Secret world of victims
THE two women who endured almost three decades of abuse lived lonely and isolated childhoods.
Their father prevented them from forming relationships with anyone – so he could keep secret his sordid lust for them.
Said one aunt: "The girls weren't like ordinary children. They weren't allowed to have toys. They had no friends, not even at school and they were rarely allowed to come to visit us.
"But we knew their dad was a horrible man and we knew he hit them.
"Once he threw his youngest girl downstairs. She broke her leg and at the hospital there was a social worker asking questions.
"But he forced his daughter to say she had fallen and he lied his way out of it. Police and social services never followed it up."
Adds another aunt: "Those kids had to go everywhere with their father, particularly the oldest girl. It worried our mother. She would say: There's something not right about it."
They claim their mother constantly asked for people to intervene in the girls' lives.
"She contacted social srvices when their teacher sent her a letter questioning why they were always hungry and were covered in bruises.
"Nothing happened and shortly after the family went to live in a caravan in another county. We now think he had realised the teachers were picking up on things and was covering his tracks.
"He kept everyone at arms' length and moved his family in and out of Sheffield on such a regular basis we never got to know much about their lives.
"But when the eldest girl fell pregnant as a young teenager, we all started to feel that our mother's suspicions had been right.
"We knew her father would never have allowed her to have a boyfriend, so who had got her pregnant?
"Mum said she was convinced it was him and that if the baby was born with anything wrong with it, we'd know.
"When the baby arrived it had a deformity. We felt sick. All sorts of questions were asked, but the girl would never say who the father was.
"She and the baby went to stay with our mum not long after the birth.
"She begged her to tell on her dad and promised she would keep him away from her.
"But instead of confiding in her, she rang her dad and told him grandma was asking awkward questions.
"He went to the house to collect his daughter and grandchild, and property he had stored at the house.
"Mum was furious. She tried to stop him."
Incredibly, say family, when an angry scene erupted, it was he who called police.
"Officers unwittingly ended up assisting the sex abuser as he removed his daughter from the place where she was safest."
Remembers one of the aunts: "Mum was virtually hysterical with anger. I was there. I saw her shout to one of the policemen: 'He is the father of that baby. Do something'.
"The policeman told her he was only there to help someone to remove their property safely, and that slander was a criminal offence. I can still see his face now. He didn't realise he was sending that girl back to another 20 years of sexual abuse at the hands of her pervert of a father.
"Mum was banned from seeing the girls for years and felt helpless and frustrated for the rest of her life.
"She tried countless times to help them but she could never get anywhere.
"Until the day she died two years ago she would sit and cry about what he was doing to her grand-daughters.
"Whatever she could have imagined could not have been worse than what came out in court. We were stunned and sickened when we read what had really gone on for all those years.
"Until then, we didn't even know how many children they had between them. We never got to hear about the abortions and terminations.
"But someone must have. They must have had medical records. Didn't anyone at one of the hospitals they went to for these operations, and to have one handicapped baby after another, ever ask why it kept happening?
"If there is a heaven, mum will finally be happy that he has been caught and the girls are free of him.
"But she will be so angry that this has gone on for so many years."
'Our concern was scorned'
MANY will wonder whether the girls' mother knew what her husband was doing to their daughters.
Her family say they do not know, but state she was a long-term victim of domestic abuse and left when her daughters were in their late teens and her first grandchild was around five years old.
"The day she left, he had thrown her downstairs. She moved out of the area and we have had very little contact with her – not even to talk about the trial," says her brother. "But at the end of the day, she is still our sister."
The victims' uncle concedes that the girls have been so damaged by their father that their view of what is normal and what is not has been warped.
He said: "You have to feel for them. He totally ruined their lives and the lives of their children. If they had been given a normal, happy upbringing they would be different people today. They never got that chance."
READ MORE
Main news index
Your letters.
Features
More Rotherham news
More Doncaster news
More Barnsley news
Check out the very latest on South Yorkshire's roads - including live traffic cameras on Sheffield's commuter routes - with our Traffic section
Latest sport.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Sheffield
Friday 25 May 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 10 C to 22 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Sunny
Temperature: 9 C to 20 C
Wind Speed: 17 mph
Wind direction: East
