The then-little girl, Maureen, was just 8 years old when her life changed forever.
When her older brother, her stepfather, and her mother started abusing her, the little girl had no one to turn to and kept her suffering a secret for many years, even after she gave birth to her brother’s child.
“I remember every detail of that day,” Maureen said, as she recalled the day it all began. “We had been outside, having a water fight, and as I dried off in the bathroom, my brother, John, came in and started touching me.
I didn’t understand what he was doing but I knew it felt wrong and it was horrible.”
From the memories she has of her ninth birthday, Maureen remembers being r-ped for the first time by her brother, who continued abusing her since then. A year later, her stepfather, John, walked in on her while she was being r-ped by the sibling. “I felt relieved – because I thought he would stop it. I thought he would look after me,” said Maureen, but she soon realized she was terribly mistaken as her stepfather began abusing her, too. “I hoped against hope that my mum might step in and help me. But she walked into my bedroom and called me a ‘little wh**e.’” By the age of 10, her mother also cruelly became part of the abuse. Maureen noted, “They used to make me sleep in their bed, between them, and they took it in turns to abuse me. My mum helped to get me ready for when my step-dad would r-pe me.” “It felt like the end of the world. With them all against me, I had nowhere to turn,” she added.
At the age of 13, Maureen became pregnant and her mother was mortified because she was concerned about what the neighbors would think. When Maureen gave birth to her son, Christopher, her maternal instinct kicked in immediately. “I adored him with all of my heart and for the first time in my life, I felt what love was,” Maureen said. However, a month was all that she could spend with him before finding him dead in his cot. “When he died, I felt like my life had ended, my world had finished. He was the only person I truly loved,” Maureen said. “It was raining the day we buried him. I felt like the heavens were crying with me. I just wanted to die.” Although her mother and brother stopped abusing her after her son’s death, her stepfather continued until Mauren ran away from home at the age of 16. It was only after turning 37 when Mauren was finally ready to take her family to court. Back then, she was told that she would need her son’s body to prove her story.
“His DNA would prove that my brother was his father, and that I had been telling the truth,” Maureen said. And so, she had her son’s body dug up from his grave, and officials found the DNA samples to be a match. “It was almost as if Christopher was watching over me, helping my court case. He was – and still is – my guardian angel,” the mother added. The now 51-year-old woman and proud mother of five children saw her brother sentenced to two years in jail, her mother sentenced to nine years, and her stepfather sentenced to 16. She has also told her story through the book, A Family Secret: My Shocking True Story of Surviving.
