Handed Over To Evil

How could I be taken from Mum and placed in the arms of a monster?

- Frances Leate, Hannah Crocker

I smiled as my mum Tracy twisted my hair into a bun and gave me a kiss. ‘My little sprout,’ she grinned, squeezing my cheek playfully.

I idolized Mum, hung off her like a monkey.

Only, one day in the winter of 1995, when I was 4, a woman from social services turned up at my nursery.

‘Your mum needs a break, we’re taking you to live with another family,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to,’ I sobbed.

I was confused, wanted to go home, to say goodbye to Mum, get my favourite dolphin soft toy…

But I was taken straight to meet Rex and his partner, my foster parents.

‘Alright?’ Rex boomed, towering over me.

I looked at the floor. I’d always been shy, but Rex put me on edge.

My room was bare, just a bed and a wooden desk. Mum never had money, but my room was always full of toys.

I missed Mum desperately, didn’t understand why I couldn’t live with her now.

And Rex terrified me. He stormed around the house with his top off, chest puffed out. Shouted, made me jump.

I’d hide behind my foster mother’s legs, trembling.

‘Give me a kiss,’ he leered at me one morning as he left for work.

Shaking my head, I looked down at my breakfast.

But he grabbed me by the shoulders, forced sloppy kisses all over my face and neck. Cringing, I felt sick.

I’d only been there a week.

That night, as I was going up to bed, Rex grabbed my bum.

‘Give me a proper kiss on the lips,’ he slurred.

Heart pounding, I ran upstairs in tears.

From then on, I tried to avoid Rex. I hid in my room, played in the street.

But he always found me. ‘Sexy legs,’ he cackled, sticking his head around my bedroom door suddenly. Looking me up and down as I lay on my bed.

I was only 4, I didn’t understand.