Please, Daddy, No. Stuart Howarth

      

      Please, Daddy, No

      Stuart Howarth

      A BOY BETRAYED

      WITH ANDREW CROFTS

       Copyright

      HarperElement

      An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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      The website address is: www.thorsonselement.com

      and HarperElement are trademarks of HarperCollinsPublishers Limited

      Published by HarperElement 2006

      © Stuart Howarth 2006

      Stuart Howarth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Ebook Edition © JANUARY 2010 ISBN: 9780007279975

       Version 2019-10-22

       TO MY SISTERSHIRLEY ANNE HOWARTH

       1 FEBRUARY 1965 – 8 FEBRUARY 1991AGED 26 YEARS

       I miss you, ‘Shirl the Whirl’,and today I know that you escaped awayto peace and freedom.

       I watch you dance in the summer meadows,running free and chasing butterflies.

       Today I smile for us all –love you!

      Table of Contents

       Cover Page

       Title Page

Copyright

       Dedication

Introduction

Chapter One Driving West

Chapter Two Mum And The Bin Man

Chapter Three The Pen

Chapter Four A More Private World

Chapter Five A Very Naughty Boy

       Chapter Six Our Clare

       Chapter Seven Just Messing Around

       Chapter Eight The Man Of The House

       Chapter Nine No Answers

       Chapter Ten My Rock

       Chapter Eleven A Time Bomb

       Chapter Twelve Tracey

       Chapter Thirteen The Lump Hammer

       Chapter Fourteen Forget Everything

       Chapter Fifteen Kicking Off

       Chapter Sixteen Strangeways

       Chapter Seventeen Did You Enjoy It?

       Chapter Eighteen Guilty Or Not Guilty

       Chapter Nineteen Pictures Of The Outside World

       Chapter Twenty A New Father Figure

       Acknowledgements

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      There are thousands of kids out there, just like me, who suffer abuse on a daily basis. You can turn a blind eye and consider this too nasty to read about, or you can take a courageous step forward and share a few moments from my world. We can only bring about change by doing something positive and being prepared to listen. This is my story.

       Chapter One DRIVING WEST

      I know when I set out from Mum’s pub that evening, 20 August 2000, I intended to go to pick up my girlfriend, Tracey, from her house. I know I intended to because otherwise I would never have taken the road I did. If I had set out with the intention of driving back to Wales I would have taken a more direct route.

      Something happened inside my head between leaving Mum’s and getting to Tracey’s place, which stopped me from turning off the road. I just kept on going west. I know I didn’t have any set plan in my head; I just wanted a lot of answers to a lot of questions. Why had he done the things he’d done to me and the girls? Did he still love me? Was he sorry for what he’d done to the family? Was he really my dad or not?

      A good few miles down the road, when it dawned on me where I was heading, I phoned Tracey. ‘I need to sort this thing,’ I told her. ‘I need