Hailey's Story--She Was an Eleven-Year-Old Child. He Was Soham Murderer Ian Huntley. This is the Story of How She Survived (15 page)

‘Why, where are we going?' I wanted to know.

‘Just jump on,' he said in a reassuring tone.

Then I realised what this was all about. He knew Colin's sister-in-law, Michaela, was happy for me to stay with her because we had been talking about her earlier that morning.

‘Well, if that is where you want to be, then that is
where you want to be,' he said to me. Michaela hadn't contacted Uncle Kev about the idea, nor had social services. He was acting on his own initiative.

‘What's her address, by the way?' he asked.

I gave it to him and he said, ‘Have you been on the back of a bike before?'

‘No,' I replied hesitantly.

‘Well, don't tell anybody we've done this,' he chuckled, adding, ‘I would rather take you myself and know that you are safe rather than thinking that you will hitchhike or get the bus.'

Uncle Kev was a special constable, like my stepfather, and I was thinking, Not only are you a copper, but also you're my uncle. You're supposed to be saying, ‘No, you will stay here.'

When we got to Michaela's house he came in with me to confirm that she was happy for me to stay there. She told him yes and that I would have her daughter's bedroom as she was moving out.

Later that day, Michaela rang social services and informed them, ‘I've got Hailey here with me. She's happy for me to look after her and her uncle's happy for me to look after her.'

Social services said, ‘She has got rights at 15, believe it or not, so she can stay where she wants to be, basically.'

I settled in, had my tea that night and then there was an ominous but familiar knock, knock, knock… There was a copper at the door again!

‘Hailey?' he said.

Pretty pissed off with it all, I yelled, ‘Yes!'

‘We're just coming to check that the property is all right and that you're safe here,' he said.

With that, he got on his radio and said, ‘Yes, I've got her here now. She is coming with me.'

‘Have you not got anything better to do? I stormed. ‘You can see that I am safe, I
am
being looked after. I
am
happier than I have ever been. Tell me, what problems am I causing? On Monday I am going to enrol at the college, and then when I am 16 I will carry on my relationship with Colin, if that is what he wants.'

This copper wouldn't listen. ‘No, come with me, come with me,' he insisted.

Wearily I said, ‘Right. OK then.'

As we walked out of the house, Michaela made a bit of fuss, saying, ‘I've rung social services.'

It turned out that I was being taken back to the Coach House. It was all part of a plan that became clear the next day, a Sunday, when, bizarrely, David Baxter, my biological father, phoned the pub to make arrangements to pick me up, along with all my stuff.

I just can't, for the life of me, think how the police could apply so much effort and resources into
rag-dolling
me about from pillar to post. Anyway, the person my mum had been so fearful I'd end up living with was the very one I was going to be staying with now. And it was all because, for some reason,
she
had
now involved him. To me, David Baxter was a complete stranger. I think I had only seen him once, when I was about 11. And that was for about ten minutes.

I felt in a worse position going with him than living in a halfway house. When he arrived at the pub he pompously announced, ‘Young lady, get in this car. I am your father.'

I said, ‘Listen, mate, let's get on the right foot here. Anybody can be a sperm donor, and anybody can put sperm into a cup and get somebody pregnant.'

Taken aback, he said warily, ‘Right.'

I continued, ‘And in my life, that's what you are. You weren't there for me to change my nappies, to take me out to the park, to take me fishing, swimming, anything like that. You were just not there and you never made any attempt.'

‘Yes, I did. Yes, I did,' he defended himself pathetically.

I angrily retorted, ‘No, you didn't, because you knew where I lived and you could have just banged on the door – “Right, Hailey. Hi, I'm your father” – instead of coming to collect me now, but you never did. You just totally blanked me.'

Visibly shaking, he responded feebly, ‘I've got six other kids and to all these different women.'

I kept calling him ‘Dave' or ‘David'. He was miffed by this and said, ‘I'm your father, young lady. I am not David, I am your dad.'

‘No! That is where you are wrong,' I told him. ‘Yes,
by law I am your daughter. But you are not my dad. I've got “Edwards” as my name. I was not happy there and I certainly am
not
going to be happy here.'

We arrived at his house and he said to me, ‘This is my wife Anita, this is my son Daniel, and Anita's just had a baby called Emma.'

I just didn't want to know him. No, you have done nothing for me, I thought. I don't need you in my life, you are a stranger. At one point I was curious to see the plant that produced the seed I had grown from, to see what he looked like, but that was it.

The next morning he held his hand out and said, ‘There's your pound.'

I should have remembered what my mum told me about strangers and, most of all, taking money from strangers. ‘What's that for?' I asked.

Frostily, he barked instructions at me like a pantomime baddie. ‘You walk down the road, you jump on the bus and then, when you finish college, you get off the bus and you come home.'

I was astounded by his flagrant lack of compassion as I asked, ‘Where's the bus stop? How do I get there? Is it just one bus I need to get on? I mean, it's Burton upon Trent, it's like a big place. I don't know anybody.'

I set off and I was just about to get on this bus with ‘College' displayed on the front. Which college, though? The fare was 80 pence and, as the driver didn't believe I was of school age, he classed me as an adult.
‘No, I'm not, I'm off to the college,' I protested.

The power-crazed driver said, ‘No, I'm sorry, I don't believe you. I'm going to charge you the full amount.'

I had 20 pence to my name. What was I going to get with 20 pence? I couldn't even afford the return fare.

During the day,
he
rang me. ‘Now then, young lady, how are you?'

I gave him the same coldness back that he had earlier shown me. ‘Oh, I'm great. Thanks for your generosity.'

He responded with mock-innocence, ‘What do you mean?'

I stated the obvious. ‘It cost me 80 pence on the bus to get here.'

‘Right, don't worry about it. I'll pick you up after college, right?'

So I rang Colin with the 20-pence piece that I had and found out that he was working back at the fish factory in Hull. We were just chatting and then it all came out. I told him I was unhappy and he said, ‘Just stick it out. Don't worry about it, you'll be fine. How's he treating you?'

‘Like shit.'

‘Oh.'

‘I think a dog would get better treatment than me,' I said, and did an impression of David Baxter: ‘Oi, get up here, young lady' and ‘Do this.' ‘I'm more like a skivvy to him, you know. I know what the future will hold for me here – I'll be looking after his kids whenever he
wants to go out. I'll be like a prized possession on a Friday night with his workmates going, “This is my daughter,” and “There you are, Hailey, have a Coke.” Yeah, great.'

I remember when I first landed at David Baxter's house, for the first three or four days he gave me forty cigarettes a day. And then, on top of that, every time he would have a cigarette he would say to me, ‘Here you are, do you want one?'

He smoked what seemed like three cigarettes every ten minutes and I was thinking, Go for it, fine by me. At the end of each day I had smoked the forty fags plus maybe ten more that he had dished out. Fine. But this went on for those three or four days only. After that I wasn't given any at all and I had to ask, ‘Please, do you mind if I pinch a cigarette off you?'

‘No,' came his terse reply.

Not amused, I asked, ‘Why not?'

Self-importantly he said, ‘Because, my way of teaching, you will learn a lesson.'

‘What lesson is that then?' I said mockingly.

Seeing how he behaved, I could see where Mum had got her Jekyll and Hyde character: she was a mirror image of David Baxter. In an effort to piss me off and make me sick of smoking, he was trying aversion therapy on me. He tried, unsuccessfully, to
psychologically
break me. When I questioned him about why he wouldn't give me any cigarettes after his own version
of Pavlov's dogs, the words he used were: ‘I was hoping it would make you sick and you wouldn't want to smoke any more.'

After feeding me more than forty cigarettes a day for three or four days, he expected me to no longer need them. Backwards thinking, I say. But I bragged cheekily, ‘It would take more than forty fags to make me sick. Bloody hell, you know that was a bit of a childish thing to do, wasn't it?' And I warned him, ‘Listen, mate, Mum has tried it. She has been there, she has worn the T-shirt and I show her enough respect that I will not smoke in front of her.'

On my first Saturday there, I told him, ‘I am off out.'

‘Where are you going?' he asked in his obnoxious way.

I said, ‘I'm off to Leeds with some friends from college who've got a car to do a bit of shopping.'

It was a cock and bull story. I had saved up a few 20-pence pieces from the change left over from the bus money, and I went to the pub and called Colin at the house we used to live in together. I told him I was going to Leeds for the day. But then I set off for his place, to give him a big surprise. Luckily, some friends of mine from college were going that way and gave me lift.

When I turned up on his doorstep he threw his arms up in despair. I was still 15 and his bail conditions meant he had to stay away from me. ‘Oh, Hailey, we can't,' he implored me. ‘You know, we're going to get into a load
of trouble. Look, just try and stick it out until you are 16 and then you can do whatever you want.'

I was desperate too, about living with my father. ‘I can't,' I said. With that, my phone rang (worst luck for me at this moment, although my phone was out of credit, it could accept incoming calls) and it was Baxter screaming obscenities down the line at me. ‘Get home now!' he yelled.

‘What's the matter?' I asked as smugly as I could.

‘You're going wrong. I am not happy with you, young lady,' he said.

I took great delight in saying, ‘Well, tell me what it is and we will resolve the problem.'

‘Get home now!' he blasted back.

‘I can't, I'm on my way to Leeds,' I lied.

‘You can't be on your way to Leeds. Get home now,' he said, flying off the handle again. He knew that I had kept in touch with Colin and guessed correctly that I had gone to see him.

‘No,' I shouted.

The snake had got himself all in a lather. ‘I have looked through your diary and I know the house number in the street that you used to live in. I also know that you've been phoning Colin.'

I was furious that he had looked at my diary and I spat, ‘There's nothing like respect around here, is there?'

Childishly, he said, ‘I am not telling you what you have done wrong, but get home now.'

‘No, just leave me to it and I will be home later on,' I said defiantly.

I was planning on going back about five o'clock that afternoon, after being with Colin.

For all his airs and graces of calling me ‘young lady', Baxter went on swearing down the phone at me and telling me to get back at once. I switched the phone off. ‘I'm not having anyone talking to me like that,' I said to Colin. ‘I may be only 15, but that is shit the way he is talking to me.'

Colin tried to calm me down. ‘What's the matter, darling?' he said.

But I was still raging. ‘I don't know what I've done wrong. I've done something wrong and, if I have done it, fine, I will admit it and go, “Fine, sorry.” There is nothing more I can do but say sorry.'

He soothed, ‘Turn your phone back on and answer it and find out what the frigging hell is going on.'

As I switched my phone back on, it started ringing and, when I answered, Baxter said, ‘Right, young lady, come home tonight. We will sit down, I'll buy you some White Lightning cider and a pizza and we'll talk about it.'

‘Talk about what?' I asked. ‘Tell me now, because there's nothing that is more annoying than trying to wind me up by saying that I have done something wrong and then trying to entice me to come back. Just tell me what I have done wrong.'

His true colours came out when he reached the end of his tether. ‘You get home now or you'll end up back at your mother's, if I have my way.'

Colin's face was a picture of sadness as he said, ‘You can't stay here because I am going to get into shit. I really want to help you but I can't.'

I thought, You're the one that I want to be with and people can see that, but they are not letting me. My feelings for Colin had been growing stronger and he cared a lot about me.

I wasn't going to go back to Baxter's. Instead, I went to Michaela's house and stayed there for a while. Colin had little to do with this, and Michaela rang social services and said, ‘I'm just calling to let you know that Hailey is with me.'

I knew Colin and his family, and they respected me. This was the family that I wanted to be with. I knew that I would be looked after properly there. But nobody would let me do that.

By this time, Christmas wasn't far off and my mum rang and told me disdainfully, ‘Hailey, I'm not having you staying away from me near Christmas. I'm not having any of my kids going without Christmas presents. If you and Colin want to come round, I don't care if Colin comes. Come round for Christmas dinner, that's fine, and then go back and do whatever you want to do. I'm not having any of my kids going without any Christmas presents.'