I would love to say that I felt guilty about the damage I caused to myself and the countless women who I sold for sex. But at the time, I was so preoccupied about where my next high was coming from and so driven by making money to feed my crack cocaine habit I didn't care.
I was 13 and living in a small coastal town in Devon with my Gran when I was taken into care. The other children my age were already doing burglaries. I began being exploited early on. I was small so they used to put me through the windows to gain access. I was strong willed and keen to impress β the approval of the other children made me feel important, perhaps for the first time ever.
My mum was an alcoholic who had left me in the hospital the day I was born, before fleeing to Australia. It made me totally incapable of loving anybody. Social workers made their decisions about my life based on policy, rather than me as an individual child. From the beginning, we were the forgotten children β the care home kids nobody wanted.
I was sexually abused by both staff and other kids over a two-year period. One boy used to pin me against the wall and put his hand inside my knickers and then one night, a male staff member came into my bedroom and touched my breasts whilst I was asleep. Within a few months, he started to rape me.
But I became adept as shutting myself down and distancing myself from the pain. I started hanging around with a group of people I met on a street corner in Bayswater as teenagers do.
