For more than three decades Maureen Wood kept silent about a terrible family secret. Now she tells Zita Collinson about her decision to stand up against her abusers and about the baby whose memory she will never forget

MUM-OF-FIVE Maureen Wood's childhood torment remained secret for more than three decades – until she called in police four years ago.

From the age of just eight, Maureen was subjected to a shocking catalogue of assaults by her brother, stepfather and mother.

When she was 13, she had a baby boy called Christopher. In 1984, he died of cot death when he was just under a month old.

More than 20 years later, the exhumation of Christopher's body was to prove crucial in the successful prosecution of Maureen's abusers.

At Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court last year, her now 68-year-old stepfather John Wood, of Brocklehurst Way, Sneyd Green, was convicted of seven counts of rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Her 46-year-old brother John Donnelly, of Talke, received two years in jail after admitting rape, incest and indecent assault.

In a re-trial, Maureen Wood (senior), aged 65, was found guilty of four counts of aiding and abetting the rape of a girl under 16. She was jailed for nine years.

As the victim of sexual abuse, Maureen, who shares the same name as her mother, is entitled to lifelong anonymity.

But she has chosen to reveal her identity because she wants to encourage other people who have suffered similar experiences to seek help.

Maureen, now living in Penkhull and aged 41, says: "The minute I went to the police, all my fear was lifted. It wasn't my shame and guilt to deal with any more. By going to court, I handed the fear and shame back to my family.

"I'm sharing my story in the hope that others can see that there is a future after abuse. There are people out there that can help and there are people who will listen to you."

Maureen is the second youngest of six children.

She spent her early years in Glasgow and, after her parents separated when she was three, she was placed in care.

Maureen has not had any contact with her biological father since she was a toddler.

When she was seven, Maureen's mother took her out of the care system and moved to Cotswold Avenue in Knutton.

Maureen Wood senior married husband John a year later.

The couple worked at Knutton Workingmen's Club and were also employed as managers at Leek's Masonic Hall where they worked until their retirement in 2002.

They later moved to Baddeley Green and then Sneyd Green.

Maureen, a former pupil of St Mary's Catholic Primary School, in Newcastle; St John Fisher High School, and Holden Lane High School, continues: "John Wood was on the scene as soon as we moved down here from Scotland.

"I can remember them getting married at Newcastle Register Office.

"I suppose it was like any other childhood to start off with. It was normal – as normal as it could be, being part of a large family.

"My mother wasn't the nicest mother in the world. We all lived in fear because she'd got a vile temper. She was just a vile excuse for a human being. She'd got a bit of a reputation in Knutton.

"The abuse started when I was eight. My brother was the initial abuser. It started with touching and got worse. I was told that if I said anything to anybody I would be taken back into care."

It was on her ninth birthday that Maureen says her then 14-year-old brother John raped her for the first time.

"I cried throughout the whole ordeal," she says. "Then about three or four weeks later it happened again.

"My stepfather walked in and caught him. He asked what the hell was going on. I was scared, embarrassed, ashamed, but there was also massive relief because I thought that would be the end of it all. I thought it would stop but it didn't and it got worse.

"My stepfather then started to rape me from the age of about nine-and-a-half."

Although she managed to do well at school, Maureen says she became an introverted child with just a handful of friends.

She added: "My innocence and purity was snatched away from me at such a tender age. I should have been allowed to be pure and innocent.

"I didn't think about speaking to another adult about it because the fear was already instilled. My stepfather told me the family would be torn apart if I said anything."

Then, when Maureen was only 10, her mother began abusing her too.

"She became involved in what my stepfather was doing," says Maureen. "She would prepare me for him to rape me. That went on, with the three of them abusing me, until I got pregnant at 13."

The father of Maureen's baby was her brother John, then 18.

"I found out that I was five months' pregnant, when my mother dragged me to the doctors," continues Maureen, who says that her family was known to social services.

"My mother wanted me to have a termination but I was too far along with the pregnancy.

"I wouldn't have wanted one anyway even though I was only 13.

"But I was scared. The abuse stopped while I was pregnant. For the first time in my life I could remember, I wasn't being abused and it was like a little piece of heaven."

Maureen, who was home-educated during her pregnancy, gave birth in October 1984.

Christopher weighed 7lb 1oz.

She recalls: "I was persuaded to tell people that I was raped and that I didn't know who by. I was carted off to Scotland for a while.

"My mother was trying to get somebody to take me up there to save her the embarrassment.

"But it didn't work out and I was sent back down here.

"I can still remember Christopher. He had blond hair, blue eyes. It didn't matter why he came about, or where he came from. He was mine.

"That maternal instinct kicked in immediately. I loved this little being with all of my heart and for the first time in my life, I felt what love was."

M aureen returned to the family home in Knutton with Christopher, but he passed away in November 1984, aged three weeks and six days' old.

"During that time that we had him, it was almost normal at home for a while," she says. "This little boy brought about a change in everybody. He was a pretty noisy baby. He made lots of little noises when he was asleep.

"When he died, I felt like my life had ended, my world had finished. He was the only person I truly loved and he just vanished.

"It was piddling down with rain the day we buried him. I felt like the heavens were crying with me. I just wanted to die.

"I went back to school afterwards. I had to go in front of the school board before they'd let me back in and had to promise that I wouldn't have sex again."

After Christopher's death, Maureen says that her mother and brother stopped abusing her.

But her stepfather began assaulting her again only a couple of weeks after Christopher's death.

He had paid for Christopher's funeral but signed the burial plot – and the bills – over to his stepdaughter.

The abuse continued until, after a particularly violent rape, Maureen, who had begun work as a trainee at Rists, in Stoke, confided in a colleague.

Social services intervened and Maureen left home at 16 in 1987.

She began drinking to numb the pain of the abuse and by the time she was in her mid-teens she was consuming half-a-bottle of vodka a day.

Maureen maintained intermittent contact with her family after leaving home, and went on to have five children of her own – now aged between 23 and 10.

She is divorced and says her past has made forming healthy relationships during adulthood extremely difficult. She plans to eventually change her name.

"I lived in a halfway house when I was 16," she continues. "I felt free of them but, and this is going to sound really odd, she's still my mum. And even after everything she's done to me, I still love her. She gave birth to me and carried me. Yes she was a crap mum, but she's still my mum."

Although she tried to move on with her life, Maureen, who came out as a lesbian in her late-30s, suddenly began to suffer nightmares.

It was then that she contacted SAIVE, a volunteer-led organisation based in Stoke-on-Trent. She had previously sought help from the charity when she first left home.

Maureen says: "I was trying to move on and give a good life to my kids and be as good a mum to them as I could, and then the nightmares started.

"I've always told my children that they had a big brother in heaven, but they didn't know what had happened.

"My biggest fear was that I wasn't going to be believed.

"The tipping point for me was the sheer horror of my nightmares. I had to do something.

"Throughout the whole court process, the only way the CPS would take the case to court was if the Home Office would approve an exhumation of Christopher for his DNA.

"The DNA proved what I'd been saying."

Christopher's body was exhumed in July 2009 and reburied a month later. Maureen has no pictures or keepsakes from his short life.

The only physical reminder Maureen still has of her son is the small plaque from Christopher's original coffin.

"I wasn't happy (about the exhumation) because once somebody is buried, that's their final resting place but if it was the only way I could get the case heard, then it was something that had to be done," Maureen says.

"I knew it was a necessary evil.

"We didn't have a funeral service the second time around. We had a graveside service. I wrote a poem which was read out and handed out to everybody there so that they could remember Christopher.

"We also released balloons."

Maureen continues: "I was offered a screen during the trial but I didn't want it because I'm a stubborn cow. I didn't want them to think I was scared of them anymore."

Her mother and stepfather have never told Maureen that they are sorry for what they did.

But with the support of a police officer, Maureen came face-to-face with John Donnelly.

"I had some questions that I wanted to ask him," says Maureen. "The police officer sat in the room while we talked.

"He apologised to me. He knew that he'd got to be punished for what he'd done.

"But I can't forgive my stepfather and my mother. They can rot.

"If there's one thing I would ask them, it would be why?"

Maureen's 18-year-old daughter Naomi has been so inspired by her mum's courage, that she is now determined to train as a counsellor.

Naomi says: "I'm disgusted that a parent could do that to a child."

Now the mum-and-daughter team say they would like to set up their own charity offering support to other victims of sexual abuse.

Maureen has worked in the Harplands Hospital, in Hartshill, as a cleaner and trained as a hairdresser but is currently unemployed.

Maureen continues: "I look at my children and I watch them grow, and I think, 'How can anybody do what they did to me?' It's beyond comprehension how anybody can do that to a child, let alone their own child.

"I grieve for the childhood I didn't have and I grieve for the mother I didn't have. Mothers aren't meant to hurt their kids."