The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland

by Lily O'Brien

  Like when he would come into our bedroom in the middle of the night and wake us all up just so that he could put a spoonful of mustard into our mouths. Mum would be standing behind him, looking over his shoulder at us with her arms crossed, and she would be smiling as if it was a good thing that he was doing to us. Sometimes we would try to keep our mouths shut, but he was too strong and he would force our mouths open and make us swallow the mustard without us making a fuss. Because if we did complain and make a big fuss, he would just make it worse for us, and he would beat and hit us into swallowing the mustard. Then he would add an extra spoonful for the trouble we had caused him, so most nights we would just swallow the mustard the first time so that he would go away and leave us alone and allow us to go back to sleep.

  The same thing would happen to us almost every night until one night, after drinking too much alcohol, Jim kicked mum so hard that she started to bleed from between her legs and she had to be rushed into hospital, so that the doctors could take the baby out of her belly before she lost it. However, when she got to the hospital everything was ok, she was fine and she gave birth naturally to a baby boy. Once mum returned home with the new baby, she didn’t have much time for us kids anymore, so she arranged for one of our older sisters, Tracy, to occasionally come around to the house and take us kids out for the day. Tracy would pick us up early and then she would let us play around in the streets all day, near the flat that she was living in with her boyfriend, Fred.

  Tracy was only seventeen and Fred, her boyfriend, was twenty-three, and they had come over to London from Ireland about a year earlier, just after she and Fred met. At first, I thought that Fred was a nice man, as he would never say or do anything wrong while my sister Tracy was around, and some days, while Tracy was looking after us, they would take us out to the park for the day and Fred would play games with us. He would push us on the swings and he would run around playing chase with us, acting just as a child would. Then, after leaving the park, he would buy us sweets and give us rides on his back while we walked back to the flat and we would always have a lot of fun playing with him, as he acted just like us, and we were getting more attention from him than we ever got back at mum’s.

  Then one day, Tracy told me that she was going to leave Fred to baby-sit me on his own while she took Daisy and Simon off to the park with her. I thought it was a bit strange and unfair that I was not going with them, so I asked Tracy if I could go, but she said no and she said that I had to stay with Fred until she came back. Then she smiled at Fred and me as she left, leaving me all alone in the flat with Fred.

  It felt like hours sitting and waiting for them all to come back and, for most of the time, Fred left me all alone in the living room just sitting and waiting, but then Fred must have got bored because he came and sat down next to me and he began playing games with me. Then, after a while, he put me on his back and he gave me a ride around the living room, bouncing me up and down and shaking me from side to side until I fell off onto the floor and then he tickled me until I begged him to stop. But after a while, he said that we had to stop as it was getting late and he made a bed up in the living room for me to sleep on. He said that it was late and he told me to go over to the bed, to lie down on it and to stay there, so I did; and as I lay down, I gave him a kiss goodnight on the side of his face and he went off into his bedroom and closed the door behind him. I looked around and then I curled up into a ball on my little bed and wished for Simon and Daisy to come back.

  But after a couple of minutes, Fred’s bedroom door opened and he came back out of the bedroom. I looked over at him and I could see that he wasn’t wearing any clothes. He walked straight over towards me and then he looked down at me and, within a second, he bent over and picked me up out of the little bed that he had made for me on the living room floor. Then he carried me in his arms towards his bedroom, I wriggled around and I tried to get up out of his arms, but he held me tight around my legs and my back until he got into the bedroom with me.

  Then he laid me down on his bed and climbed over me; I looked up at him and I watched him as he moved around the bed, and then he lay down on the bed next to me and he positioned himself as close to me as he possibly could. I knew something was wrong and I started to shake with fright and I told Fred that I wanted to get up, but as I turned and moved away from him, he grabbed me and pushed me back onto the bed and then he smiled at me.

  Then he put one of his hands down between his legs and he began to touch himself while he continued looking over at me. I asked him what he was doing and he told me that it was good for him and that it felt nice, and then he said that his dick was a lollypop and that I should put it in my mouth and suck it for him because it was nice for both of us. I said no, I said that it was not a lollypop and I told him that I wanted to go back into the other room. But as I tried to get up and off the bed, he grabbed me again and pulled me closer to him and he forced my head over his dick and he told me to open my mouth and to suck it for him. I said no and I tried to wriggle away from him, but he held me tight around my head and, with all his strength, he pushed my face next to his dick and he kept pushing me closer until his dick touched my mouth. I struggled and twisted my head to one side to get away from him, but he grabbed me even tighter around my head and then he pushed my head down hard and his dick went into my mouth.

  I didn’t want to do it and I tried to move my head away from him, but he grabbed me even tighter around my head and neck with both hands, while he told me to suck his dick for him. I said no, but he was holding my head so tight that I could feel the pressure in my head build up as he squashed my skull with both hands and, as I tried to move my head away from him, he just kept moving my head up and down, faster and faster. I had no control over what he was doing to me, I coughed and choked a lot, but it didn’t seem to bother him and he just carried on, moving my head up and down on his dick for a few more seconds until he had finished with me.

  Then he pushed me over to the other side of the bed and he told me that it was enough and then he handed me a proper lollypop that he grabbed from a glass bowl that was sitting on a cupboard next to the bed. And it looked like he had it all set up in advance and had planed the whole thing, then he told me not to tell anyone about our little secret and that if I was a good little girl for him, he would buy me lots of sweets and toys to play with. I began to cry and I felt sick, but he didn’t care and he just put his clothes back on, and then he told me to go back into the living room and to get back into my bed and to be a good girl for him and to be quiet.

  I did what he said, but I was upset by what he had just done to me, I was shaking, my belly felt sick and I had a bad pain in my head that wouldn’t go away and I wanted to go home. Then Tracy came back with Daisy and Simon and, as she walked into the living room, she walked over towards me and looked down at me and she patted me on the head. She then smiled as she put Simon and Daisy in the bed next to me and then she walked over to the bedroom that Fred was in; and as she walked into the bedroom, she smiled and closed the door behind her. I soon fell asleep, cuddling into Simon, and when I woke up the next morning, Daisy looked over at me and we said nothing. I couldn’t wait to go back home to mum’s house.

  CHAPTER 2

  Off to See Daddy in Ireland

  After about six months of us going around to Tracy’s flat and Fred constantly molesting me, mum told me that I couldn’t go there anymore because Tracy was pregnant and she was going to have a baby. Mum said that Tracy had no more time for me and she could not look after me anymore. God, I was so happy, I couldn’t believe it; I was finally getting away from Fred. However, it wasn’t long before mum decided that she too could not look after me, so she said that she had decided to send all three of us little kids back to our real dad, who lived in Ireland.

  We never knew our real dad because mum took us away from him when we were just babies; when she ran off with Jim, left Ireland and came to live in England. Even though mum said that we would be going to our dad in Ir
eland, we didn’t know when we would be going, as she never told us anything, and then one day it just happened. There had been many times before when mum would get us dressed in our best clothes and have us ready for something special, but then she would change her mind about what she was doing and instead she would send us out to play and we never knew what she had been up to. Now when I think back to it, she must have wanted to leave our step dad Jim and run back to our real dad in Ireland many times, but she never did. And until now, we had never heard anything about our real dad, apart from Jim calling him a bastard and a cunt to mum when they were having an argument.

  Now the time had come for us to leave and one day, while Jim was at work, mum packed all our clothes into a single small suitcase, and then she waited for one of our older brothers, Kevin, to arrive at the house. Then Daisy, Simon, Kevin and I all went off with mum to the underground station. Mum said that we were all going to Paddington train station and I will never forget the journey because I had never been on the underground before and I had never seen anything like Paddington station, with so many people in such a big place making so much noise all at the same time. It was a world that I had never seen before and it all looked wonderful.

  With whistles blowing and people shouting, we all walked along the platforms looking at the trains, but mum couldn’t read the signs, so she asked some people if they knew anything about the train that we had to get on to go to Ireland and they said yes, and they explained to her what she had to do. She said thanks and then she began to run along the platform with all of us children running along behind her. It was like an adventure and I loved it. However, as she turned and ran down another platform next to the train that we had to get on, it was just too difficult for me to keep up with her anymore and I fell. I got up and I began to walk behind her, but suddenly mum stopped running, then she turned around and began to grab and lift us one by one onto the train.

  I walked towards her and it was my turn. I looked down at the gap between the platform and the train and the gap was so big that I could have easily fallen under the train and onto the tracks; but before I could say anything to her, she grabbed me and, in one huge swoop of her arms, she swung me onto the train. Then she stepped onto the train and shouted, ‘Is this going to Ireland?’; but before anyone could shout back, the train began to move and it began to leave the station. She quickly turned around, opened the carriage door and jumped off the train; and as she did, the carriage door swung open and crashed against the side of the carriage and it made a huge smashing sound. But before we could do anything, mum turned around, ran up to the carriage door and slammed it shut, leaving us looking at her through the window.

  Then she just stood and smiled, and as the train pulled away from the platform she began to wave goodbye at us. I screamed and shouted at her, ‘Mum, stop’, but the train kept pulling away and then she was gone. I could not believe what she had just done, I sat down and put my head down onto my lap and I began to cry, then Kevin told me that mum had planed it that way all along and that she never intended to come with us back to Ireland. ‘I’m taking you’, he said. ‘I will be taking all of us all the way to Ireland and all on my own. Now shut up and sit down’, he said. But I started to scream at him that we didn’t want to go to Ireland without mum and that we wanted to stay in London with her. But he just looked at us and said nothing; he was only sixteen years old and he was taking three little kids hundreds of miles to Ireland, so what could he do with us apart from look and wonder what was going to happen to us all when we finally got to our dad’s house in Ireland?

  After a while, Kevin told us that it was going to take hours to get to the docks and ferry by train and he said that he had nothing for us to eat or drink with him and that he had no money to spend on food or water while on the train. We looked at each other, not quite understanding what he meant, and then we all looked out of the train windows and watched as the world went by, and I began to cry again; but Kevin just ignored me as if I were not even there. It was a long and difficult journey for us and some of the people on the train began to get fed up with us crying, playing and messing around, but they couldn’t do anything about it, apart from complain to Kevin about us, but he couldn’t do anything either and we didn’t understand what was going on anyway. So, by the time we arrived at the last station, we had worn ourselves out from playing and crying, and we didn’t make a fuss about anything Kevin told us to do. Even when Kevin told us to carry all our own stuff, and even when he said that we had to walk over a mile to the docks to catch the ferry, we still said nothing, we just quietly followed him.

  As we got nearer to the docks, I could see the ferry in the distance and it looked magical as it towered high above the docks. It was bathed in sunlight and the sea mist and spray was splitting the light reflecting from its side into the colours of the rainbow. I loved the look of the ferry and, as we walked along the dock road and onto a small path, I looked up at the ferry in amazement and I kept looking up at it because it was so big and wonderful, and I had never seen anything like it before. Everything in the docks smelt of fish and the ferry had huge slimy green ropes hanging from its sides.

  And as we walked along the path, I tried to grab hold of one of the ropes to swing on it. But as I looked up at the rope, I wandered slightly off the path and tripped over a big metal ring sticking out of the ground that the ferry ropes were tied to and I almost fell into the sea. But Kevin just managed to grab me by my hair and he pulled me back to safety before it was too late. My heart jumped and it missed a beat from the fright I just had, and Kevin and I just looked at each other with shock and, within a second, it was all over and we went on our way as if nothing had happened. But I could hear the sea smashing against the dock wall and the ferry and the sound grabbed my attention and I wanted to look down between the gap, but once again Kevin pulled me away from the edge and I kept walking.

  Eventually, we got to the ferries-boarding ramp and many people were pushing and shoving to get on board, so we stepped to one side, and we waited until everyone had calmed down, then we tried to get on board and, an hour later, we eventually did. Once on board, we headed straight to the top deck of the ferry and, as we got to the top, we ran out onto the open deck and we looked over the side and down at the sea. We never quite knew what was going on, but it was so exciting that we soon forgot all about why we were there. What’s more, we even forgot all about what was going to happen to us all when we got to Ireland.

  It was freezing out on the deck, and after a couple of hours, we decided to go inside. Once back inside, we walked around for a while and, eventually, we found a place to sit down. It was much warmer inside and we soon settled down; but after a while, we noticed that some of the people around us had begun to look at us and one of the ferry staff came over to us and he asked us about our parents, as he wanted to know about who was looking after us. But Kevin just sat down, picked up a newspaper and pretended to read it. And even though we knew that he couldn’t read, he did it anyway, just so that he did not have to look or talk to the ferry staff. Daisy knew what he was doing, so she walked over and stood next to him, she then stood up straight and began to tell everyone sitting around us that he could not read and that he was just pretending; but it didn’t seem to bother Kevin or the people. So he just kept pretending and he kept it up for hours and hours, only sometimes putting the newspaper down so that he could pop an extra strong mint into his mouth and he even gave us one each just to keep us all happy and to shut us all up until we got to the docks in Ireland.

  However, the ferry crossing was slow and it was going to take hours to get to Ireland, so all we could do was to try to sleep most of the time away. Daisy, Simon and I huddled up together on the floor and as I laid my head against the carpet, I could feel the vibrations of the engines penetrating up through the floor. So I pressed my ear hard against the carpet and I could hear the humming of the engines, as they pushed the ferry through the sea, and the vibrations made my ears tingle and the feelin
g was so nice that it made me feel sleepy and I was able to sleep through most of the journey.

  When the ferry finally got to the docks, Kevin woke us all up and he told us to look out of the window, but it was dark and all I could see was bright lights and hundreds of people moving around the docks. We gathered up our belongings and, as we began to walk along the ferry, Kevin told us all to stay together and not to wander off or bad people would take us away and then we would be gone forever. I didn’t want to be taken away by bad people, so I held Daisy’s hand tight; but suddenly the ferry gave out a loud noise and I had to let her hand go to cover my ears. ‘That’s the horn’, said Kevin, ‘and we have to get off the ferry now before it goes back to England.’

  We didn’t waste any time, we grabbed all our things and we ran down the stairs and on to the exit ramp; and as we ran along the ramp, I looked over the side. I could see cars coming out of the ferry and it all looked very exciting, I couldn’t wait to get off, so I grabbed Simon by the hand and we followed Kevin off the ferry. Once we were out of the docks, Kevin walked along the road and we followed him, but then he stopped next to a line of taxicabs and we stood and watched as he pulled a bundle of money out of his pocket. ‘Hey’, I said. ‘I thought you had no money.’ ‘Mum gave it to me, she told me to get us some food for our trip with it, but instead I’m going to use the money to pay a taxicab to take us all the way home to our dad’s house.’ He said that it was about a five-hour drive by car and that mum had told him to get the coach to dad’s house, but he told us that he didn’t want to go by coach as he wanted to arrive in style and that’s why he was getting a cab. By now, we had been travelling for almost a whole day, and it was beginning to get dark and we all felt sick from eating mints all day and nothing else. I told Kevin that we all needed food and water, but he said that we didn’t have the time to stop for food and then he paid one of the cab drivers and we all got in the back of a cab.