Hailey's Story--She Was an Eleven-Year-Old Child. He Was Soham Murderer Ian Huntley. This is the Story of How She Survived

by Hailey Giblin

  As we retraced our steps back the way we’d come, I was in such a state of severe shock that I said very little. The madness in Huntley’s eyes had melted away; the cruellooking predator of minutes earlier was now looking more like his former self. At that point, I was able to think a little more clearly, and my thoughts were of my mum frantically looking left and right down the street for me.

  I was startled out of this dismal vision by the sound of Huntley’s voice repeating what he had said earlier, this time his voice more pleading than demanding, ‘Don’t tell anybody; make sure you don’t speak to anybody about it.’

  Because of his earlier threat to kill me, I promised again not to tell anyone. Although I was out in the open again, that threat hung over me like a widow’s veil.

  We carried on walking and arrived back at the field near the school grounds, where I spotted something that gave me hope. It was an old Vauxhall Cavalier, or at least that sort of shape of car. I thought it was the caretaker’s and all sorts of jumbled and muddled thoughts ran through my mind. What made me think it was the caretaker’s car was because he was often at the school tidying up on a Saturday.

  At the thought of this, my muggy head began to clear even more, my eyesight, blurred from crying, began to improve and my survival instinct was kicking in. Halfway across the field I made my move. I ran into the school grounds, leaving Huntley standing there.

  In retrospect, knowing what happened to Holly and Jessica when Huntley was a school caretaker, cold shivers of panic run up and down my spine every time I think about how I made a run for it across that field of hope. I believe that my survival may have caused Huntley to murder Holly and Jessica. He knew that they could promise him all he wanted, but that in the end they would do as I had done… escape and eventually tell of what happened.

  I was just one witness against Huntley, but Holly and Jessica were two witnesses. He knew that, if they escaped his evil clutches, all would be made known to the police. In exactly the same way as I went knocking on his caravan door, they too went calling on him like lambs to the slaughter. It was as though the sick-minded Huntley was gifted all three of us for his own perverse pleasure.

  After a short sprint, I reached what was known as the school’s ‘quiet area’, where there was a tranquil pond for schoolchildren to sit beside. In desperation I looked around for the caretaker, but he wasn’t in sight. However, it dawned on me that there were some CCTV cameras around the school that would save me. By now Huntley, as quick as a greyhound, had dashed after me and was on my tracks!

  Near by were the doors to the gym, so I ran there, but I ended up doing a bad job at hiding. The best I could do was just stand near the doors, puffing and panting and shaking with fright. If that wasn’t bad enough, the fear of God ran through me as I heard Huntley’s ruthless voice booming out, and it was getting worryingly closer. The caretaker has got to be around here somewhere, I told myself in desperation.

  ‘Fucking come here!’ Huntley yelled.

  When he cornered me, I dared to give him a fleeting glance and, sure enough, what I suspected had happened. The calm demeanour that had briefly returned had now vanished and his face was devoid of any compassion. His evil persona had resurfaced. Maybe my darting away had set him off. Maybe I should have kept the calm demeanour of a lost and helpless girl about me. I don’t know.

  Now Huntley’s fury was increased tenfold. I had dared to defy the control he was obsessed with and this time his eyes had more of a faraway look about them than the crazy look of earlier. His face, darkly friendly at times, had become a brooding mask of malevolence and brutality as he announced loudly and coldly, ‘Now I’m going to do it to you again.’

  The thought of death once more flashed before my eyes. As the nightmare at his hands in the orchard came flooding back to me, again I found myself begging, ‘No, Ian, please don’t. Please don’t.’

  I grasped at one final straw of hope that I might bring Huntley back from the brink when I warned him, ‘There are CCTV cameras watching you. Don’t!’

  As he looked about him, he shattered any hope I had of escape by hissing, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it, they’re fake. They’re not real.’

  There were quite a few cameras, pointing outwards from the classroom, directly at us, but he didn’t care: he was too much in the grip of sexual desire to give a second thought to the consequences. I think that, even if someone had come across him while he was in that state, he would have continued to pursue what he wanted.

  ‘Please, Ian, just let me go home,’ I cried out.

  Earlier, in the orchard, my screams seemed to work, but now they were useless. Deaf to my begging and pleading, he sexually assaulted me yet again.

  My rainbow thoughts of being tucked up in the warmth of my bed were soon snow-covered and I started to cry again. He seemed to be regaining some grip of himself when he told me to stop, but I had a lump in my throat and I was finding it hard to bring it to an end. My eyes were red and started stinging. After so much crying there were hardly any tears left.

  Any hopes I had of Huntley ceasing his attack on me were shattered when he said, ‘This is the last time that I will do it to you.’

  It was a prospect that I had been barely able to imagine a few moments earlier, and it brought mixed feelings of relief and revulsion.

  But then, as his hands roved over my body, he calmly demanded, ‘Just let me do it one more time.’

  I weakly croaked, ‘Oh, please. No!’

  Regardless of my pleading and trying to reason with him, he went berserk and continued to stoke up his lust by forcing his fingers inside my most intimate place.

  By this time, he had me pushed up against the gym door with his forearm and pressed his body against me, and he wanted to do it again and again and again.

  Desperate, I pointed again and cried out, ‘There are video cameras there. Don’t do it.’

  But Huntley, by now wildly aroused and unstoppable, shouted breathlessly, ‘They’re fake, they don’t work.’

  The physical and mental torture for me was nearly over when, awkwardly, he withdrew his hand from my tracksuit bottoms and his eyes darted about to see if we were still alone. Maybe now that he was out of his sexual stupor, the cameras worried him.

  He again threatened, ‘If you run, I’ll come after you! If you dare to tell anybody, then I’ll come and kill you. Just remember, Hailey, I only live down the street from you,’ he rasped, ‘and I’m a black belt in karate!’

  He scared the living daylights out of me, and out of fear I promised once again, ‘No, I won’t tell anyone. I promise, I won’t say anything to anyone.’

  We set off again and, on the last leg of the walk home, he drilled it into my head: ‘If you tell anybody, I’ll come and kill you.’

  I was devastated at the thought of not reaching home and promised yet again to tell no one.

  When my street came into sight I had to stifle sobs of joy as I thought, Thank God!

  And at the same time I was consumed with the chill of death as I thought of Huntley’s threats to murder me.

  Then he left my side, without saying a word, and went into the driveway of Katie Webber’s house, where the caravan was.

  Just in case he had changed his mind and was coming after me to kill me, I gave a worried glance over my shoulder as I started walking faster. When he left my sight, I wasn’t aware if Katie was there… I was just pleased to be alive and back in the street.

  6

  WASHING AWAY THE DEMONS

  I REMEMBER TREMBLING WITH RELIEF WHEN, A FEW HOUSES AWAY FROM MINE, THE AROMA OF SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE WAS CARRIED TOWARDS ME ON THE SAME GENTLE SUMMER BREEZE THAT HAD BROUGHT ME THE SMELL OF GRASS CUTTINGS A FEW HOURS EARLIER. That homely smell was coming from my house. I remember knocking on the outer door and then my mum saw me through the glass of the inner one. ‘Hang on, my spaghetti might burn,’ she shouted.

  Crying had given me puffy-looking eyes, and they felt like organ stops, but in the time it took to wal
k home from the school they had become less inflamed. Quickly, I tidied up my clothes and hair. Mum didn’t give me a second glance, and why should she, for as far as she was concerned I had been into town with Katie Webber. I never let on what had happened. Besides, Mum never paid much attention to me when I came home; it was when I was going out that I had to be careful to always look my best, or she would nag me.

  I had been so scared of the consequences of having left the street, and now here I was back home, with Mum none the wiser.

  As I was undressing to take a bath, I noticed bleeding. I hadn’t started my periods at this age, so I wasn’t aware of what menstrual blood was. And, anyway, looking back, this certainly wasn’t period blood. After seeing it, I felt really sick and dirty.

  And the smell: I just couldn’t get the stench off me. The more I tried to pull away from it, the more it clung to me. It was in my nostrils, it was in my hair. I was becoming nauseous and I retched. It was a certain smell that I just couldn’t get away from, a sort of musty dog smell that reminded me vividly of what had happened to me.

  At that moment I wasn’t able to take in what had occurred. I was confused and wanted to ask somebody, ‘What happens if he comes and kills me? My bedroom is downstairs and he could come and break the window or whatever, and what happens if nobody believes me?’ I had these mad thoughts of self-hatred, self-blame and self-harm. With Huntley, I had been so near to death, which is why now I consider life to be priceless.

  I wasn’t aware of the long-term significance of what Huntley had just done to me. I wasn’t aware that it was an abhorrent sex act. I wasn’t able to fully comprehend what he had done in terms of right and wrong. What didn’t pass through my mind was that he had no right to have done that. No, I didn’t think, He has got no right doing that and I am going to tell my mum and get the police in.

  That is not to say that I hadn’t been made aware of ‘strangers’ and so on. I was aware, but I just thought these warnings related to strange men, not those you knew already. I mean, Huntley was considered a family friend. I didn’t even know what there was to fear about strangers, other than that they could take me away. No one had said, ‘Don’t let strange men fiddle with you down there, or even men you know.’

  There was a man down the street one time who waved me over – I was only about seven – and asked, ‘Are you Mandy’s daughter?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I replied.

  And then he moved a bit closer and said he was something to do with Auntie Bet. She was related to my granddad, but I’m not sure how; all I can remember is she had loads and loads of cats.

  This man was her friend and I just said, ‘Oh, right.’

  He was putting boxes into the boot of his car and he asked, ‘How’s your mum?

  ‘She’s fine, thank you,’ I answered.

  As he handed me 50 pence he chirped, ‘Here you are, duck.’

  I can remember going in and joyfully telling my mum as I held out my hand to show her this nice shiny coin, ‘Look, Mum, I just got 50 pence off that man down the road.’

  Mum froze and sternly demanded, ‘What man?’

  Innocently I replied, ‘The man who is putting boxes into the back of his car. He knows you.’

  ‘What bloody man?’ Mum snapped as she stood up, went and opened the door and craned her neck out to see the man for herself. With relief in her voice, she said it was this man called Rob. But she warned me, ‘Mind, don’t you ever go near anybody whether they say, “Oh, I know your mum” or “I know your dad” or whatever.’

  I tried to explain to Mum that it was only because he said, ‘I know Mandy, you know. Mandy, your mum…’

  Mum stopped me short when she hammered her point home: ‘Don’t go near anybody who says that or anybody who says, “Come with me”, OK?’

  ‘No, Mum,’ I said respectfully. ‘I’ll never do it again.’

  So I knew at that age not to talk to or accept money from strangers, but to me Huntley wasn’t a stranger. So back then I was double wary of strangers and, as I said, Huntley wasn’t one, just as he wasn’t to Holly and Jessica.

  He had built up trust within the community and held a responsible job, so who would think a school caretaker could take the lives of two children when he had been passed fit to be around them?

  In total, Huntley came to the attention of the Humberside Police on ten occasions. In addition, between August 1995 and July 1998, he was reported to North East Lincolnshire Social Services on five separate occasions. Unbelievably, three of the reports alleging underage sex were passed on, independently of each other, to the Humberside Police.

  I lay the blame squarely at the doors of North East Lincolnshire Social Services and the Humberside Police. From the Introduction to this book and what I say later, you will see why.

  After kicking my clothes into the corner of the bathroom, I ran the water from just the hot tap: it was the hottest bath I’ve ever had. My feet and hands were really cold and I had a sick and ill feeling within me as I got into the bath. As I sat in that hot water I just wanted to dissolve into it and let it consume me, let it cleanse me through and through.

  But the water on its own wasn’t removing the remnants of Huntley from me. I felt repulsed at what he had done; my body was screaming out to be purified.

  I remember seeing the bottle of bleach and then a small brush, like a nailbrush, really thick. I had to get rid of that rancid smell, so I undid the yellow cap on the bottle and slowly poured the bleach over what I saw as Huntley’s calling card. I tried to scrub away in a mad frenzy what Huntley had done to me. As I scrubbed, the area became red-raw. My skin was starting to blister.

  Although I was cleansing the superficial film of Huntley’s filthy touch from the outside of me, my insides were churning and my stomach was in knots. I was at the end of my tether as I reached out and picked up the bottle again. I pushed down the childproof cap and unscrewed it, then immersed the part-filled bottle in the water and let it fill. I wanted to really cleanse the stench of Huntley away. I felt soiled and sick. The hurt of that dirty, shameful nightmare was horrendous.

  As my hands clenched in tension around the plastic bottle, part of me had shut down and the only way I could deal with the torment was by gulping down the cocktail of chemical and bathwater. As the hot toxic brew entered my mouth, I prayed that the liquid filling me would wash away my living nightmare. How much of the mix I swallowed, I don’t really know. I just kept gulping it down. I didn’t care, so long as I could get that monster’s stench off me and out of me. If only I could have washed away the pain that easily. The realisation that I was never going to be the same person again was dawning on me.

  I thought I must be a dirty, horrible person and I was trying to wash it away. But it wouldn’t go away. And, when I couldn’t wash it away, I decided to push it deep down within me. I locked it away behind a mask of self-hatred.

  Looking back, I don’t know how I didn’t kill myself by what I did. It wasn’t something I had planned; it was just a spontaneous act on seeing the bleach bottle. The contents were stronger than soap and I knew it was used for deep cleaning. I had no intention of killing myself, I just had to get rid of this smell, because what if anyone could smell it on me? What if they found out I had been out of the street with Huntley? Then I’d really be in for it. I needed to wash the stench of Huntley’s breath from my mouth, too.

  I was ill for the rest of that night. Between my legs it burned from my scrubbing. I got my pyjamas on and sought the soothing comfort of my bed. Mum sensed something was amiss and asked, ‘Is everything all right? Did you have a good time?’

  Although I longed to confide in her, I just couldn’t find the words, so I buried the pain in my reply, ‘Yes, thank you. I don’t feel very well. I’m off to bed.’

  As I walked towards my bedroom, I bit down hard on my lip, praying that I wouldn’t burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears in front of Mum. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell her what Huntley had done to me. I resigned mysel
f to a life of bitter silence. In time, the pain of silence would become too much to bear.

  When I closed the bedroom door, all of the ache inside me welled up and spilled out as tears of pain rolled down my cheeks. I felt so numb, lost and alone.

  I was terrified of what might happen to me, as I was in the downstairs bedroom on my own. He only lives a few minutes away, I thought. He could come to my window easily at nine o’clock at night, put it through and kill me, and everyone is upstairs.

  That night, as I lay there, it all came hurtling back to haunt me. I can remember literally twiddling my thumbs out of nervousness: 50 times one way and then 50 times the other way. Things started to come to the front of my mind, but I was running on autopilot, twiddling until my thumbs ached.

  What am I doing that for? I thought. I kept going over what had happened during the day and thinking, I really, really, really want to tell somebody but what happens if he comes to kill me? Exhausted from the torment, I fell asleep.

  A few hours later, about three o’clock, an uncomfortable feeling of dampness awakened me. I had wet the bed. I had never done it before, and I was quite embarrassed for myself. I tried to conceal this from Mum and didn’t tell her.

  The next day – well, a few hours later – I remember just staying in the sanctuary of the house, but then I started worrying. What if Huntley were to knock on the door and come after me?

  The odd thing is that Katie never made any effort to come and see me after that fateful day when Huntley took me to ‘climb trees’, which was unusual. I, obviously, wasn’t going to call on Katie, because Huntley was there.

  I don’t know the reason for Katie Webber’s withdrawal from my life immediately after that sunny Saturday afternoon when Huntley turned his evil thoughts into reality. But it has to be considered very strange that she didn’t even come along for the regular Saturday trip into town. The longest length of time she had stayed away before that was about three or four days.