My husbands story

2007
2007 started as usual with the annual new year party, all was well, we all had a good time, not knowing that this would be a very rare happy moment in the year.
Our daughters mood was to change very quickly, she was in contact with a man on the internet, who seemed to have control over her, who could get her to do things when he asked, say things that she would never have said before, to become the complete opposite of the kind & caring daughter she had been before.
She no longer listened to what we said, only to this man, & became distant from her school friends, who had been threatened by the same man, as was to become apparent when the police came to visit in early February, the first of many visits to come. On the same day she dissappeared from home for the 1st time, & we started the all to regular process of reporting her missing.
Over the next 12 weeks we would report her missing another 5 times, & spend hours talking with police & social services discussing what to do next & how to go forward.
When she finally dissapeared in early April having made allegations at the request of this man, our 6 month nationwide appeal for information on her whereabouts was about to begin.
The police were fantastic, going out of their way to help us, & try to locate our daughter. Six months passed with no news, no confirmed sightings. We raised over €6000 for Missing People, with the aid of her school friends, who just wanted her home where she should be. She made countless radio appeals, did live tv & gave interviews to the national press.
We have been to places, & seen & done things that I never thought we would have to do.
During this time a man was arrested & charged with sexual grooming, but the crown prosecution service kept knocking the police back, saying that there was a lack of evidence.
I still don"t know how much more evidence they need. We all thought we had enough, including the police.
At the begining of october she contacted the police, but as she was now 16, they were powerless to do anything, & she now lives with the man she met on the internet.
We have since had to endure abusive messages on the internet, with little idea of how to stop it legally.
Throughout all of this we have had to relly heavily on friends & family for support, without whom we not have managed to carry on. Also our 14 yr old son has had to grow up very fast, his life has changed so much, a large part of it has been ripped away, he hasn't just lost a sister, he's lost his best friend.
I don't uderstand how my daughter can say & do the things that she has done. She has watched & heard us make the appeals & said nothing, just left us wondering if she is still alive.
I thought that we had raised her to be better than that, perhaps not. I just hope she thinks it is all worth it.
A year that shows I have failed to protect not only my daughter from un-desirable people, but also my wife & son from all of the hurt & up-heaval that they have had to go through.
Someone said one day that it must be tempting to go down the motorway & sort the problem myself, & perhaps I should, but I know I can't do perhaps I fail there to. These are things that I will have to live with this feeling of complete failure, but I try not to dwell on it to much because it all reduces me to tears.