I have to go back a good few years to begin our story right back to 1977 when our own daughter was born.
She was a beautiful 7lb 11oz little girl who we decide to name Sarah. She wasn, t as healthy as we first thought with in two days of being born her weight went down to under 6lb we knew than that she was very ill but it took Doctors eight weeks to find out that she had Cystic Fibrous. So has you can see after we got her home we didn’t have any free time to our selves but the my other two children helped a great deal in looking after her and it made us a very close family.
Sadly Sarah died in 1982 at the age of 5 years old.
We had got used to being so busy so that she had died so were completely lost and empty and after a long discussion with my other two children we decided to start fostering not just healthy children but children with many problems. We went though months of being interviewed as a family and has indvagiwes until we were finely told that we were past and could meet our first child. Her name was Susie, she had many problems one being that she had Cerbul Parsee could not speak had was incontinent day and night but we were willing to give it a go and she lived with us14 years.
About a year after Susie came to stay with us decided to foster another child again with problems and after going into every thing again with the Social Worker (who was by the way based at Edinburgh) we were again passed as being perfectly good parents.
Katie came to live with us 1984 she was 2 years old very insecure and a very frighten little girl she could not speak and had sever learning difficultly. We were finely allowed to adopt Katie in 1986.
We worked very hard to make sure that both Susie and Katie got the best that this world could offer them even if it meant putting peoples backs up. We never worked with the Social Workers in this area because they where never any help. We always worked with Edinburgh who would visit us on a regular bases to make sure that we had no problems with Susie and they were always there if we needed them. Both the girls were happy and enjoying life to the full. Katie was no longer insecure she was doing very well at a Special Unit and Susie had a good place at a Work Centre and the Social Workers were always there if we needed them.
Everything went great until October 1996 when Katie took ill. We did not know what was wrong with her at first but after a few weeks in hospital and several test it was discovered that she had pick up the virus that caused Sydanom curea which is St Vitas Dance which is the old name for it. By the time we got her home late December Katie was in a wheel chair she could not speak go to the toilet her self or even feed her self. We even had to tie her into bed to stop her from falling out and hurting herself. This went on for about a month with her getting a little better each day. By the end of January early February she was out of the wheel chair but still not speaking there was still a lot of thing she could not do but we were managing.
Thing were getting back too normal or so we believed until David (my husband) took a heart attack and was rushed into hospital. He was in hospital about a week and was only allowed home on the understanding that he took things easy. But with two children with learning difficulties and my other two children no longer living at home it was not easy. I did ask for help from the Social Service but got nothing so we just managed our self’s.
Just after David’s heart attack and he was feeling a little better Katie decided she want a bit of fun with her Dad and started to jump up and down on his knee so to stop her put his arms about her top part of her body and squeezed which hurt her breast he said sorry to her and we thought that was the last of it, (we couldn’t have been more wrong.) It would come and haunt us for years.
Before David took ill we had planned a holiday abroad and we were in two minds as to whether or not to take it but we did finely decide to take it. We arranged for respite care for the two girls and went of to relax and enjoy ourselves it wasn, t till we got home that we found all hell had been let lose. Katie had told the respite carer that her Daddy had hurt her breast but not how it had been done and the carer reported it to the Social Works department and they were ready and waiting for us when we arrived home.
The night we got back I phoned the carer to make arrangements to pick up Katie and was not told anything about what was going on until the next morning has we were getting ready to pick both girls to bring them both home (the oldest girl was at another carer) A Social Worker and told us that Katie had made an allegation involving her Daddy and that both girls were to stay were they were until it was cleared up. They never aloud home again.
We spent months being investigate by the Police and the Social Works. The Police could find nothing to charge us with but the Social Works Department went on with it until we were beginning to think that we were the most evil parents in the world. They went so far has to suggest that if I left my husband that I would get the children home again and when I refused it was hinted that I knew all about the abuse but that I was in denial finally we were told that if we both admitted to the abuse they would return the children to us and work with us to make things right. As you can work out we were not confessing to something we did not do and we are still fighting after nearly 10 years.
There has been a lot of thing gone on though the years too many to put down so I will just bring you up to date. First of the fostered girl never came home but we were aloud to see her on a regular bases. She is in a home for the Elderly so that helped her a lot. Katie who is now 24 yrs old was cut off from everyone she knew but now my eldest son can see her one Sunday a month so long as he does not mention us and we don’t attempt to see her while he as her.
We met Katie by accident two years ago while out shopping and by look she was on her own we found out that she always wanted to see us but that the Social Worker persuaded her that it best not to see us until things were sorted out. We did manage to get her telephone number off her and phone her ever week, which they don’t like. They are keeping a very tight rope on her by applying for Guardianship, which we will be taking back into Court in the next few months’ wonder why they seem so sacred to let us have any contact.