FAMILY LIFE: Our neighbours would have heard the screams but they were too scared to tell anyone...

MUM-OF-FIVE Laura* hasn’t seen her father in 22 years, but not a day goes by when she doesn’t feel the mental and physical scars left by the abuse she suffered during her childhood.

Several damaged discs in her spine, frequent seizures and migraines are among the souvenirs she has of her younger years in another part of the country, in the days when she went by another name.

She’s now 38, lives quietly in Swindon and is in the process of writing a book telling the story of her early life, which she hopes will raise money for charities that help abused children and lead to a greater awareness of a hidden problem in the UK.

Yet while the project can be cathartic at times, it also has the power to stir memories that she has kept locked away for many years, recollections that often lead her to suffer bad dreams and flashbacks.

It also reminds her of all the people whom she’s sure must have noticed some of the signs that all was not well at home — the bruised legs, bandaged hands, twisted ankles and, above all, the quiet, reserved girl who would sit on her own, chewing the sleeve of her jumper.

Even if they had their suspicions, they never acted on them. And so the abuse went on: brutal punishments for trivial misdemeanours that finally came to an end when her father’s behaviour became so worrying that Laura convinced her mother and two younger brothers to leave their family home and move to a refuge.

Distressingly, the catalogue of abuse started when she was a newborn baby. Her mum had gone to the shops and returned to find that her father had thrown the tiny girl across the room and repeatedly spat on her.

“He lost his temper because I was crying,” she says.

While this happened when she was too young to form a memory, she clearly recalls a time when she was a toddler trying to do up her shoe laces.

“I couldn’t do it and he kicked me to the ground and continued to kick me with his steel toe caps,” she says.

Over the years the ‘punishments’ meted out to Laura should she be late home or commit some other indiscretion included beatings with metal bars, with one used to smash her fingers.

Another time she was made to walk to the woods with her father so that she could ‘select’ a stick for him to hit her with, sometimes across her bare bottom.

“Afterwards he would go down the pub, come back, sit me on his lap and tell me ‘I am sorry, but it was your fault’,” she says.

Possibly the most serious of his punishments happened when she was 11 and had broken a garage window while she was feeling particularly stressed.

Her father’s response was to bang her head against a wall so many times that she passed out, with her mother ‘enthusiastically encouraging’ him, says Laura, who remembers being given a blackcurrant-flavoured cold remedy containing paracetamol in the aftermath of the attack.

Despite suffering countless injuries, Laura rarely went to hospital.

“He said he would kill us if we went to the doctors,” she explains.

“The only time I was permitted medical attention was after my mother smashed a plate across my arm at the dinner table, requiring stiches at the nearest community hospital, where staff failed to pick up on the abuse.

“My dad was quite clever in the way he usually beat me on parts of my body that would be covered by clothes. Once he smashed my leg with an iron bar and my veins ruptured, causing my leg to be black, but none of the teachers took any notice. Our neighbours would have heard the screams but they were too scared to tell anyone.

“I have a distinct memory of thinking how pretty the Christmas lights looked when they reflected against the gloss paint that dad used on the walls and ceilings; it was only later that I realised that he used this paint because it was easier to wash off blood splatters.”

The abuse led Laura to be introverted at school and attract the attention of bullies, a situation not helped by the short hair on which her father had insisted so that she did not appear attractive to boys.

And while most of what he did was physical, there were occasions when she feared it would become sexual.

“From the age of 10 I had to wash him in the bath, I would have to rub his back while he flicked through pornographic magazines,” she says.

“When I sensed things were going more that way I began to stand up to him more. I would rather be beaten than touched.”

While fearful for herself, Laura was very protective of her brothers, often bearing the brunt of her father’s rages herself so that they would not be hurt.

One day the family had gone out on a trip and one of the brothers had been walking slowly because his attention had been drawn by insects.

“Dad threw him into a patch of brambles and stinging nettles,” recalls Laura. “People who were walking by did nothing. It was like we were invisible to the world. I had to get him out and comfort him.”

Laura’s convinced one of her siblings might now be dead if she hadn’t intervened on one occasion, when her brother knocked over some emulsion paint in his room.

“When dad realised what had happened he came charging in with mum behind him. I was in there with my brother, under the bed covers, and put my arms around him to protect him. Dad kept punching the bed where my brother’s head would have been, violently enough to kill him, but in fact he was punching my arms.

“I used to think about running away; the thing that stopped me was my brothers who would have nobody to protect them.”

The police became involved with the family when Laura, her mother and siblings fled to a refuge after her father had threatened to kill them, and actually drove his car at his wife, forcing her to jump clear. But no action was taken when it emerged that his 16-year-old daughter was the only person who would be prepared to give evidence against him.

Since then she has rarely communicated with her remaining family, including her mother whom she accuses of standing by and sometimes even egging on her father.

“I think my mum had started to give up,” she says. “Nowadays I know where she lives but don’t want anything to do with her. I can understand why women stay in abusive relationships, but to beat your children yourself and encourage your partner takes it to another level. I feel she’s brainwashed my brothers against me. One was hitting alcohol when he was 11.

“I haven’t seen my dad since I was 16. Since then I’ve changed my name and done everything I can to ensure he can’t find me.”

Laura has thought about her father’s behaviour a lot over the years and puzzled over the reason why he treated her so badly.

She describes him as a very nasty man, a person obsessed by the Nazis, who belonged to a gang, owned several guns and would hit his own mother when he was younger. But with all five of her own children growing up with autistic conditions, she has increasingly wondered if the traits they display are genetically linked to him.

“The more I learn about autism, the more I’m convinced that my dad has it,” she says. “I don’t think he was ever diagnosed and given the right help.

“He could never control his feelings or emotions.”

Her theory would certainly explain his extreme reaction the time he found that the lid of a Marmite jar was not screwed on straight, which would have grated on somebody obsessed with neatness and order.

Laura first learned what it was like to feel truly loved after she met her husband, Alan, when she was 18.

He’s been her rock over the past 20 years, helping her to cope with her physical problems and other issues.

Up until seven years ago she was able to get around on crutches, although she says she walked like a penguin due to her sciatica and pelvic pain.

She has been confined to a wheelchair after slipping on some decking seven years ago.

“It was a relief meeting Alan,” she says. “He’s had to put up with a lot from me.

“For quite a few years I was paranoid and a bit clingy, but things have levelled out.”

Nowadays her prime focus is on her own children who, while challenging at times, all have their own characteristics and the undying love of their mum.

“They’re all brilliant kids,” she says.

“If anyone was to harm or cross them they would have me to deal with.

“My daughter helps take care of me, picking me up when I fall and helping with the boys. She makes a huge difference to my life.”

Laura says her childhood experiences made her strong in mind, if not in body, and she feels fortunate that she never felt the overwhelming urge to drink, take drugs or self harm, as many others in her situation end up doing.

She says workers at the refuge were kind to her and a couple kept in contact after she left, which helped her a lot.

Writing her book is proving to be a slow, painful process but she’s determined to do it.

“Child abuse is an issue people don’t like to talk about because it’s uncomfortable,” she says.

“I think there are subtle tell-tell signs that professionals such as teachers can pick up on. It’s something we should all be aware of.”

* Laura is not her real name.