A Sister's Secret Read online

  I couldn’t believe anyone was standing by him after what he’d been accused of.

  She led me to a tiny room where Lorna, my counsellor, was waiting. She’d agreed to come with me for moral support and I was so pleased to see her. I never had to put on a brave face with her.

  ‘I don’t think I can do this, Lorna,’ I said.

  ‘You just need to go in there and tell the truth and that’s all that matters,’ she told me. ‘We’re all here for you.’

  There was a small glass panel in the door and I could see the outline of people going past into court four. I was terrified at the thought that one of them was Patrick Ryan.

  There was a TV in the witness room with DVDs but I had no interest in watching them; there was also a bookcase filled with books and a little kitchen off the back.

  ‘Do you want a cup of tea, Debbie?’ asked Lorna.

  ‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I feel a bit sick.’

  I hadn’t managed to eat or drink anything that morning, my stomach was so churned up.

  I couldn’t sit still, so I paced up and down.

  We were the only ones in there at first but as time went on, people from different cases were coming in and out. I kept opening the door and going out and having a look around outside to see if I could see anyone going into the courtroom.

  ‘Debbie, come back in and sit down. You know what the police told you,’ said Lorna.

  I think she was worried that I was going to leg it. Part of me did feel like running away from there but I knew that after everything we’d been through, I had to do this.

  I looked at the clock. Just after 10am.

  ‘Laraine should have started giving her evidence now,’ I said. ‘I hope she’s doing OK.’

  More than anything I wanted to be in that courtroom to see how she was getting on. I was so worried about how she was going to cope with being cross-examined and I wanted to be there for her. It was so frustrating being stuck in this little room while my poor sister was being put through hell and there was nothing I could do to help.

  Carol and Jo had explained that one of them would be in the house when Laraine was giving her evidence, but they weren’t allowed to be in the bedroom with her in case they gave her prompts. Laraine didn’t want Brendan to be there so he’d gone to work.

  To be honest, I was mortified that the jury would have to see her like that, lying there in her nightie, unable to get out of bed and reliant on carers. In my mind Ryan had done that to her and she was so vulnerable.

  ‘I really feel for her,’ I told Lorna. ‘At first I thought she had the easy option with the video link. But I don’t know what’s worse – having to be here in court or having to give evidence from your own home, lying in bed all on your own.’

  I really hoped she could do it.

  Suddenly my mobile phoned beeped with a text from her.

  Oh, Deb, the video link’s not bloody working.

  ‘I’m going to go outside and ring her,’ I said to Lorna. ‘I need to know what’s going on.’

  I knew it was safe because everyone else was in court. When I spoke to Laraine, she sounded so frightened.

  ‘Hopefully the link will be sorted soon and you can get on with it,’ I said.

  ‘Deb, I’m scared,’ she told me.

  ‘It’s going to be all right,’ I said. ‘I just wish I could be with you, holding your hand. You can do this.’

  I was trying to be strong for her and sound positive while deep down I was as frightened as she was that he might be going to get away with this. I just prayed that giving evidence by video link would have the same impact on the jury as if she was standing there in court.

  I spent the next couple of hours pacing up and down, driving Lorna demented. All this waiting was torture. Finally, just before 12.45pm, the door to the witness room swung open and Rob came in.

  ‘What happened?’ I said. ‘Did they get the link working? How did Laraine do? Did you see him? What did he look like?’

  ‘Calm down, Debbie,’ he said.

  He explained that they couldn’t get the video link working for over an hour.

  ‘It took ages,’ he said. ‘We were all just sitting there, but thankfully they managed it in the end.’

  ‘How was Laraine?’ I asked. ‘Did she cope OK?’

  ‘She did really well,’ he told me. ‘She got a bit jumbled with a couple of the dates and she got really upset at one point but I think it went OK.’

  It was such a relief.

  Poor Lal. My heart ached for her, having to go over those horrible memories, for everyone having to hear what she went through.

  ‘The judge cleared the courtroom at one point so she could have a break and a cigarette and she seemed a bit more composed after that,’ he added.

  I was so proud of her.

  ‘What’s the jury like?’ I asked Rob.

  ‘There’s eight women and four men,’ he said. ‘They’re all different ages. There’s a young lad and then one or two blokes my age and the foreman is an older man in his fifties.’

  I was relieved to hear that there were more women than men. Hopefully they would understand how hard it was going to be for me to talk about all these intimate things.

  ‘What about him?’ I said. ‘What does he look like?’

  ‘He’s a nasty piece of work, just like you said,’ he told me.

  I was desperate to see him before I gave evidence.

  Carol came in to update us.

  ‘It went really well,’ she told me. ‘Laraine answered all the questions and she was really strong. Now you’ve got about forty minutes, so why don’t you go and get some lunch?’

  I didn’t feel like eating anything but I wanted to get out of that windowless, airless room.

  ‘Where can we go?’ I said to Rob.

  ‘Well, I don’t think we should go to the canteen because Ryan and his lot will probably be there,’ he said. ‘Let’s go for a walk.’

  There was a little Tesco’s where Rob’s dad had dropped us off that morning so me, Rob and Lorna walked up there to get a sandwich, although I couldn’t manage more than a couple of mouthfuls.

  All the time I was constantly looking around for Ryan. I was terrified but at the same time desperate to see him so I knew what he looked like before I gave my evidence. I was worried about what my reaction might be and wanted to get it over and done with before I set foot in that courtroom.

  ‘I’m gagging for a cigarette,’ I said, and as we walked back towards the court I noticed there was a little walled area with some benches and a few trees where people were lighting up.

  ‘I think I’ll just go and sit over there and have a smoke,’ I said.

  But Rob suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ he said.

  ‘What do you mean, I’m not? Where else can I have a ciggy?’

  ‘Debbie, don’t go over there,’ he said. ‘Come with me, keep walking and don’t look round.’

  I could hear the panic in his voice and that’s when I knew Ryan was there. The minute he said it I turned round to look and I recognised him straight away.

  He was sat there on one of the benches smoking, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. Wendy was with him and a younger woman that I didn’t recognise. The first thing that struck me was the massive gauze dressing stuck over his left eye.

  ‘What the hell is that bandage on his face?’ I said to Rob. ‘Is that to cover up his dodgy eye?’

  ‘They said in court that he’d injured his eye in a welding accident when he was sixteen and it had been giving him trouble all his life, so he’d recently had an operation to remove it,’ he told me.

  ‘Going for the sympathy vote, no doubt,’ I said.

  I knew Ryan hadn’t seen me so I stared at him, willing him to turn round.

  For months I’d been planning this moment in my head. All the things I wanted to say, like why had he picked on us? But then I saw him and I was taken aback.
He looked like an old man. A pathetic old man, come to that. His hair was grey, his shoulders were stooped and he was hunched over. I wasn’t frightened of him any more, in fact I almost laughed. He looked the smartest that I’d ever seen him in a navy blue jumper with a white shirt underneath but his horrible face was still the same.

  I could see Rob was nervous and he quickly ushered me away.

  ‘Come on, Debbie, let’s get inside,’ he said.

  Just then I got a text from Carol.

  Ryan is outside, Debbie, so just be careful and come straight back in to the witness room.

  It made me angry.

  ‘I’m not the one on bloody trial but I feel like the prisoner here and not him,’ I said. ‘If I want to go outside and smoke then I should be allowed.’

  ‘The police are only thinking of your own safety, Debbie,’ Rob told me. ‘There’s quite a group of them and I don’t want any trouble. That’s not going to help the case.’

  I knew he was right but I was glad that I had seen Ryan. I hadn’t gone to pieces and it had made me feel a bit stronger. Maybe I could do this?

  The court was due back, so Rob went to take his seat in the public gallery and I went back to the witness room with Lorna.

  ‘How are you holding up, Debbie?’ asked Carol.

  ‘OK,’ I said, but when my voice came out it was barely a whisper.

  I was absolutely terrified

  ‘You can do this,’ said Lorna. ‘Just go in there and tell the truth.’

  Jo came down

  ‘It’s time,’ she said. ‘We’ll take you up.’

  I was in a daze. This felt like it wasn’t really happening to me and I was having some strange out-of-body experience. My legs were so shaky as I followed Carol and Jo down the corridor I thought I might fall over. We went past the canteen and down a long corridor, through some double doors until I saw the sign for court four.

  Oh God, this was really happening. Any minute now I was going to have to face him. My heart was thumping so hard, I could practically hear the blood pumping through my body. My head was spinning and I was so tired, I felt delirious.

  We stopped right outside the court door. Just as we were about to go in, it swung open and a man in a black cloak and wig came out. He looked exactly like someone from one of those courtroom dramas that you see on the TV.

  ‘This is the prosecution barrister, Mr Williams,’ Jo explained.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry, Mrs Grafham,’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid one of the jurors has been taken ill at lunchtime with toothache.

  ‘We can’t continue without a full jury, so I’m afraid it looks like we’re going to have to adjourn for the day.

  ‘Do you mind coming back tomorrow?’

  It was a huge blow. I was annoyed about the delay but overwhelmed with relief at the same time.

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said.

  I ran down the corridor and rushed into the nearest toilet, where I was violently sick. I think my body had gone into shock.

  Carol came to find me.

  ‘Are you OK, Debbie?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s just nerves,’ I said. ‘I was all psyched up to go in.’

  ‘I know you were,’ she said. ‘But try and get some sleep tonight and then you can get it over and done with tomorrow.’

  It was such a let-down.

  Rob came out to find me.

  ‘I can’t believe it’s been postponed,’ he said.

  ‘Let’s get you both back to the witness room,’ said Carol. ‘I think it’s safer for you to wait there until we know Ryan and his family have gone.’

  We waited in there another hour before we walked to Tesco’s, where we’d arranged for Rob’s dad to pick us up. As soon as we got back, I phoned Laraine. Carol had already called her to tell her that I wasn’t giving evidence until tomorrow.

  ‘How was it?’ I said. ‘I’ve been thinking about you all day.’

  ‘Oh, it was awful, Deb,’ she told me. ‘The things they asked me, it was horrible.’

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘Rob told me. It must have been really hard.’

  She said that she’d been questioned for an hour and a half.

  ‘I got really upset when they kept asking me why did we keep going up there, but all I could say was that I didn’t know. I can’t answer that, even to this day.

  ‘I kept saying I just went up there to play with Alison. I was only seven, I didn’t know what I was thinking but his barrister gave me a really hard time about it.

  ‘I’m just glad it’s over.’

  ‘You did so well,’ I told her. ‘I’m so proud of you, Lal. It’s my turn tomorrow.’

  ‘Did you see him, Deb?’ she asked. ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Yeah, I saw him outside smoking at lunchtime,’ I said. ‘He looked just the same but older and he hasn’t got a ponytail any more. He’s horrible, Lal, he just looks like a pathetic old man.’

  ‘Oh well,’ she sighed. ‘We’ll just do the best we can, Debbie, and see what happens.’

  But that wasn’t good enough for me. I wouldn’t be satisfied with anything other than a guilty verdict.

  That night, me, Rob and his dad went out to dinner at the local pub. I hardly ate anything and I didn’t even have a drink. That was the hardest thing for me. There was nothing I felt like more than downing a bottle of white wine but I knew I had to keep a clear head. I couldn’t go to court and give evidence with a hangover.

  ‘If you come into court under the influence, you won’t be able to give evidence and it’s game over,’ Carol had already warned me.

  I didn’t want to do anything that would risk it.

  Later on the kids phoned to see how it had gone but I couldn’t bring myself to speak to them. I knew if I heard their voices, I would break down and I didn’t want them to know I was upset.

  ‘Will you tell them what happened?’ I said to Rob.

  In hindsight maybe it was a good thing I wasn’t called to give evidence that day as I was a wreck. It had given me a dry run in a way. I’d seen the court, I’d seen Ryan. Now I felt better prepared.

  I knew I desperately needed to get some sleep, so I took some diazepam, just enough to knock me out but not enough so that I’d feel groggy in the morning. It did the trick and I managed to get three or four hours.

  I woke up the next morning and then it hit me.

  ‘Today’s the day,’ I said to Rob. ‘I honestly don’t think I can do it.’

  ‘Deb, you’re going to be fine,’ he told me. ‘Just stand up in that court and tell the truth and that will be enough.’

  I prayed he was right.

  The reason I had to get through this was because of Ryan. All the years of suffering that I’d been through were because of him.

  ‘I haven’t come this far to see him get off,’ I said.

  I was so determined that I was going to make him pay for what he’d done to Laraine and me.

  The police had advised us to get there early to try and avoid Ryan and his family but as we walked up to the court entrance, they were all out front again, having a smoke.

  ‘Put your head down and just keep walking,’ said Rob, putting a protective arm around me.

  But I had nothing to be ashamed of. I looked straight at Ryan and this time he saw me. For a split second we locked eyes and he just glared at me. He still had that gauze dressing over his dodgy eye.

  He was only sixty-four but he looked like an old man. I wasn’t frightened or scared but I still felt humiliated. It made me angry that he still had the power to make me feel so ashamed all these years later.

  If Rob and Lorna hadn’t been with me, steering me away, then I knew I would have gone over to him and given him a mouthful. Just seeing him sat there was enough to make me want to go over and kill him with my bare hands. I was so determined to make him face justice. I wanted to make him pay for his crimes and I knew the only way that I could do that was through the court.

  ‘Come on, Deb,’ said Rob, ushering m
e inside.

  Lorna and I went straight to the witness room while Rob took his place in the public gallery.

  ‘Good news, the case has been moved to court one today,’ Carol told me.

  It was such a relief that it was going to be in the bigger court as it meant Ryan would be much further away from me.

  At 10am on the dot, Jo came down to the witness room.

  ‘Debbie, they’re ready for you now,’ she said.

  I was so nervous, I couldn’t even reply.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Just tell the truth.’

  I’d been waiting for this moment for so long that it didn’t seem real. Here we were again. Down another corridor, through some double doors and then we were suddenly standing outside courtroom one.

  ‘Debbie, I just want to doublecheck one last time, that you’re sure you don’t want a screen up when you’re giving evidence so that Ryan can’t see you?’ asked Carol. ‘There’s one in the courtroom. It’ll only take two minutes to put it up.’

  ‘I’m sure,’ I said. ‘I don’t want no screen – I want him to see me. I’ve got nothing to hide.’

  Jo pushed open the door and I took a deep breath and went in. It felt like everyone’s eyes were on me as I walked across the courtroom towards the witness box. The first person I saw was Patrick Ryan, sat on the right in the dock behind a glass screen. He was slouched on a chair with his leg up and his elbow resting on his knee, a security guard flanking him on one side. He didn’t look nervous and he didn’t show any reaction when I walked in, but as I walked across the court to the witness box, I could feel him watching me.

  The jury was a sea of faces straight ahead of me. There were a couple of young people and some women who looked to be around my age. I knew the man at the far left was the foreman and he was in his fifties.

  As I stepped into the witness box, I was shaking like a leaf. I felt totally out of my depth. I could see both barristers sat there at the front and I was terrified about what they were going to ask me.

  The court usher, an older lady in a black robe, held up a bible and I had to swear on it. There was a microphone and it felt strange hearing my voice, quivering with nerves, echoing around that huge courtroom.

  After I’d taken the oath, Judge Tomlinson turned to me and said, ‘Mrs Grafham, please take a seat.’