Mum did such awful things
Karen Leighton was in prison for cruelty to her son.
Wednesday 29th October 2008
My brother gave a piercing scream, his face as white as the wall he was cowering against.
'Please…' he whimpered. 'Please, no.'
But it was no use. My stepdad clutched Shane's soiled pants and pushed them into his mouth.
'That'll teach you to be so disgusting,' he shouted, grabbing 10-year-old Shane by the arm and dragging him out of the room.
Rooted to the spot in terror, I could still hear Shane's muffled sobs, and our stepdad swearing and shouting, so I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my hands over my ears.
I don't want to be here, I thought. I don't want to be in this room with the tatty carpet, and the shouting and swearing… And when I opened my eyes, I wasn't.
Words can't describe how relieved I was to find that the rough carpet had been replaced with the soft sheets of my double bed. And in place of Shane's screams of terror, was my son, Sean, calling for me. It was a dream.
'Let's get you some breakfast,' I said, leading Sean to the kitchen.
'It was just a dream,' I said to myself, as I poured his Frosties into a bowl. But it was so vivid and frightening, I felt like more than a dream. The sounds, the smells… I felt
like I was really there. And what's more, it wasn't the first time it had happened. That same dream had been plaguing me for years. Over and over again, like a scratched DVD.
Shane, now 25, and I both knew that our childhood hadn't exactly been perfect.
I was born with Spina bifida and always had to use a wheelchair, but even so, we had fun times, watching cartoons together.
But in October 1994, when I was just 8 and Shane was 10, our mum, Karen Leighton, now
47, and our stepdad had been jailed for 30 months for child cruelty against Shane. We were put in a foster home, but still visited Mum in prison. And when she was released, I was so excited to go back and live with her. She'd split with her husband by then, and I was just a little girl who had missed her mum. Anyway, I was so young, I didn't even remember what things had been like before they went to prison. And it didn't occur to me to ask what had happened, or what they'd done.
But then I'd started having the awful nightmares. It was always the same. Me staring helplessly as the dirty pants were forced into Shane's mouth, shame and humiliation
on his tear-stained face. There was another nightmare, too. I'd be in my bedroom playing with dolls when I'd hear my brother calling from his room next door.
'Nat,' he'd whisper urgently. 'I'm trapped in here. Help me open the door.'
I'd fiddle with the catch on the door with a knife until it finally sprang open, revealing Shane curled up on a bare mattress beside a pot, which he'd had to use as a toilet.
I didn't know where these bleak and troubling images had come from and I didn't want to ask Shane what he remembered. No, they can't be real, I reasoned. Mum might have made mistakes, but she wasn't a monster. Even so, I was so confused, I completely distanced myself from Mum. So much so that I left home at 16 and moved into a flat with my boyfriend, Matthew Hickson. By September 2003, when I gave birth to Sean, I hardly saw Mum at all, and when Matthew and I married a year later, she didn't come. We'd completely lost touch, and I didn't care.
Whatever had happened in my past, I wanted it over and to concentrate on my future with Matthew and Sean. Trouble was, as Sean turned from a baby to a toddler, the nightmares became more and more frequent, and it became harder to push them to the back of my mind. Sometimes Sean, now 4, would say something or smile a certain way and he'd look just like Shane had as a kid.
'What if it is real?' I said to Matthew one night. 'What if Mum and my stepdad really did those awful things to Shane?'
In August 2007, Matthew and I split up, and I took Sean to live with my real dad, John Deakin, now 49,and stepbrother, Kirk, 17. Now, in January 2008, I was so tormented by the dreams every night, I couldn't bear it any more. While Sean was with Matthew,
I went round to the flat Shane shared with his partner, Kirsty, 22, and daughter, Amy-Rose, 18 months.
'All right, sis,' he smiled, greeting me with a hug. 'I'll put the kettle on.'
He chatted happily, pulling mugs from the cupboard and getting milk from the fridge.
Was I doing the right thing in bringing up the past? What if I had imagined it all?
But I had to know the truth.
'What do you remember from when we were kids?' I asked, as Shane sat down with his tea.
The smile fell from his face. Despite the fact we were close, we never spoke about the past.
But somehow, this time, it all came pouring out from him.
'I remember being scared a lot,' he said. 'I remember being hit and locked up in my room.'
My heart started to race as he described what he'd been through.
'When I'd had an accident, our stepdad would force my pants into my mouth,' he whispered.
So it was true.
'Oh Shane,' I said, breaking down. 'I can't believe it. I've been having these dreams…'
I told him everything and, by the time I'd finished, we were both in tears.
I needed to face the truth, no matter how awful it was. But how? I contacted my old social worker and asked her advice.
'You're an adult now,' she said. 'You can write to social services and request to see your files.'
I did it that very afternoon and just a month on, I was called to the offices in Litchfield to pick them up.My heart was racing as I ripped the envelope open. The first thing I saw was a copy of a local paper from 1994.
CRUEL COUPLE JAILED FOR BEATING BOY, 10, it read.
The paper trembled in my hands as I started to read.
A Cannock couple who beat their 10-year-old son with a shovel and a poker, and scrubbed his bare body sore have each been jailed for 30 months. It said they'd videoed themselves beating Shane with a shoe, shoved soiled pants in his mouth and flushed his head down the loo. The mother even encouraged her young daughter to hit him.
As I read that sentence, fear turned to anger. How dare she try to force me to join in her sick treatment? I was only 8 years old.
'The b****,' I spat.
I had to show this to Shane. He was just as shocked as I was.
'It's strange seeing it here in black and white,' he said quietly. 'I'm going to get my files, too.'
In the meantime, we both knew we had to do something. There was no way Mum was getting away with what she'd done.
'I've got it,' I said.
Taking the newspaper cutting, I went to the local newsagent and made a copy.
'Everyone's going to know what you're capable of,' I said, as I stuck it up in the phone box
outside the shops.
It wasn't long before everyone in town was whispering about it. Then Mum called me.
'Why have you done that?' she blasted. 'It was years ago.'
The cheek.
'Look,' she sighed. 'I'm sorry, I was stressed.'
Some excuse. I just hung up. Since then, she's gone to the local paper with her sob story, saying how sorry she is. Well, sorry isn't good enough. I still get the dreams from time to time, and I reckon I always will. They're awful, but they remind me of something very important. Making sure that when my little boy grows up, all his dreams are happy ones.
Shane Deakin said: 'Seeing what happened to me in black and white changed my life. I just wish Karen wasn't my mum. I will never forgive her for what she's done to me. I'm
a dad now, with another one on the way, and I could never do that to my kids. I'm trying to move on, but I can't forgive my mum. The memories will be with me forever.'
Karen Leighton said: 'Yes, I was in prison for cruelty to my son. Since my daughter has received her files, I have tried to apologise so many times. I love my kids. I know I've done wrong, but I can't keep saying sorry. I just want to be left alone.'