‘THERE IS LIFE AFTER ABUSE’
Mum’s book tells of childhood rape ordeal at hands of stepdad, brother and mum
MUM-OF-SIX Maureen Wood’s childhood abuse torment remained a secret for three decades – but now she wants to share her harrowing story in the hope of helping other survivors.
She was abused at the hands of her mother Maureen Wood (senior) and stepfather John Wood, and fell pregnant as a result of rape by her brother, John Donnelly, when she was just 13-years-old.
Maureen finally saw her tormentors locked up in 2011 after the body of her baby son Christopher – who died when he was four-weeks-old – was exhumed. DNA tests proved Donnelly was the father.
At Stoke-on-trent Crown Court, her stepdad, then aged 68, of Sneyd Green, was convicted of seven counts of rape and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Her 46-year-old brother Donnelly, of Talke, received two years in jail after admitting rape, incest and indecent assault.
In a retrial, Maureen Wood (senior), then 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, is entitled to lifelong anonymity. But she chose to reveal her identity because she wants to encourage others who have suffered similar experiences to seek help.
Ten years on from seeing justice served, Maureen has written a book
– A Family Secret: My Shocking True Story of Surviving a Childhood in Hell – which lays out the awful crimes she was victim of from the age of just eight.
Gran-of-three Maureen, now aged 50, of Penkhull, says: “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.
“Mentally I’m in the best place I’ve ever been – I’m great. Those three destroyed my childhood and I wasn’t going to let them destroy my whole adult life too.”
The second youngest of six children, Maureen’s story begins in Glasgow where she spent her earliest years until her parents separated and she was placed in care.
But at the age of seven, Maureen’s mother took her out of care and moved to Cotswold Avenue, Knutton.
A year later, her mother married John with the couple working at Knutton Workingmen’s Club and then Leek’s Masonic Hall.
“John Wood was on the scene as soon as we moved from Scotland,” says Maureen, a former pupil of St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, in Newcastle, St John Fisher High School, and Holden Lane High School.
“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. We all lived in fear because she’d got a vile temper. She was just a vile excuse for a human being.”
It was after Maureen turned eight, that everything changed.
“My brother was the initial abuser,” she says. “It started with touching and got worse. I was told that if I said anything to anybody I would be taken back into care.”
On her ninth birthday, Maureen was raped by 14-year-old John – known as Jock – 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-ahalf. I didn’t think about speaking to another adult about it because the fear was already instilled.”
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. “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 gave birth to Christopher – a healthy 7lb 1oz – in October 1984, on her brother’s 19th birthday.
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. 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. For the first time, I felt what love was.”
Maureen returned to the family home in Knutton with Christopher, but he passed away in November 1984, aged three weeks and six days’ old.
After Christopher’s death, Maureen says that her mother and brother stopped abusing her. But her stepfather began assaulting her again within just a couple of weeks.
After a particularly violent rape, Maureen, who had begun work as a trainee at Rists, in Silverdale, 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.
When she was 17, Maureen had a son, Ben, now aged 32. She went on to have four more children.
Although she tried to move on with her life, Maureen suddenly began to suffer nightmares. It was then that she contacted SAIVE, a volunteer-led organisation based in Stoke-on-trent.
Maureen says: “My biggest fear was that I wasn’t going to be believed.
“The tipping point for me was the sheer horror of my nightmares.
“The minute I went to the police, all my fear was lifted.”
While those dealing with her case believed Maureen, the only way she was going to get a conviction was to provide concrete proof. Christopher’s body was exhumed in July 2009 and
reburied a month later. “I wasn’t happy (about the exhumation),” she says, “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.”
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 faceto-face with John Donnelly.
“I had some questions,” says Maureen. “He apologised to me. He knew that he’d got to be punished.”
While both her stepdad and brother have been released from prison, Maureen’s mother died in jail.
Remarkably Maureen chose to attend the funeral and even found it in her heart to forgive her. “I went through two trials with my mum because she wouldn’t admit what she’s done,” says Maureen, who won a £200,000 settlement from Staffordshire County Council after a legal battle against social services in 2016. “By forgiving her it allowed me to heal.”
With her stepdad, Maureen only feels indifference. “If he died tomorrow, I wouldn’t care,” she says.
On why she believes now is the right time to share her story, she says: “I wasn’t ready before but last year I felt in a good place. It was strangely cathartic. It’s like the final chapter of my past has closed.
“I got my own copy this week and one of my children turned around to me and said ‘I’m proud of you, mum.’
“And if it helps just one person, I know I will have done my job.”