Read Mummy Where Are You? (Revised Edition, new) Online
Authors: Jeanne D'Olivier
I knew that if I showed any indication of fear or weakness, she would bully me harder, but inside it hurt. I was not as privileged as she believed. I certainly had raised M completely alone and our home was a two- up, two- down cottage. She had a very inflated idea of my background, but compared to hers, it was probably paradise and indeed had been to M and I, living our simple life in our cottage by the sea. We had spent long days on the beach in summer, hours shooting baskets behind my father’s garage in a net he had put up especially for M and practising for sports day at the back of the golf course.
My Dad would regularly stand with a stop watch, timing M jumping the home made hurdles he had built for him. I would run with M, who would beat me hands down every time and the roar of the crowd, when he won the Sports Cup for the year, just before we ran, was still fresh in my mind, as I stood on the sidelines, my hear bursting with pride.
Intermittently the nagging doubt about whether I should have run, would prick my mind and I would wonder if things would have turned out differently had we taken a different path, but the way things were going in Court and what I have read of other cases since, I always came to the same conclusion - they would only have taken him sooner.
Once the full force of the systemic machine turns on you, there is no way of beating them. If they want to snatch your child, they will and they will concoct any amount of lies to support doing so. It may come as a surprise to some to hear that Britain has the worst Social Services departments in the world and I can only pray and hope that things will change for the better now so much is being exposed by the press.
There were a few good men out there at this time, campaigning for change - amongst them politicians, but they were very few, with John Hemming at the fore. As more unrest swept the country, there was an increasing surge of pressure for a fairer system and reform of the Family Courts at this time, but who knew how long it would take? It was likely to come too late for M and I.
Charlene’s jibes increased and became more threatening. In the end I had no choice but to speak to Ms H, and ask her if I was in any real danger of her acting on them. I was shocked when she said that it was a possibility. I had gone to her seeking reassurance and came away more frightened than before. Once again, her advice was that I use the F word more in order to fit in, but I was not prepared to change who I was.
Again, she offered to intercede and speak to Charlene, but I turned her down. I knew any intervention would make her hate me more. I vowed to stay out of her way as much as possible, but it was hard and there were times when it was impossible.
In the mornings we all went to collect our medications together. I needed my asthma inhaler and antihistamine and I couldn’t get them without going. I had no choice but to line up in the small waiting area with her and the other girls and she always took the opportunity to malign me.
One day it was my trainers that set her off. She said she hated them. They were nothing special, just a pair of silver and mauve trainers that I had picked up in the sales for twenty quid. I couldn’t see how they could offend anyone but for some reason they antagonised Charlene.
Annabel stuck up for me and told Charlene to stop bullying me. It made no difference, other than to make her throw jibes at Annabel for befriending me. I don’t think it bothered Annabel at all. She had a certain amount of kudos in the place for having killed someone, even if it were an accident. No-one was seriously going to mess with her and she was long term like Charlene, so Charlene was not going to risk making her an enemy.
Bullying me was different, I was novelty sport and no matter how much I tried to disguise the fact it hurt me, she saw the effect in my eyes and took delight in it.
I had been in the induction cell for two weeks, when Ms H suggested I move to a smaller cell. Cell one being close to the desk, being slighter larger than the other cells, was used to allow people acclimatize.”. I feared moving would make me more vulnerable, but Ms H felt that it might lessen Charlene's hostility as she viewed my being there as special treatment and “protection.” I knew that I would have to move eventually in accordance with prison rules and other girls were likely to come in and it be needed, but I was nervous as I packed up my things and moved into Amanda’s old cell, half way down the wing on the lower floor.
Moving into a smaller space increased my sense of claustrophobia and I went to bed that night feeling vulnerable and panicky. I also feared that being away from the desk without observations, would make Charlene act on her violent threats.
I tried to leave any phone calls until the evening, the hardest time for me, when I usually rang my father.
With the meagre ten minute daily allowance, whilst I had nine other people on my list, including my lawyers, Dad was really the only person I spoke to. I knew he could keep my friends up-to-date and pass on messages.
The minutes always went too fast and we spent the time in voicing our pain and anger at what had happened. From my position I was more caught up in the sadness and despair and worry for M – Dad was very focused, understandably, on the injustice, but we were still putting our faith in Phillip and had no option other than to do so.
I didn’t want to worry my father – but I had no one else with whom I could share my acute sadness. There were things that he wanted to do, including changing the sign outside the Court house from Courts of Justice, to injustice. I knew he was unlikely to act on these fantasies, but I feared in his shared desperation and in a weak moment, he might say something unwise to M in front of the Social Workers - that might lead to his contact being terminated. I didn’t want to risk him damaging our case so close to the Final Hearing in the Family Court, which was now only a week away. I felt that we had to allow the lawyers do their job, even if I did not agree with their strategy of watering down the abuse to appease the Judge, which I still felt was never going to work - not least because it was not what we truly believed.
M had been only five and half when he made his initial allegations. He could not possibly have made them up and a child does not show the level of fear that M did, without something terribly disturbing having happened. I knew for certain that he could never have fabricated his disclosures and was without any knowledge or points of reference to do so, as such this was what bewildered me most. Anybody with a grain of common sense knows that children of that age do not come out with sexual disclosures from their imagination, nor could they be coached to so, They would simply make too many mistakes at interview and be unable to sustain or remember what they were supposed to say. When the advocated view was that the child should always be believed, it remained a mystery to me always, as to why my son had not been, even from the very first.
I stared at the picture on my notice board of M happily smiling in his snow suit in Lapland. It had been his favourite holiday and he was cuddling into me as we were both radiant and happy to be there. I had saved up to give him the magical treat and it had been worth every penny. How far away, those days now seemed. My eyes moved to the picture next to it – our first foreign holiday in Sardinia - M in his shorts, just four years old, we had had a wonderful fun time and I remembered how much he had loved the baby disco in the evening. He would nap in the afternoon heat and then stay up to dance with the other children. He had been so confident and happy then.
My reverie was interrupted by a knock at the door. I was being called in to see a senior prison officer. I was obviously in some kind of trouble, but I didn’t know what. I entered the office nervously. What on earth could I have done, hardly leaving my cell anymore and rarely speaking to anyone?
When I arrived at the office – Charlene was inside perched on the edge of a desk, smirking. I assumed she must be in trouble for bullying me and that I had got it wrong.
This was not the case. It turned out that I had been overhead speaking about my situation to Annabel over lunch one day. It seemed even our conversations were policed. But it wasn’t that I had shared our horror story with a friend that bothered them. It was the fact that I had told her that I had a QC from the UK representing me. Apparently some of the other girls had overheard and were fiercely jealous. This astonished me. They all had lawyers – paid for by the State and ours was costing a fortune – but the difference was that these girls were in jail for criminal activities – maybe understandable given their various backgrounds, but nonetheless it hardly compared to trying to protect your child.
I was told to keep quiet about my circumstances and keep a low profile – unsure how I could keep it any lower than I already was. I said nothing in my defence. It was pointless and it was perhaps notable that the person who was making this request was a badly spoken, bully boy who related more to Charlene and saw me as a spoilt rich kid who needed bringing down a peg or two. I nonetheless felt shamed and like a school girl being brought in to see the Head Teacher for something that another child has done.
I agreed to keep my own counsel and left the office. I could only hope that the dressing down would get Charlene off my back. Surely now she would feel satisfied that I had been well and truly put in my place and would leave me alone. How wrong could I have been?
Charlene felt empowered by the incident and now knew that the staff were also enjoying my suffering as much as she. She could now bully me to heart's content, safe in the knowledge that they wouldn't protect me. She increased her jibes and threats and encouraged other girls to do the same and naturally the staff turned a blind eye, despite being fully aware of what was going on. Annabel, to give her credit, remained friendly and stuck by me whenever she could, but as she was awaiting her gall-bladder operation and was often ill and in her cell, I was now increasingly an island within a world of hatred.
As I headed back to my cell, I could still hear the officer’s words:- “You’re creating an atmosphere. You’re too different. Try and be more like the others.” We were back to, swear more, be abusive to the staff, exude hatred from every pore. I agreed to try and blend into the background, but I knew I could never be and would never want to be the same as the others.
“Your presence winds everybody up.” He had continued. “Well I wish I wasn’t present.” I had retorted. He did not see the irony, and why should he? He was having too much fun putting down a girl who came from the other side of the tracks and who probably reminded him of the posh girls he couldn’t date in high school.
Word travelled fast and later that day, most of the girls unusually came out for exercise. Then the jibes really started in earnest. Several of them linked arms with Charlene and followed me closely sneering and laughing. I tried to block my ears and hold my head up, but tears were pricking my eyes as I could not fail to hear their words of cruelty and vitriol. I tried to think only of M. All I wanted was to cuddle him and tell him how much I loved him – I could cope with anything so long as I remembered he loved me and needed me and I focused on that and shut out everything else. Totally ill-equipped to deal with prison life, all I could do was stay in my cell as much as possible and interact with the others as little as I could.
One of the girls left and I was offered her job of doing the laundry. I was now in a double- bind because if I turned it down I would be considered not to be pulling my weight and if I accepted, it would cause further jealousy as I knew that some of the other girl’s coveted this particular job which paid £13.50 a week, instead of the usual £10.00. I would gladly have forfeited it and done without but I had to do something and when I suggested I took one of the lesser paid jobs, the warden insisted that these were all taken and that it would be considered a black mark against me if I turned it down. I reluctantly agreed, as I daren’t risk losing the chance to see M.
Up until then, I had done Amanda’s cleaning job each day unpaid. There was no one else to do it and I didn’t mind. It was not very difficult cleaning the iron stair-treads and rails. Charlene would follow me around telling me I had missed a bit and then grassing on me to the wardens. I took no notice and got it over with quickly in the morning and then retreated to my cell.
I was dreading my first attempt at laundry as I really didn’t know how the industrial machines worked and I was concerned that Charlene would say I had damaged or lost an item of her clothing. However, it was only twice a week and I managed to muddle through somehow and get the girl’s clothes washed, dry and sorted without any major catastrophes.
At lunch that day I heard Charlene ask the warden what penalties she would incur if she were put on
basic
. I couldn’t understand why. There were three categories of prison life –
standard
which everybody comes in, meaning that you can have a television in your cell and go to exercise, classes and the gym.
Basic
- which means that you stay twenty-four hours in the cell in solitary with no television or radio and
enhanced
which meant you had some added privileges such as a DVD player, awarded to those who had been in jail for three months without infringing any of the rules.