Raped and strangled by her UNCLE
Casey, 2, sleeping peacefully
Thursday 6th September 2007
My 2-year-old daughter, Casey, came running into the kitchen, bursting with excitement.
'Tinny's here!' she grinned, hopping up and down.
Then Casey and her older brother, James, 3, stampeded to the door.
Their uncle, Michael Mullen, 21, stood there. We called him 'Twinny' because he looked so much like my boyfriend of six years, his younger brother, David, 20. But Casey, bless her, couldn't say the word properly, so she called him Tinny.
David and I had been together since we were 14. We got on great, but there was only one thing we argued about. Michael. Every few weeks, he'd take David out, and the pair of them would come back rolling drunk. The loud music would go on, then they'd crash out on the settee. It was pathetic.
So, after dozens of shouting matches, I'd decided. Enough was enough.
'Don't come round if you've been drinking,' I'd said to Michael and David last year.
'But he's not just my brother,' David had wailed. 'He's my best mate.'
'Tough,' I'd fumed. 'He's only welcome here when he's sober.'
Watching Michael play the doting uncle to James and Casey, today however, it was hard to believe there were days I wouldn't let him in my home. We had a great afternoon. I cooked a roast chicken, and Casey roared with laughter as Michael raced round the house giving James piggybacks.
Then two weeks later, one Sunday in February 2007, it all went pear-shaped again. Casey was in bed and I was downstairs watching Coronation Street with my brother, Lee, 19. James was asleep on the settee, when the front door virtually flew off its hinges and in staggered David and Michael. I was out of my seat like a shot.
'Neither of you is coming in here in that state,' I snapped.
'Let me make Casey a hot chocolate,' David insisted, swaying into the kitchen. 'It's her favourite.'
I hated him when he was like this. The glassy eyes. The slurring. Suddenly, I snapped.
'Get out!' I yelled, pushing him out onto the street and shutting the door.
Then a noise from the landing made me jump. Michael. I'd forgotten he was still here.
I heard water running in the bathroom and went downstairs. I'd let him go to the loo, then he was going the same way as David. Minutes later, I heard him come down the stairs.
'See ya,' he mumbled, rushing out the front door.
Exhausted, I turned to Lee.
'Do me a favour,' I asked. 'Go and check Casey's door's closed.'
'Casey's sheets are dirty,' Lee frowned, coming back downstairs. 'There's poo all over them.'
I rushed upstairs and pulled back her duvet. What I saw next was so horrifying, I see it every time I close my eyes. Casey lay curled up and lifeless. It wasn't poo on the sheets. It was blood.
I checked her neck for a pulse. But I couldn't feel one.
'Wake up,' I sobbed. 'Come on.'
I flicked her cheeks and gently pulled her eyelids open, but her big, blue eyes stared blankly at me.
'No!' I screamed.
Had she had a fit? Choked on her own vomit? Then I remembered. Michael had been up there. Had he stumbled into her room, drunk, and fallen on her? Horror welled up as I dialled 999.
'My baby,' I wailed. 'Please help!'
Suddenly the room was filled with paramedics and police. Then a paramedic bundled me into his car and we were on our way to St James's University Hospital, in Leeds. For half an hour, I paced a tiny room. Then a doctor walked in.
'I'm so sorry,' he said. 'We couldn't revive her.'
'Michael!' I raged. 'Michael had something to do with this.'
By now, David had arrived and the hurt and fury in his eyes showed me he knew it, too. Every minute played over and over in my mind like a horror film. Michael had only been up there for 20 minutes. What had he done?
I was a potential witness, so the police couldn't tell me anything about how my daughter had died. My house was a crime scene, so I couldn't go home, either. And then, two days on, a police liaison officer came to see me, and I learned the terrible facts.
'Casey was raped and strangled,' she told me.
She was just 2 years old. I couldn't breathe. I ran out of the house and collapsed on the pavement, sobbing.
'Why did he do it?' David sobbed when I phoned him later on.
'I don't know,' I whispered.
'He's not my brother,' he spat. 'I hate him.'
We buried Casey at St Bartholomew's Church in Armley, Leeds. Her little coffin was brought to the church in a horse-drawn carriage, and we played Whitney Houston's 'I Will Always Love You'.
In July, David and I went to Leeds Crown Court to see Michael plead guilty to murder. Before we went in, our family liaison officer took us to one side.
'There are some things you're going to hear in court,' she warned, telling us that Casey had been strangled by something long and thin, like a mobile phone charger cord. She had also been brutally raped.
Tears poured down my face. My beautiful, beautiful baby. How could anyone be so sick, to do that to a 2-year-old?
The police had found that Michael had a photo of Casey, naked from the waist down, on his phone. They'd found more than 30 images of child pornography in his flat, including a film showing a naked girl being abused by a man. A psychiatrist told the court that he was suffering from an untreatable psychopathic disorder.
It came out in the papers afterwards that Michael had been charged with raping a 12-year-old girl four years ago, but the case had been dropped through lack of evidence. How could he have hidden this side of himself?
Michael was sentenced to life, with a minimum of 35 years for murder and 17 years for rape. But it was no relief to me. No sentence could be long enough.
I go to Casey's grave whenever I can, and I talk to her if I'm there with David.
'I love you, Smiler,' I whisper. 'I'm so sorry I didn't stop him.'
Thank goodness Casey's pain is over. I know mine will last forever.
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