After a terrible night’s sleep, I got up extra-early. It was Lilly’s first birthday and we made a big fuss of her with lots of presents. I had hoped to throw a party for her, but I cancelled it once the trial was confirmed. I know she didn’t have a clue what was going on and we could have actually celebrated her birthday any day of the year, but it was a big deal for Paul and me. We had planned to have a bouncy castle in the garden and had been looking forward to everyone having a fun day.
Instead, there she was, feeling so poorly and looking sorrowfully at her presents. I wished I could have split myself in two that day. I left the house feeling full of guilt and sad that there was another moment in my children’s life that I would never get back again.
Driving to Lewes, I was a trembling wreck. As I approached the town, a news report came on the radio –‘Today, the schoolgirl, who we cannot name for legal reasons, is due to give evidence in court in the trial which …’ – which only made me feel worse. I immediately switched it off. It felt almost too real to hear it being talked about so publicly. I kept saying to myself over and over again: ‘Gemma, sweetheart, please come to court, please come to court …’
I felt sick with worry about how she must be thinking. How on earth was she meant to get through her exam, knowing she would have to go straight to court once she had finished? She had been adamant that she wasn’t going to go, but she must have known in her heart that there was no getting away from it. I was scared that she would walk out of the exam, see Max and Hannah waiting for her and try to run away.
I arrived at the car park in Lewes and met up with Chloe, Darcee and Sarah, and they each gave me a reassuring hug. We didn’t need to say anything, we all knew that day was going to be a totally different ball game to the previous one.
After a coffee, the walk up the hill and the barrage of the press, we were taken upstairs to the witness services area. This time, though, instead of being taken into the main room, we were led to a side room.
Mark Ling came to see me to check if I was OK and informed me that Gemma had been brought to court and was now sitting in a room two doors up from us. He explained that she would be appearing via a videolink from the witness room, rather than being in the courtroom in person. A court usher would be sitting with her throughout.
It was heartbreaking knowing that she was so close by and not being allowed to go in and see her. If I could have run in and whisked her away, I wouldn’t have hesitated; I was so scared for her. All I could think about was what Forrest was putting her through.
I asked the woman who was looking after us in witness services to let Gemma know that I was only two doors away and was there for her if she needed me at all. Everyone knew that she wasn’t speaking to me. Max was waiting with her until the session started, but Mark Ling and Neil Ralph reassured me that she was fine.
No matter what anyone said to me, I was feeling like a nervous wreck, and even worse when I heard the dreaded PA announcement. ‘All parties in the case of Jeremy Ayre Forrest, please go to court number two’. I could virtually see my heart beating.
With Chloe back downstairs, sitting in the public gallery, Darcee and I got ready for more clock-watching and thumb twiddling. I’d been told that the day would begin with the defence opening statement, after which Gemma would appear via videolink.
After about an hour, Chloe came back to see us. The session had been delayed, as Judge Michael Lawson, QC wanted to speak to Gemma before the cameras were switched on for her to appear via videolink. It gave me great comfort to know how well she was being looked after.
What Chloe told me next came as a surprise. Gemma had asked for the courtroom to be cleared, as she didn’t want Mum, Charlotte or Chloe to be there. She seemed to be fine about other people being in the public gallery – including Forrest’s parents – and I wondered if it might have been because she didn’t want her nan to hear intimate details of her relationship with Forrest.
I didn’t have a clue how Gemma would have known that she could request to have the courtroom cleared. Mum was really upset about it. To her, it underlined how badly their relationship had fallen apart. It was so sad; the two of them used to be so close. Chloe tried to reassure Mum that it was probably just because she was embarrassed about the whole thing, but she was heartbroken.
Gemma didn’t know Darcee well, and so we decided that she would sit in the public gallery for the afternoon session and keep taking notes for me to read after I had given my evidence. Chloe would wait with me outside the courtroom, while Mum and Charlotte went home.
Whether she liked it or not, Gemma couldn’t ask for Sarah, our family social worker, to leave the courtroom. She had initially cooperated with Sarah, but their relationship had deteriorated when she refused to condone her relationship with Forrest or accept it as the great love story that Gemma believed it to be.
Sarah had spent so much time with our family and had seen firsthand how much it had emotionally devastated us. She constantly reassured me that I was doing the right thing and told me that she understood how I felt. Gemma had been molested by a sex offender, and I was struggling to accept it. Even writing those words now makes me feel like the worst mother in the world.
While Sarah had become a lifeline for me, Gemma believed that she was on ‘the other side’ and wasn’t looking out for her at all. Despite everything, though, Sarah and her team never once stopped providing support to Gemma.
Back at court in the afternoon, I saw Forrest’s mum and sister waiting to go in the courtroom. His mother and I looked at each other and we shared a kind of half-smile – it was a look that said, ‘I know what you are going through’.
I knew that she was suffering as much anxiety and stress as I was. Whatever he had done, Jeremy Forrest was still the son she had given birth to. Obviously, it wasn’t like we were about to introduce ourselves and bond over the situation we were in, it was just an unspoken look that said we shared so much.
Darcee went into the courtroom in the afternoon while Chloe and I waited outside.
Later than usual, as there had been a number of breaks while the judge spoke to Gemma, the court session ended for the day. Again, I understood that I couldn’t know the exact details of what was going on, but Darcee told us the format of the afternoon. The court had been shown video footage of the long interview Gemma had given at the police house in Hailsham on Wednesday, 3 October, a week after her return from France. Meanwhile, in a corner of the screen, Gemma’s live reaction from the nearby witness room was shown.
I was confident that I knew exactly what had been discussed during that interview, so that was one less thing for me to worry about. Gemma had confided in me about what she had talked about with the police, so for once I didn’t have that desperate need to know what was going on.
Later I learned that the court was told how the relationship between Gemma and Forrest had started – how she had started following Forrest on Twitter before she went on the half-term school trip to Los Angeles in February 2012, how he had covered for her so that she wouldn’t get punished for swimming in the hotel pool without permission, and how she had held hands with him on the flight home.
The court also heard how she had asked a friend to get his mobile number and they had begun texting one another, how they had kissed each other for the first time in a classroom, and how things got more serious after that. Forrest had apparently sent her a text message which read: ‘We can wait until you are 16, but I really want to have intimacy in our relationship’.
Darcee was visibly upset about what she had heard. She has children and grandchildren of her own, so I knew that she would have put herself in my shoes as she listened to the evidence.
Of course, at the time she couldn’t tell me what had happened, or how Gemma had been reacting as she was watching the video footage of the interviews, but I was later to find out that Gemma had been really upset.
Totally drained, I went back home and joined Paul and the family. Even though I hadn’t actually even been in the courtroom, I felt emotionally exhausted. I took a coffee out to the garden and sat on the swing seat. The next thing I knew, I woke up in a daze and it was 8pm. I had only gone out to clear my mind for five minutes, but I had obviously needed longer to process everything that was happening.