Sunday Times Bestselling Author
Casey Watson
Little Prisoners
A Tragic Story of Siblings Trapped in a World of Abuse and Suffering
Copyright
This book is a work of non-fiction based on the author’s experiences.
In order to protect privacy, names, identifying characteristics, dialogue and details have been changed or reconstructed.
HarperElement
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
and HarperElement are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
First published by HarperElement 2012
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© Casey Watson 2012
Casey Watson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
LITTLE PRISONERS. © Casey Watson 2012. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
Source ISBN: 9780007436606
Ebook Edition © APRIL 2012 ISBN: 9780007436613 Version 2016-11-25
Dedication
To my wonderful and supportive family
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
My husband, Mike, always bagged the window seat on planes,…
Chapter 2
Fighting the need to gag, I ushered everyone inside, pasting…
Chapter 3
When Mike and I returned to the living room the…
Chapter 4
It felt like the middle of the night when I…
Chapter 5
‘We come bearing gifts!’
Chapter 6
The type of fostering Mike and I had originally been…
Chapter 7
Finding out they were ‘in care’ upset the children dreadfully,…
Chapter 8
It was a Saturday afternoon, towards the end of September,…
Chapter 9
If I was frustrated by a lack of action on…
Chapter 10
The main finding Anna wanted to share with me concerned…
Chapter 11
The journey back home from Wales was a tense affair.
Chapter 12
I had decided, during one of many bouts of sleeplessness…
Chapter 13
It took Ashton some time to act normally around us…
Chapter 14
I didn’t have a clue how to turn things around…
Chapter 15
I called Anna the next morning. I felt helpless; I…
Chapter 16
‘You know what?’ Mike said to me the following evening,…
Chapter 17
I brooded about that meeting all week. After we’d left…
Chapter 18
It had been such a delight to see Justin. He…
Chapter 19
Only a couple of weeks after the birth of Olivia’s…
Chapter 20
I grew more convinced, with every passing day, that these…
Chapter 21
It wasn’t that I wanted to label the children –…
Chapter 22
Just as had happened at Christmas, Easter passed almost unnoticed…
Chapter 23
The call came from Anna just over a week later.
Chapter 24
It was agreed that we’d say goodbye to the children…
Epilogue
This letter takes pride of place underneath the photograph of…
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
My husband, Mike, always bagged the window seat on planes, so I had to lean across him to watch ours land. He ruffled my hair.
‘Hey, look at you, eager beaver!’ he said. ‘Can’t wait to get home again, can you?’
We were returning from a glorious week in Corfu. Just the two of us. A rare break, and one we really needed. We’d just said goodbye to our most recent foster child, Sophia, and the impromptu holiday had been a real tonic. Sophia’s had been a two-week emergency stay that had stretched to almost a year. It had also been a pretty bumpy ride.
I snuggled up as far as my seat belt would let me, anxious to reassure him that that wasn’t the case. Well, not quite. ‘Oh, love,’ I said. ‘It’s been a fantastic holiday, really. But you know what I’m like. I’m missing the kids now. Especially baby Levi.’
Levi was our little grandson and one of the joys in our lives. ‘I know,’ Mike said, squeezing over so I could see out. ‘Me too, if I’m honest. But we’ll be home in next to no time … ah, here we go. Let’s see how he lands it.’
We both watched as the plane seemed to float towards the runway. No bumps today. The pilot touched down perfectly.
Looking after Sophia, who was now 13, and in temporary residential care, while they tackled her mental health problems, had been an experience we wouldn’t forget in a hurry. The outlook was positive, and we were still seeing her regularly, but what we’d been through when she was with us had taken its toll. Not just on the poor child but on us as a family, and now we were safely back on terra firma I realised just how much I needed to see my own children.