The Runaway Schoolgirl (2 page)

I
n March 2012 I received a phone call out of the blue from Miss Shackleton, who was the deputy head at Gemma’s school, Kennedy High School in Eastbourne. She was also head of child safeguarding at the school, and it was in this capacity that she was contacting me.

She told me that Gemma had recently confided in a teacher that she was bulimic and had been self-harming. My first reaction was one of total disbelief: Gemma didn’t have any problems with eating and was totally healthy. As for cutting herself, that was just ridiculous. Gemma never made any attempt to hide her body from me and, anyway, surely I would have noticed if she had any marks on her? Gemma and I have always been really close and she would have told me if she was upset about anything. She just wasn’t that kind of girl.

I assured Miss Shackleton that I would make an appointment
for Gemma to have a check-up with the doctor and talk everything through with her. I accepted the fact that my daughter might have wanted to talk to a teacher as she was under so much pressure to do well in her GCSEs. I could understand that she might have been struggling with all the extra tuition, as the school had such high expectations of her, but surely the idea of bulimia and self-harming was a misunderstanding?

During the conversation Miss Shackleton also mentioned that Gemma had been seen holding hands with Mr Forrest, the teacher in whom she had confided, on the flight home from a school trip to America in February. My first thought was that, like me, Gemma is terrified of flying and perhaps Mr Forrest had been trying to calm her down, but I wasn’t happy about the idea of a teacher holding hands with my daughter. I pressed Miss Shackleton, but she told me it wasn’t anything to be concerned about. She said she had already investigated and reassured me that it was nothing more than a supportive gesture during the flight. She just wanted me to know that the matter was in hand and that all was well; there was nothing untoward to be worried about.

When Gemma returned home from school that night I sat her down and we had a long talk. She told me that there had been stupid rumours going round about Mr Forrest holding her hand, but that it was just because she was so scared of flying, and she insisted that the self-harming thing was ridiculous. As for the bulimia, well, yes, she had been sick at school, she admitted, but it had been because she was so worried about getting through her exams.

I told her that she shouldn’t put pressure on herself; if she didn’t get the results she was aiming for, she would always
have the option of doing re-takes at college. I didn’t want her to become ill for the sake of her GCSEs and I also wanted her to understand that she wasn’t under any pressure from anyone at home to get results. In my opinion, Kennedy High School was way too demanding. Instead of inspiring the pupils, the school just put them under huge amounts of stress.

Gemma and I hugged each other and during the weeks that followed we were closer than ever. She duly went along to see the doctor, who confirmed that physically she was perfectly healthy, and the whole drama seemed to blow over. Nonetheless, over the next few weeks, I made sure to look out for any telltale signs of an eating disorder, and I asked the older members of the family to be watchful and let me know if they thought Gemma was ever acting out of character. I wanted to keep a close eye on her, so I reminded her to make sure that she carried on texting me regularly when she wasn’t at home. On one occasion, when Paul and I were visiting his family in Somerset and Gemma was staying with her nan, I virtually had hourly updates from her, telling me everything was fine.

Around three months after that first call from Miss Shackleton, on 11 June 2012, I gave birth to my beautiful baby daughter Lilly by C-section. On the same day, Miss Shackleton phoned again, but this time the call went to voicemail. There were a few complications with Lilly’s birth and so it would be another three days before I was able to get back to her, and I left her a message with the receptionist. I asked Gemma if there was anything I needed to know, but she assured me there was nothing to worry about. I wondered if it was simply a courtesy call to check everything was back on track.

Miss Shackleton and I then played a bit of phone tennis.
When she didn’t get back to me I just assumed everything was fine now.

How wrong I was …

T
owards the end of July, around a week before the school was due to break up for the summer holidays, I received a phone call from Mr Forrest, Gemma’s teacher.

He was absolutely distraught. ‘Some of the pupils are spreading rumours that I am having a relationship with Gemma and it’s ruining my life,’ he told me. When people asked Gemma if there was any truth in the story, he added, she neither denied nor confirmed it, and it had now got to the stage where it was affecting his relationship with his wife. He was sorry to put me in a difficult position, he said, but something had to be done about it as Gemma was, as he put it, being ‘a bit of a pain’.

His voice was shaking to begin with, but he wasn’t stumbling over his words. It was almost as if he had a script in front of him. But then he broke down and sobbed down the phone.
‘You have to quash this rumour,’ he pleaded. ‘It just can’t go on, it will destroy my career. It must be sorted out by the time we come back in September.’

Mr Forrest told me that he had been trying to support Gemma with her bulimia and self-harm issues, but that was the full extent of their relationship. It was just a teenage crush that had got out of hand.

I was gob-smacked. I was so angry, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and felt sick with shock. And yet from the tone of Mr Forrest’s voice, I couldn’t help but feel that he was telling the truth. He sounded so sincere, honest and vulnerable, and I felt so ashamed that Gemma could have behaved in this way. I assured him that I would deal with her and make sure the rumour was stopped once and for all. I’ve always brought up my children to respect other people and I was furious that matters were getting out of hand.

By the time Gemma arrived home later that day, Mr Forrest’s words had been festering in my mind and I had wound myself up into a total fury. The moment she stepped through the front door, I tore her head off. ‘How dare you spread rumours of a romance between you and Mr Forrest! I’ve had him sobbing on the phone to me. Don’t you realise this could destroy his career and his family?’

Faced with this barrage of accusations, Gemma burst into tears and started defending herself. ‘It’s all lies,’ she sobbed. ‘It’s everyone at school making things up, not me.’ I kept pushing her. ‘Why did he ring me then? There must be more to it than you say.’ But Gemma was adamant that she was the injured party. She was stuck in the middle of the rumours, and was really upset and angry with me that I didn’t believe her.

But I was angrier than I’d ever been before. I have always tried my best with my children and I felt ashamed that I had obviously not done a good enough job as a mother.

It was a horrific scene, and one that I regret to this day. I can’t help thinking if only I had reacted differently and calmly, talked things through with Gemma, she might have opened up to me about what was really happening. As we all know, though, 20:20 hindsight is always easy.

After lots of tears and screamed accusations we both eventually calmed down. Gemma promised me that she would confront the people who were spreading gossip and tell them to stop telling lies. The summer holidays were coming up and she was determined to get everything back on an even keel so that it could all be forgotten by the time the new term began in September. I believed that she would do the right thing and so we agreed to say no more about it.

For the remaining days at school everything went back to normal. Soon after, the summer holidays began, and we all looked forward to being home together as a family and getting to know baby Lilly. Money was a bit tight as we were saving to move, so we didn’t go abroad for a big holiday but spent a few days in Somerset with Paul’s family. We had a couple of day trips to the zoo and park, Gemma often went off to see her nan and all the kids had friends round for barbecues and things like that.

Gemma and her friends Louise and Ben hung out a lot together, going to the beach, the local shopping centre and so on, just like any other fifteen-year-olds, but I always insisted that she regularly texted me to let me know where she was and when she would be back home. She would sometimes stay over at Louise’s – they were practically living in each
other’s pockets at the time – and everything seemed to be back to normal after all the upset before the holidays.

I was still on maternity leave and was at home most of the time, so I would have known if there was anything untoward going on, wouldn’t I?

A
ll too quickly, the summer was over. I vividly remember the day Gemma went off to school in her new Year 11 uniform. It was different to the normal uniform, as kids in the year choose what colour polo top they wear; in 2012, they chose deep blue. I remember thinking how grown-up Gemma looked as she went off on her first day back. Even so, she was still my ‘little mermaid’. The first of my three daughters, she would always be my little girl.

When Gemma was tiny, I used to dress her up in frilly dresses, but when she grew up she didn’t dress as a ‘girly’ teenager at all. She was never one of those teenagers who hitched up her school skirt into a mini or wore too much make-up. In fact, if anything, she would dress down with flat shoes, dark eyeliner and quite ‘indie’ clothes. She never tried to look or act older than she was.

With exams looming, it was important that Gemma knuckled down. All the early indications were that she was getting to grips with the new term, and it seemed all of the rumours about her and Mr Forrest had been forgotten. Every day when she got home from school, I would ask how her day had been, and every day she would tell me, ‘Yes, everything’s fine.’

Unfortunately, on Wednesday, 19 September, two days before Gemma was to go missing, I was to discover that everything had been far from fine.

I was busy running around attending to Lilly and Alfie when there was a knock on the door. There on the doorstep were an official-looking man and a woman. They looked at me very seriously and showed me their ID cards. Instantly I felt physically sick and started shaking. ‘My name is Detective Constable Pawson,’ said the man, ‘and this is my colleague, who’s a social worker. We would like to speak to you about your daughter Gemma.’

Of course I immediately thought the worst had happened and they were going to tell me that Gemma had been involved in an accident or something. I panicked and told them I wouldn’t let them in until they told me the reason they were there. Now I know it sounds weird, but I thought everything would be all right so long as I could keep them outside; I felt safe in my space. I wasn’t going to budge until they told me why they were there.

‘We need to talk to you about a relationship your daughter Gemma may have been having with her teacher, Mr Jeremy Forrest.’

I have always been nervous about letting strangers into my house without really preparing myself; it is an insecurity of mine – I am very house proud and don’t like things to be out
of place. At that point, though, I let them in, relieved that it was just about those stupid rumours, safe in the knowledge that I would be able to put the record straight. I told them that I had already spoken to Mr Forrest and it was all lies, just tittle-tattle put around by school kids, and that I had also spoken to Gemma about it. There was nothing to be concerned about.

The next thing DC Pawson said hit me like a ton of bricks.

‘Gemma is believed to have indecent pictures of Mr Forrest on her phone and we need to speak to you both about it.’

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and so I phoned Gemma straight away, trying to keep calm. ‘Hi darling, where are you?’ I said breezily. ‘When will you be home?’ Gemma could obviously tell from my voice that something wasn’t right. ‘I’m at school, Mum, what’s the matter? You’re scaring me.’ I pulled myself together and tried to sound as normal as possible: ‘No, no, it’s nothing. How long do you think it will take you to get home?’

As we waited for Gemma, I bumbled about trying to change Lilly’s nappy as DC Pawson carried on talking to me. To be honest, it was like white noise; I was too shocked to concentrate on what he was saying. Meanwhile, I could sense his colleague’s eyes burning into me, watching my every move. It turned out that Gemma had previously shown the photographs to another girl at school. She had then told her parents about what she had seen, and they in turn had contacted the police.

Unbeknown to me, Lee was upstairs in his bedroom and had heard us talking. He rang Gemma and told her that two people were at the house asking questions about her. At this point, I was later to find out, Gemma worked out what was going on
and proceeded to delete the incriminating photographs from her phone. She also went to see Mr Forrest to warn him that people were at her house, waiting to speak to her.

When Gemma eventually arrived home, she looked quite frightened and wanted to know what was going on. DC Pawson was very nice to her and calmly explained that they needed to speak to her about some pictures that she may have on her phone.

With that, Gemma shoved the phone at him. ‘See for yourself,’ she said. ‘There’s nothing on it. I don’t know what you are talking about.’

But DC Pawson pressed Gemma a bit more. He explained to her that the police would be able to retrieve any photographs she may have deleted and that this was her opportunity to put the record straight.

It soon became plain that Gemma wasn’t going to say anything more and shortly afterwards they left. DC Pawson said he would be back in touch on the Friday once he’d had a chance to investigate the phone.

At the time I believed Gemma was telling the truth. When they had gone, I turned to her, saying: ‘Is there anything I should know? I do trust you, you know …’

‘Good,’ she replied. ‘You should.’

With that we ended the conversation and carried on as if nothing had happened.

Not surprisingly, I found it hard to sleep that night. My mind was all over the place and Lilly was unsettled. Paul and I talked and eventually we both fell asleep on the sofa and at around 3am I woke up when I heard Gemma coming down the stairs, dressed in her school uniform. Half awake, half asleep, I asked her what she was doing. ‘It’s the middle of the
night, sweetheart, go back to bed,’ I told her. And as if she was sleepwalking, back upstairs she went.

In the early hours, just as the alarm clock went off, I felt Gemma snuggling up to me. It was like she was a little girl again when she had climbed into my bed when she was ill or needed to be comforted. ‘I just wanted a cuddle,’ she explained. It was sweet, and yet I also remember thinking how out of character it was, even though we had an affectionate relationship. Of course, it all makes sense now …

Later that day, Gemma called me from Ben’s phone – hers had been confiscated – and asked if she could stay at Louise’s that night. I told her that I didn’t really like her staying over on a school night, but I thought it might be a good idea after what we had been through the night before. I felt she needed to be with her best friend, even if it was a school night – just this once.

Gemma came over to pick up her stuff and made a big fuss over Lilly. She then hugged me really tightly, and held my face in her hands and told me she loved me. When I told her I loved her, too, she grabbed me, this time holding my face more forcefully. ‘No, Mum, you need to listen to me. I REALLY love you.’ ‘Yes, yes,’ I said, ‘I know you do. Now get out of here and try not to burn Louise’s house down!’

I gave her some dinner money for tomorrow and off she went.

The next day she was gone.