MUM'S DEADLY PLEA: I NEED YOU TO SHOOT HIM

As a little girl, Mary was forced to do the unthinkable

- RUSSELL BELL

I trembled with fear as I heard a truck pull up in the driveway and heavy footsteps approached the house. My stepdad Wayne Wyers, then 29, had arrived home. And that always meant trouble.

Before I could run to my bedroom to hide, he'd stormed in and grabbed me by the throat.

'Get out of my way,' he growled, slamming me into a wall.

Then it was my mum Priscilla's turn. He beat her as I watched on helplessly.

I was just 11.

My childhood hadn't always been like this. My mum, then 28, had been just 16 when she had me.

She struggled to cope, so I'd gone to live with my grandma Eva - my favourite person in the whole world. She read me bedtime stories, bought me a bike, and taught me how to ride it.

For those first few fleeting years, I'd been a happy child.

Meanwhile, Mum had started dating Wayne, a truck driver. She moved in with him, then they married and had three children together, Chris, Melissa and John.

When I was 10, Mum asked me and Grandma Eva to move in with them, so we could be a family again.

From then on, we lived in a house of horrors.

Wayne was angry and violent – kicking, punching and throttling Mum.

He had a gun too, and would wave it around, threatening to shoot her.

Us kids didn’t escape his wrath either. He verbally and physically abused all of us – but he had a special kind of hatred for me – the red-headed daughter of another man.

He even beat Grandma, hitting her so hard in the face one time that he permanently damaged her hearing.

In February 1987, when I was 11, things got worse.