It was just like a fairy tale without a happy ending Our stepmum was PURE E VIL
She was so desperate for a drink she was forced to gulp from the toilet bowl.
It was just one act of cruelty inflicted on Mandy and her sister Louise by their wicked stepmother Caroline Sharp.
Like something from a fairy tale, she moved in with their widowed father and ruled them with an iron rod, at times beat them with one.
Now after more than 40 years the sisters finally have justice after seeing evil Sharp put behind bars.
In an emotional interview, they today tell for the first time how the stepmum subjected them to a Cinderella-like ordeal, forcing them to
EAT cold congealed porridge while her own children enjoyed a lavish dinner and home-made cakes.
SLAVE over the ironing and housework while her children watched TV.
GO without baths for weeks, wear rags and have their curls cropped.
LIE to teachers about bruises after she hit them in violent outbursts.
Mandy, now 48, says: “She destroyed our lives, leaving us both psychologically scarred. I still have nightmares and wake up shaking, haunted by the memories of her evil actions.
“She treated us as slaves and never showed us an ounce of love. We were the butt of her vicious nasty moods.
“It was like a terrible fairy tale – only there was no happy ending.”
Louise, 45, adds: “I don’t remember once ever feeling loved as a little girl. My whole childhood is blighted with nasty unhappy memories of beatings, rejection and hurt.”
The sisters finally found the strength to come forward in 2015. In January this year Sharp, now 65, was jailed for two years at Grimsby crown court after pleading guilty to three historic counts of child cruelty.
Mandy and Louise want to speak out to encourage other victims to act.
Their lives changed for ever when their mum died of a brain haemorrhage aged only 23. The girls, raised in Barnetby, Lincs, were five and three.
Their dad hired Sharp as nanny and housekeeper. Within five months she worked her way into his affections and moved in, with her own children – a boy and girl of around the sisters’ age.
After having another baby with their father, she began her reign of terror.
Mandy, now a nursery nurse, recalls: “To begin with Caroline was really kind. She even told us to call her Mummy. But after she moved in, Caroline and Dad had a baby together and things changed dramatically. It was as though she had a new baby to love so Louise and I were suddenly shoved to one side. Worse, we gradually became slaves and the butt of Caroline’s bad tempers.
“I was expected to look after my new half-sister, despite being only seven. I’d give her her bottle and change her nappy. I was forced to wash dishes, do the hoovering and even the ironing. Her eldest two would be watching TV.
“If I ever dared to argue she didn’t think twice about slapping me across the face.
“I wasn’t allowed to do any homework, instead I had to clean the house.”
For dinner the sisters say they were forced to eat cold porridge in a freezing leanto extension, while watching Caroline’s own kids tuck in to a hearty meal at the dining room table.
Louise says: “Our fingers would be blue with cold.cold But we were not allowed in the house until Caroline said we could come in and even then we were just sent straight to our very bare bedroom. By then she didn’t even need an excuse to hit us. All we had to do was walk past her and she would lash out or grab one of us by the hair. It was as though she got a twisted pleas- ure out of seeing us reel in terror.”
Mandy winces as she recalls those harrowing days. “We were always starving,” she says. “But we knew by then never to ask for anything. She was a great cook and loved to bake cakes but Louise and I just had to watch as our siblings enjoyed them.
“Our only chance of eating was to steal frozen cake from the freezer when Caroline left us alone in the house, then hide it in our bedroom.
“But more than once Caroline found crumbs on our pillowcases and we took a severe beating for it.
“I remember being so thirsty that I scooped water out of the toilet bowl to quench my thirst. Soon I was too scared to go downstairs to the loo. So I would go on my brother’s mattress. He used to wet the bed and I knew Caroline would never suspect me. Our only safe place was at school. I couldn’t wait to get there. I’m sure teachers knew something was wrong.
“I’d go in covered in bruises where Caroline had hit me with a metal pole or punched me in the face. She always told me what lie to tell the teachers.”
At Christmas, Mandy and Louise – whose first names and surname have been changed to protect their identity – had to look on as Caroline’s eldest tore open piles of presents, while they got just a jigsaw, book and slippers.
Nightmares
Sharp even made them cut off their curly hair into a “short, back and sides”.
Mandy says: “I was devastated. I looked like a boy. I refused to cry because it would have given Caroline more pleasure, but I hated it.”
Louise adds: “I looked like a boy too and to make it worse she forced me to wear an ill- fitting hand- me- down uniform. I had holes in my shoes and my coat was a boy’s anorak. I looked