Читать книгу Violated: A Shocking and Harrowing Survival Story From the Notorious Rotherham Abuse Scandal - Sarah Wilson, Sarah Wilson - Страница 11

Within seconds of my 999 call, a police car was tearing up the street, sirens blazing. I hadn’t told them anything about the men, just that we were runaways and we needed to get home. Nadine was still on the phone, but she hung up as soon as she heard the commotion.

‘You fucking idiot,’ she said. ‘Piggy bastards.’

Nadine hated the police and nearly always called them ‘pigs’ or ‘piggy bastards’. She glowered as a female copper climbed out of the car and started asking us some questions about where we’d been. Neither of us gave anything away. The copper was all right, I guess, but she insisted on taking us down to the station before we could go home.

There was another officer driving the car but he didn’t say much. When we pulled into the car park, the first copper took Nadine inside but told me to stay in the car. I’m still not sure why.

‘Can’t we just go home?’ I asked him.

‘We just need to make some routine inquiries,’ he said. ‘Has anything happened to you tonight? You know you can tell us if it has.’

I just folded my arms and said nothing. It seemed like ages before the other copper came back to the car, but Nadine wasn’t with her. She got into the back with me and she had a serious expression on her face.

‘Sarah,’ she began slowly. ‘Your friend has just made a very serious allegation against the group of men you were with tonight. Is there anything you want to tell me?’

She explained that Nadine had told her we’d gone back to the flat with the men from the second takeaway and I’d been gang-raped. I could barely believe what I was hearing, and I genuinely thought the police were playing mind games to try to trick me into telling them the truth. Nadine had been raging at me for phoning them. I thought she’d never grass those men up, far less make up a story that was ten times worse than what had actually happened. She was always sticking up for Amir and all the men that tagged along with him, so why was she trying to get them into trouble?

I told them it was a load of rubbish. They took us home separately and they never contacted me again about what Nadine had said. The next day, though, she thought it was a hoot.

‘I told the pigs that those Pakis gang-raped you,’ she said, laughing at the thought of me being violated by a group of strangers as if it was the funniest joke in the world.

At the time I was so confused but, looking back, I think Nadine was smarter than she made out. She was teaching me a lesson and it worked. I never phoned the police again as it all seemed far more trouble than it was worth.

As for the coppers, I think they already had me down as a bit of a time waster because I’d run away so much, and this was probably the final nail in the coffin. Whenever Mum reported me missing after that, they just didn’t seem bothered about finding me. To them, it was like I’d decided to hang about with older men and get off my face on drugs and alcohol, and I’d have to live with the consequences. I wasn’t yet a teenager, but years later I would discover that they’d described what was happening to me as a ‘lifestyle choice’.

The more I saw of Nadine and this ever-expanding gang of Asian men, the worse things got at home. I’d always had a fiery relationship with my brother Robert, but the drugs made my temper even worse and we were always scrapping. This meant Mum was more stressed out than ever before, and even Laura and I weren’t as close as we’d once been. She was ten, but she was still playing with prams and dolls in the back garden while I was being sucked into something that I couldn’t seem to get myself out of, something that was being controlled by a group of men I didn’t know – something that was so far away from the world of playing with dolls.

A few days after Nadine made up the gang-rape story, I was in my maths class when I caught sight of Robert outside the window. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I knew he was trying to wind me up, making faces and pointing and laughing, as siblings often do. I’d been given loads of phet the night before, so I could feel an uncontrollable rage sweeping over me as I kicked over my seat and made for the classroom door.

‘Where are you going, Sarah?’ the teacher, Miss Jones, asked. She’d sprung up from her seat and she was now standing in front of me, blocking my way.

‘My brother’s out there,’ I said. ‘He’s slagging me off. He’s a dick. Let me at him.’

‘Sarah,’ Miss Jones said, as calmly as she could. She was used to me kicking off in class. ‘Go down to the headmaster’s office and give yourself five minutes to cool off, then we can discuss this properly.’

Miss Jones was quite petite – she couldn’t have been more than about 5 foot, 3 inches – but I found myself wondering what would happen if I tried to knock her over. Robert was still outside the window, laughing with his mates.

‘You have two options, love,’ I said. ‘You either move and let me go and smash his face in, or I’ll put you on your arse and smash his face in anyway.’

Miss Jones just stood there, defiantly holding my gaze. I’d been in loads of fights with girls in my year, but I could see she thought I’d never have the guts to hit a teacher.

She was wrong.

Rage coursed through me as I swung a punch at her. Everything seemed to happen really slowly. I could see shock spreading across my teacher’s face, and at the last minute she ducked out of my way. My hand went straight through the window, hitting it with such force that glass shattered everywhere. It seemed to take forever before the blood started gushing from my hand and down my arm. It was really sore, obviously, but I was still so angry I couldn’t properly concentrate on the pain.

I’d hurt myself so badly that I had to have an operation and loads of stitches. I’ve still got the scars now. What was worse, though, was that I was permanently excluded from school. The headmaster told Mum I’d have to go to a special school for pupils with behavioural problems.

‘I love you, Sarah,’ Mum told me on the way home from hospital. ‘And I always will. But I really don’t like you at the moment. Why are you acting like this?’

As usual, I didn’t really listen. I’d heard it all before: how I’d always been so lovely and polite but now I was like a different person, how Mum had brought me up to be better than this and how ashamed she was of my behaviour. But my brain was addled by all the drugs and alcohol and everything those men were telling me. It was like I was turning into a little robot, slowly but surely losing all sense of control over my life.

A few weeks later, Nadine turned sixteen. She told me not to tell anyone she was two-timing Amir with a white lad called Ryan. I couldn’t understand why it was okay for her to sleep around with Amir’s mates but not with this other guy, but I didn’t ask any questions.

Nadine and Ryan saw each other a few times a week, but I still chilled with her loads. When she wasn’t there, I’d hang around with Hayley, Jade and Leah, or the taxis would pick me up on the street and take me to a house party.

Soon, we were hanging around at Hayley’s dad’s most of the time. If I’d thought it might have been a bit like Elaine’s, I was wrong. It was ten times worse.

The first time I walked through the back door the smell was so bad I actually gagged. The kitchen was foul, with rubbish piled high in every corner. It was so minging that I quickly realised some of it must have been there for months. I don’t think there were any dishes or cutlery, and even if there were, it would take you forever to wade through the mess and find them.