MY LIFE OF AGONY WITHOUT MILLY
In a heartbreaking new book, murdered schoolgirl’s sister tells of shattering impact the brutal crime had on her own health
THE shattering affect of Milly Dowler’s murder on her family has been laid bare by the schoolgirl’s older sister 15 years after the case. Gemma Dowler, now 31, revealed yesterday in heartbreaking detail how she and her mother struggled with the mental trauma of losing a beloved sister and daughter.
Milly was 13 when she was abducted and murdered on her way home from school in Walton-onThames, Surrey, in March 2002. Gemma was 16.
The killer, Levi Bellfield, was responsible for a series of murders and attacks on young women in South-West London and Surrey.
The sisters’ mother battled anxiety, depression and very dark thoughts, Gemma reveals in a book she has now written about her family’s harrowing ordeal.
And she admits she also needed pioneering therapy to recover from the devastating psychological impact of the case – which included her drinking too much in the runup to Bellfield’s murder trial.
Discussing the book on ITV’s This Morning yesterday, Gemma explained how therapy recommended by her mother had helped her recover from the trauma.
She told the programme: ‘I’ve kind of done quite a lot of therapy, but it wasn’t until ten years later I got diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
‘And then I found some EMDR therapy, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. It’s a relatively new kind of therapy, they give it to army veterans and police when they see horrific things and basically it takes you back to the memory.
‘The only reason I went was for mum and she said, “This will make you feel like you’re closer to Milly, this will bring Milly back into your memories,” and I was like, “Well I don’t believe that,” and then three sessions down it was just like, “Oh my gosh”.’
Explaining her decision to write her book about Milly now, Gemma went on: ‘The only book I wanted to write was from love and my courage and to make sure that when my children read about it in the future they’ll be able to read it through the words that I’ve chosen.’
She added: ‘I feel like I’ve been fighting to be heard for 15 years. As a child when it happened that’s the worst thing that can happen to a child is they get shut out from everyone, so now I really feel like everyone is listening.’
Gemma also revealed how Milly’s death caused their mother Sally to consider ending her own life – unable to cope with the grief.
‘Mum was always worried I would never have a future and that was her main concern,’ she told the programme. ‘I was obviously worried that she didn’t want to live any more because at stages she said that. So I think it’s really important that I’ve written it all down and… have it on record.
‘It was so hard, I think I didn’t really realise how much it would affect me now and how much trauma there was. When you document it all in a book like this it’s like, “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe we’ve survived just … another hit, another hit, another hit”.
‘The emotional rollercoaster we were all on was so ridiculous. You’d be fine one moment and then the police would ring and it would be like, “Gosh what’s going on now?”’
The book is called My Sister Milly and features never seen before pictures of the schoolgirl. It also tells how Milly wrote a school essay about the murder of another abducted girl just two months before her own death. She said that what had happened to Sarah Payne in July 2000 had ‘surely stole the hearts of the nation’.
The book does not hold back in criticising Surrey Police’s handling of the case, attacking officers as being ‘fixed’ on suspecting her innocent father Bob in the early stages of the inquiry.
Another recent example of the force’s alleged mishandling of the investigation, after a jail confession by the real killer, is described by her a ‘world class **** up’. She also accuses police of trying to silence her family when they wanted to make a statement about the development. There are also forceful comments about the aggressive tactics used by lawyers representing Levi Bellfield, at his Old Bailey prosecution in 2011.
Bellfield is serving a whole life sentence for Milly’s abduction, rape and murder. He admitted his guilt in 2015 after asking to see detectives. He was already serving a whole-life jail term for the murders of Amelie Delagrange, 22, in 2004 and Marsha McDonnell, 19, in 2003, and the attempted murder of Kate Sheedy, 18, in 2004.
He lived 50 yards from where Milly vanished but, as a result of the blunders by Surrey Police, did not become a suspect until after he was arrested by Scotland Yard in 2004 for the other attacks.
Surrey Police said last night: ‘The force has apologised to the Dowler family for the impact the investigation has had and continues to have on them.’
‘Fighting to be heard for 15 years’ ‘Asked to see detectives’