to worry about what he would have to say when the trial began. Once again, I began to wonder if perhaps I had actually given permission for Gemma to go away with him. I was certain I hadn’t, but I couldn’t understand for the life of me why he hadn’t pleaded guilty.

I was terrified about the impending trial. It wouldn’t just be Gemma in the firing line – I knew that anyone that the Crown Prosecution Service wanted to act as a witness would have to be there, too. That meant me, Forrest’s wife, Gemma’s schoolfriends and a whole string of other innocent victims.

As we were standing there, I caught the eye of Forrest’s solicitor and I felt really intimidated. He gave me a kind of look that seemed to say: ‘We’re going to win this …’