I just sense him, I just sense his very presence as if it’s oozing out towards me.

His barrister is a craggy-looking man who constantly stares at me over the top of his glasses. I feel intimidated by this but maybe that’s his plan. I’m later told that Dad looks about a hundred years old, and his face seems to have collapsed. I don’t want to feel one jot of sympathy for him, but I wonder what the reaction of the jury will be to this pathetic, pitiful creature. I want them to see him as he was; I want them to see the man who raped me over thirty years ago, not this weary, bewildered pensioner.

The jury is brought in while the usher gives me tissues and water. I watch them out of the corner of my eye. I think the jury is made up of eight women and four men, but I’m not 100 per cent sure. My barrister smiles at me and I think I might fall over purely out of feeling so overwhelmed. The presence of him, of my dad, feels enormous to me.

For an hour, maybe an hour and a half, my barrister gently talks me through my statement. It is more difficult than I could ever have imagined. He constantly pushes me on issues, pushing for more details, pushing, pushing, pushing, and I want to stop, I want to not have to say the words – but I know I must do this. He must do this for the sake of the jury. I knew this would be hard, but I find it so difficult to actually ‘say’ the things that happened. I am aware that my father is sitting twenty feet away from me, listening, as it goes on. I try to concentrate on the questions and make myself less aware of his presence, but it’s hard to actively ignore something when it seems to loom so large. I look either at my barrister or above the jurors. The questions are very, very sensitive and some of the answers I have to give do make me cry. The details are very personal and I feel ashamed saying them.

Relief floods through me when it’s over. I’ve noticed some of the jury trying to make eye contact with me, but I try to avoid it as I don’t know if it’s allowed. The judge is stony-faced. I can’t guess what he’s thinking. After my barrister has finished, the judge asks me if I am OK to carry on. I’m dreading this bit even more but I say ‘Yes’ and the barristers switch places.

The first angle Dad’s barrister tries is that I am confused. He says that I think I can remember but I am mistaken. He says I’m bewildered about ages and houses and other ‘facts’. I tell him I’m not. I do feel intimidated by how he looks at me and how he talks to me – and, at first, the intimidation works. I’m shaking like a leaf and keep asking myself, where is my strength, when is it going to come? This man is calm, collected, educated; he knows the system inside and out, and he’s trying to trip me up on little things so that the big things shatter too. I know what he’s trying to do – if I can’t remember what age I was, or what house I lived in, how can I be trusted with allegations that could ruin a man’s life? But I do know. I do remember. I tell myself, remember you are only telling the truth; you can’t be tripped up on the truth, just state the facts. One of the legal team had said to me, ‘If you knew everything on a timeline, you wouldn’t be believed by the jury. You can’t know the dates of everything, you can’t know the detail of everything – stick to what you do know, stick to the truth and don’t embellish it.’

It’s very harsh though. I feel nauseous and shaky. In my hand is a small crystal that Jenny gave me years ago, and I turn it round and round as the barrister goes over and over the same points. In my mind, I keep saying to her, This is for us, Sis. This is for all the hurt against us both. Jenny can’t take the stand and say what happened, and little Karen is now gone. I’m the only one left. It is up to me to tell the truth.

Surprisingly, the more the barrister accuses me – calls me a liar, says I am exaggerating, says I’ve made things up – the stronger I feel. I’m not weak. I’m really not. I just insist that I am telling the truth, and I do remember what happened. I believe Jenny sent me strength that day and the more he tries to undermine me, the more she makes me feel that I can do this.

At 1pm, it’s time for the first break. I go to meet Vicky, who says I am doing fine, and Ian and Elroy. I can’t eat anything. I walk back to court with Vicky. I hear my dad mumbling to someone as we go back in and I try to walk with my eyes closed as we go past him.

The afternoon cross-examination takes forever and it feels like Dad’s barrister goes over the same points again and again – what school, what house? It was harder to go back into court in the afternoon, probably because I knew what I was facing.

Even as I am writing this, I am still feeling the shock. How did I do it? Where did I find the strength? How did I finally manage to stand up for myself? Dad did do those things to me, he did take away my life for so long, he did leave me damaged; please, please let this be a new start for me, I pray inwardly. Please let me be able to build on what I’m managing here.

The questions go on and on and on. At one point, I look at the little door/hatch thing at the side and imagine myself just running through it. I feel at times that I can’t take any more – how much longer will he keep questioning me, and how much longer will my strength hold? His questions again and again and again. He is ruthless and calls me a liar, says I made things up. He says personal things and, at times, I feel light-headed. I don’t know how my legs are holding me up. I keep turning Jenny’s crystal over in my hand and, eventually, I develop a coping strategy – I just take it one question at a time. Don’t think backwards, Karen, don’t think forwards, I tell myself; one question at a time. This seems to help.

At 3.45pm, the judge turns into my saviour.

‘Do you have much more to ask?’ he enquires.

‘Not really,’ replies the barrister.

‘This is going to be over today,’ says the judge, and my heart leaps. ‘Get on with it.’

I think he figured the same as me; I suspected that the barrister was trying to get his questioning to roll over to the next day. He has kept flicking through his papers and scrolling through his laptop, as if he was trying to find more questions, because I disputed every lie or accusation he threw at me.

The thought of it rolling over terrified me. I genuinely thought it was a possibility until the judge stepped in, and I did think to myself, I can’t come back here tomorrow, not when he has had a whole night to figure out more accusations and questions, and to find more stuff to throw at me. I don’t know what I would have done if it had happened, so thank goodness for the judge. Court usually ends at about 4pm but, just before then, the barrister finds what he thinks is a discrepancy in my statement. The judge sends me out to read through it and I immediately find what he’s going on about.

He keeps picking out differences between my statement and my personal notes. I say eight or nine times that these notes were personal memories that were only ever for me, for my eyes, when I had sat and tried to make sense of what was in my head; putting it on paper helped but they were only ever for me, they weren’t for a forensic examination. I was upset when the police took them away and one of the most devastating things about the whole trial is this point, when I realise everybody in that court has a copy of my personal thoughts, my horrible memories and my private words that I never wanted anyone else to ever see. This is very hard to deal with. Now the barrister is trying to pick holes in all of it – but he can’t, because I’m sticking to my rule: only tell the truth.

***

Court finally finished just after 5pm and I remember the judge looking at me and nodding kindly as I said, ‘Can I go now?’ I nearly stumbled up the two steps as I left the witness box. I don’t think I have ever felt so out of control of my own body. I kept thinking, they’ll call me back. I didn’t think it was really done with. The thought haunted me as I sobbed outside that courthouse. My barrister told me I had done well and wished me good luck. Everyone said I was brave and strong, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. I tried to rush everyone away as I knew Dad would be out soon – he was to go and sign the Sex Offenders Register as he had already admitted some charges, but then he was free to leave, as nothing had been decided yet. He was still a free man.

***

The evening goes by in a blur. I am in shock, scared, relieved, proud, sad, all rolled into one. I also can’t get Jenny out of my mind. I’m not a religious person but I wonder if she’s looking down on me and if she’s feeling proud. I couldn’t have done this without the memory of her and her crystal, but I know we still have a long way to go.

***

The next day in court, the biggest thing is Mum’s evidence. It only takes a couple of hours for that and her cross-examination. I am obviously not there, but I am told later by people who were that there are a lot of contradictions. She does admit a few things though, and I hope they show that I was telling the truth. She says she put a lock on my bedroom door when she caught him in there, again when I was thirteen, and that she also found him going through my underwear.

Some parts of the evidence only bring up her side, but I guess that’s always the case in court. When she admits Dad had put me in their bed, she says her back was to me, and she snapped at him, ‘What did you bring her in here for?’ Mum tells the court that she allowed me to stay in the bed when he did that to keep me safe; I can’t challenge that, but can only hope the jurors see that it never achieved that aim, even if that’s what she was trying to do, and that putting me back in my own locked room, and getting rid of the man she kept finding with me, would have been a much better option.

Mum is asked by my barrister what her relationship with me was like, and she said it was hit and miss but most of the time we had got on.

Maybe that’s what she thought. Maybe she did actually feel that, most of the time, we got on. What I remember, though, is that she continually discussed her sex life with me from when I was tiny, she told me about abuse, she told me about rape, she said she had sticks pushed into her, that she was forced to have sex with another woman. Who am I to say what was true and what wasn’t? I can only repeat what I was told. But, combining all of that with other things she said and how she acted, I am wary of believing any single word.

I am covered in scars – my buttocks, my private area; a triangular one at the back of my knee and I have one from a cut on the side of my eye – but none of these injuries were ever treated by medics. How does that fit with looking after your child, and keeping them safe?

When the barrister asks if she knew what was going on about the lock, Mum just says it was to keep my dad out. She tells the barrister that she asked me what was going on, and I said ‘Nothing’, so she believed me.

I am told that Mum looked at Dad constantly as she said these things, and that there were smirks from her side, but I wasn’t there and I can’t prove it; all I know is that although she told the jury I confided in her, surely they would have realised from my evidence that this would never have happened? The very notion of confiding in or trusting my mother was the opposite of every part of our relationship. My emotions are everywhere – I’m relieved to not be called back, worried I still might be, worried my mother will have made the jury doubt me; I just feel drained.

In his statement, Andy says he saw Dad coming out of my bedroom naked and going into the bathroom, then going back in. He mentioned the food we had to eat back then and mapped out the house and address perfectly, and it all tallies with what I have said. He had seen Dad coming out of my bedroom with an erection when he was ten – he had carried that all his life. His statement, and Kev’s, are read out the afternoon after Mum gives her evidence, but they aren’t cross-examined. They are just accepted.

***

When morning breaks on the Thursday, I’m barely standing. Today is the day that Dad will give his evidence. Elroy and Ian will sit in, and they will tell me everything. It’s only scheduled to last a couple of hours. I was on the stand for much longer, which seems ridiculous. He still insists he only started after I was eleven and that it was very ‘minor’ touching.

***

Apparently, Dad admitted that he had been attracted to me in ‘that way’, and stood with his head down a lot. Elroy told me the jury were looking at him with what seemed like disgust, as was the court clerk and sometimes even the judge, but I wondered if he was just saying this to make me feel better. At one point, the judge ordered a ten-minute recess and said he needed some time in a dark room; that he couldn’t possibly go on. I had hoped the judge and jury weren’t buying Dad’s lies for one moment, and this action from the judge gave me a little hope as it made me feel that he was seeing how awful it all was.

At one point there was a legal argument over consent, my age and a change in a 2003 law, so the jury was sent out while it was discussed. At another point, Ian lost it and stood up and said, ‘How could she consent, she was a child?’ He got told off by the judge, but I was so proud of him for saying that.

***

‘I think it changed, though,’ Elroy tells me later that day, ‘when they started to put things to him towards the end of the morning and he admitted they were possible. Surely they’ll see that this means he’s guilty?’

‘I don’t know, I really don’t know,’ I tell him. ‘I have no idea which way this will go. I keep telling myself it wouldn’t have got this far if there wasn’t a chance they would believe me.’

‘It’ll all work out,’ Elroy says. ‘There’s nothing you can do now – we just have to wait.’

Dad’s questioning continues after lunch and, at the end of the day, I meet up with Elroy, Ian and Andy. I take Ian to the side and he starts to cry, saying he’s sorry, that he didn’t know, that he feels guilty, that he can’t handle the things he’s heard. I try to reassure him that it was not his responsibility to protect me – it was theirs and they didn’t do it. I tell him the guilt was theirs too, not mine, not his. We think the jury will go home tomorrow – will it be hours, or days, until they come back?

Elroy tells me that when they left court they bumped into Dad, literally. Elroy dragged Ian away and says he started sobbing like a little boy, uncontrollably. He really wasn’t prepared to face a man with whom he had demons of his own. Ian says, ‘It was his voice, his voice took me back.’ It has been so hard for him to hear the details of what happened. I am heartbroken for my big brother when Elroy tells me all this, but there is also a part of me that’s scared of how Elroy himself might see me, now he knows what had actually gone on. I never wanted anyone to know the details, especially anyone close to me, and here I am with my partner and older brother, knowing that they knew. This is so difficult for me; I feel such shame and embarrassment.

***

On the Friday, Elroy and Ian go to court for the judge’s summing-up. It takes about two hours and Elroy feels that the judge is leaning towards my side. Bless him – he would say that, I guess, as he’s so protective and supportive; I can’t let myself feel any hope yet.

The jury is sent out at 12.30pm and everyone hangs around the court except for me and my friend Nicky, who wait in a cafe. I had known Nicky for twelve years by this time. She was a complete rock for me; she came to court each time or sat in the cafe with me while I took some time to find strength. We are still very close and I’ll never forget how much she did for me during this time.

My head is all over the place. I convince myself that he will be found not guilty, that I haven’t been believed. I guess the demons are still with me and my fear of being seen as a liar has never gone away. I feel dizzy and nauseous and can’t think or talk straight. Around 2.30pm, I am discussing with Nicky whether I should go and hear the verdict when Elroy calls her and says, ‘Stay there.’

This is it.

I honestly don’t know which way it will go, but I feel a physical reaction to the fact that it’s been decided. I get up and go outside, only to see them all walking down the street towards me. For some reason, my mother is there too.

Elroy rushes up to me, takes my arm and says, ‘Less than two hours, Karen.’

My heart falls and I think I will pass out.

Then he says, ‘Guilty, Karen, every single count, every single juror, clean sweep.’

I can’t take it in. He’s saying my father was found guilty on every count, unanimously? I feel numb. I believe I was in complete shock. Everyone is happy but I can’t feel anything; they all hug me but I don’t know how to react. As my mother approaches, I just say, ‘No – stay away from me!’

I gradually come back to some sort of awareness while Elroy holds me close. I hear that Dad has been bailed until 18 July to get his affairs in order – this is a shock, to be honest; I can’t believe he’s allowed to walk free for any time at all. A little voice inside me wonders if he will get away with it – what if they change their minds while he’s out and about? I quickly realise I am being silly, and that this isn’t how it works at all.

We all go back into the cafe for a cup of tea and I call Vicky – she cries on the phone and my first bit of emotion shows as I start to weep too, with relief, sadness, pent-up emotion. I’m not sure what I am feeling. Everyone is talking, saying they’re happy, saying how well I did. But what did I do, really? I just said the truth, told everyone what had happened, spoke the words that were facts and didn’t deviate from what had happened. I don’t feel like celebrating; everyone is laughing and is relieved, but I feel as if I’m watching them rather than being a part of it.

Mum says she roared and applauded when the verdicts came in one by one, and thanked the jurors individually. She must have forgotten Elroy was sitting right beside her because I’ll later find out this is a lie; she did none of those things but just sat quietly. She’s in and out of the cafe, on her phone all the time – to whom? Karl gives me a big hug and everyone is chattering and laughing and texting people.

Half an hour later, I go outside to talk to Tamsin on the phone, and she’s so happy at the result; she has put a lot of emotional time into this. She wanted to be there right up until the end but couldn’t make the verdict today. She can’t believe it took less than two hours to decide on all the remaining counts; she believes their minds were made up after I gave my evidence. As I’m talking to her on the street, I turn round and my dad is walking towards me. I can’t believe it. He’s dressed in black, pulling a large black suitcase, smoking a cigarette. I run into a doorway next to a shop, a big wooden door – and he walks straight past. I’m surprised that I don’t really feel anything.

The day goes by in a haze of phone calls and even the next few weeks are a little blurry. Everyone wants to celebrate apart from me; I just feel sadness and a sense of loss for the life I should have had. I hear nothing from Kevin or my mother but I hear she’s going around telling everyone all about it, playing up to her role as a victim and getting free drinks on the back of it all. Kevin is heartbroken that his dad is in prison and has decided he can’t talk to me as I was the one who brought it about – I can understand his confusion but have to admit I am hurt by it. Andy is a different kettle of fish altogether, and says he’s glad that he told his truth and that it helped. Elroy and I are stronger than ever; this has had only a positive effect on us, and the relief of it being over is showing in me now – I feel happier and closer to him than I have in years. We are starting to laugh again.

I decide I must go to the sentencing in order to get closure and to hear those most important words, ‘You did this.’ I am afraid of it, afraid of what I might feel and of seeing him again, but it’s necessary. I’ve done harder things.

Monday 18 July 2011 is when it’s scheduled to happen, at 10.30am. Gail arrives on the Sunday and I book her into a hotel across from court; I am so grateful to her for being there as she makes an incredibly tense day into one with a few surprising laughs. On the day itself, we’re not sure where to go, so I head up to the court canteen with Gail, while Nicky and Elroy work out the logistics. They come back to tell me, but I’m horrified when I realise the walk to court will mean walking past Dad as he’s sitting waiting. I have found this throughout the whole process – there simply isn’t enough separation of complainant and accused. It’s a dreadful situation and one that could be so easily remedied. It takes about half an hour to build up the courage to do it. When I do, and we get to the court vestibule area, we are just sent out. So we head down to witness care, which it turns out is where we should have gone in the first place! Vicky, Tina and Tamsin all come along – they want to see the outcome too and I am so grateful for their support. They have been absolute rocks throughout all of this.

We are told we could be waiting hours, but then we are suddenly called in. We have to go into the public gallery, where there are just enough seats for us all, plus a couple sitting on the end who I don’t know. I sit between Gail and Nicky but wish I was sitting beside Elroy. The court is full of people, just as it was during the trial, but there is no jury now. My father is sitting directly in front of me with a guard. He’s wearing a blue shirt and dark trousers, and doesn’t look up much. He’s wringing his hands and looks agitated. I feel as though my head will burst; I’m terrified. I’m shaking like a leaf and feel sick. I try to look everywhere except at him.

We stand for the judge.

I’m not at all prepared for what happens next: my barrister goes back over the whole case, details I had hoped I would never have to hear again. Nicky and Gail know none of this and it proves too much for me to hear such personal details read out in front of more people I love. I have to leave the court.

Vicky comes out to me. I am so, so upset. She calms me down and helps me get rid of the guilt I’m feeling about the situation. She says it’s normal, as I’m a human being with real emotions and I am a good person, but that he needs to be stopped from hurting anyone else. This makes me feel better – she is truly an angel. I stay out until both barristers have finished talking, and go back in for the summary. I do hear what I need to hear – the judge tells him, ‘You took away her childhood and ruined her life. You say you are disgusted in yourself and so you should be. She should have been kept safe in her own home. The lengths she went to, in order to keep away from you, make horrific evidence to hear.’

During the whole summing-up, the judge looks everywhere else, but not at him. Not even once. There are lots of different sentences handed down: one year, two years, four years, three; but the longest is sixteen years, of which he will have to serve eight before he can apply for parole. He is also put on the Sex Offenders Register for life and will never be able to live or work near children or vulnerable adults.

Then the judge says, ‘Take him down.’

As my father stands up to be led away, he turns a little, and I think he’s going to say something … but he doesn’t.

I feel flushed; my head and face are burning. I’m completely shocked at the length of the sentence – sixteen years (everything else is concurrent). When we leave court, Tamsin says it’s the longest sentence her department has known. Vicky says it’s the longest she’s ever heard of in all the time she’s worked in this area. Yet again everyone is happy and wanting to celebrate, but I can’t feel the same way; I never have. This has to be a new start for me, I think, and I hope that I’ll feel some sort of release inside sometime soon.

I thank everyone, including the barrister, police, Vicky and the support team, then we walk into town.

‘Is this it?’ I ask Elroy. ‘Is then when my life finally starts?’

‘It is,’ he tells me. ‘If you want it, it is.’