February

The last year has passed in a blur,it's almost a year now since I first reported my daughter as a missing person.That Saturday night the 10th February is carved in my mind,PC's Kevin and Richard sat in our house asking for an up to date photograph,little did we know that very same picture would become so public in coming months,appearing on Marble Arch and on the back of EMCOR vans,on TV and in newspapers.
On 13th February our daughter was PPO'd by Bristol Police after walking into a Police station with the perpetrator,something he is later to deny.She accused us of being child abusers and was put into emergency foster care,walking out just a few hours later.
The following few weeks plunge family and friends into such a confused state,lack of information and no-one to turn to leave me feeling helpless and alone.There are so few people out there who can truly understand the implications of sexual grooming,we were very lucky that the Police were so supportive throughout,it made the whole experience so much more bearable.

On Tuesday 27th Feb our daughter turned up at school,at least physically it was her,looking dirty and bedraggled.Mentally I'm still not sure who it was,the loving caring girl that we all knew had gone,replaced by someone who to this day I am convinced was drugged to the eyeballs.
The conversation that took place in a school office shocked not just me but also her form tutor,gone was the quiet well behaved pupil,as though she had been abducted by aliens,what had happened in those 2 weeks we will never know.

The sensible logical girl had been replaced by a screaming unco-operative irrational person that scared us to death.She refused to get in the family car because ***** had told her that we would kidnap her,she refused to eat our food because ***** had told her it was poisoned.Just what had he done to her to turn her mind against us,how could she accuse us of abuse,not our little Sammy

The following few days were spent constantly on the phone begging for help from anyone we could think of,how naive we were to think that there was anyone out there.What a shame we didn't hear about CROP until so much later down the line,Parentline were hopeless,the dreaded wasps just made me feel like a complete failure as a parent and still do.
The truth is that if this ever happens to you good luck,because you will need it!