Now, many years later, I have written out my full story in the form of a book. I want to do anything I can to warn people of this type of abuse and hopefully prevent it happening to another kid. I hope professionals will find my book helpful. And I hope writing it will prove to be therapeutic for me.

I have posted my book on the Authonomy.com website

http://www.authonomy.com/ReadBook.aspx?bookid=1648

where it can be read free of charge.

I ask anyone who reads it and finds it helpful, to ‘back’ it (you will need to register, then click on the ‘back the book’ button), and to leave a comment on the site if you wish. The publishers Harper Collins promise to consider for full publication those books that receive the most backing. If I can get them to publish my book in paper form and it became popular, I am hoping it will raise awareness in the general public of this type of abuse.

With thanks,

Eamonn Corr

I met my wife-to-be about thirteen years ago. Straightaway she seemed very clingy and constantly required reassurance that I loved her, but I wasn’t too worried by this as she’d had a difficult childhood with parents who didn’t seem to care that much about her.

We were married a year after we met. It was then that the real problems started, her personality seemed to change overnight. Instead of becoming more secure and less needy – as I’d hoped she would – she became obsessively jealous and had to control everything I did.

It was about two weeks after we were married that she first hit me. It seems stupid now, but I can’t really remember what she hit me for. Perhaps I was being slow or didn’t do something the way she wanted, I don’t know.

After that it became more and more frequent, most days she would find a ‘reason’ to hit me (although I can’t really call it a reason as I often hardly knew what she shouting about). She would shout and curse at me for ages, calling me stupid and threatening to leave me. At the same time, she would threaten to kill herself if I left her!

Usually she’d hit and kick me on my arms, chest and legs, I only ever got a bruise that showed on my face once or twice.

I felt very ashamed that she was treating me this way, I knew that I should leave the relationship but couldn’t bring myself to confront her. Somehow, I think the control she had over me made it very hard for me to do things I knew she’d disapprove of. I don’t really understand it even now.

I never told anyone what went on, and certainly never told my friends, I used to just pretend that things were OK.

After about a year of this she said she wanted to have a baby. Alarm bells started ringing in my head – I knew this wasn’t right but somehow couldn’t tell her. She changed her behaviour and began to treat me like she had when we first met.

Hoping things were getting better, and afraid to refuse, I agreed. Our daughter, Sharon, was born two years after we were married.

But as soon as Sharon was born the violence restarted worse than ever. I used to just ‘switch off’ into my own world when she was raging at me, it was the only way I could cope. She was jealous of her daughter – sometimes I’d be changing a nappy and she would just hit me and demand attention for herself. I simply concentrated on getting through each day and caring for Sharon.

After two more years I just couldn’t take this any longer. I didn’t want Sharon to be raised in this environment and somehow told my wife I wanted a divorce.

All hell broke loose. She threatened to tell the Police I’d raped her if I didn’t do what she wanted. At last I finally got the courage to escape, leaving everything.

I was distraught to be leaving Sharon, but it was the only way I could think to give her a ‘normal’(non-violent) life. After that, my wife only allowed me to see Sharon for a few hours a week, and when she found a new boyfriend a year later, she just stopped all contact.

I went to the courts to get access, but my wife just lied and said I’d been violent to her so the courts denied any contact. It’s very hard to deal with my ex-wife, I’m so traumatised, every time I deal with her I start to cry and shake.

I tried again in court a few years later, it was an uphill struggle all the way. Sharon was too frightened of her mum to tell the social worker that she wanted to spend more time with me. She doesn’t like her step-dad and has run away from home twice, coming straight to me.

I’m now seeing her every other weekend, she’s 10 now, and can’t wait until she’s 12 so she can get her wishes listened to. The time we spend together is like a sanctuary for us both.

My solicitor tells me that if the domestic violence were the other way around – with me hitting my wife – I would probably never see my daughter again. But violence from the mother is ignored by the courts. I suppose it just doesn’t fit their simplistic ideas about domestic violence in the home and women always being the victim.

Although her mother hasn’t been physically violent towards Sharon, I’m always there for her and remain vigilant in case it starts. Hopefully we can get through the next years without major problems, until Sharon can make choices for herself.

I don’t want Sharon to hate her mother. She loves her mum, but knows only too well what she’s like. She wants to live with me and still see a lot of her mum. Not too difficult surely?

Nobody – of either sex – should have to put up with domestic violence in a relationship. If the system weren’t so gender biased, I’m sure Sharon would be much safer now and I wouldn’t feel like we are both still being abused every day.

I’m just looking forward to the time when Sharon can make her own choices.

(Identifying features have been changed to protect the individuals involved).

My name is Mike, I’m Australian. Twenty years ago I worked for a few years in England for an engineering company and while I was there, I met and fell in love with a local girl, Susan. We married six months later and were soon lucky enough to have a baby girl, Claudia.

Things were blissful for a couple of years, but then started to go wrong and we realised we just couldn’t go on living together. We agreed to separate and that Claudia would live with her mum, but Susan said she’d never stop me seeing Claudia.

We separated, Susan had the house (and most of my money!) but I was happy as I was still able to see Claudia and had her to stay in my flat a couple of nights a week.

Then, about six months later, Susan found a new boyfriend and soon he’d moved into her house. Things then began to go very quickly downhill. Suddenly my two overnight stays a week with Claudia became one night, later then this turned into me taking her home to sleep at her mother’s after I’d given Claudia her tea after collecting her from nursery.

I was not happy at all about the way the new arrangements were going, but reluctantly agreed to them as I didn’t want to rock the boat – I knew it would be much better for Claudia if I could stay on good terms with Susan.

But things went from bad to worse. Susan started complaining that I was not looking after Claudia properly, though this wasn’t true at all and she was obviously just trying to make things as difficult as possible for me.

Eventually I had no choice but to go to court to try and get my access to Claudia restored but the system did not help me at all, they just listened to her mother – who by now was saying she thought I was a bad influence on Claudia and I could not properly care for her. I did get one day a fortnight contact ordered by the court but Susan soon stopped even that by being ‘out’ whenever I went to collect her.

To cut a long story short, this carried on for a couple of years and I was hardly seeing Claudia at all. It was so upsetting for me when I did see her as it was obvious how confused she was to see daddy only once every couple of months for burger and chips. By then I knew she was calling Susan’s new partner ‘daddy’.

By this time I had ran out of money and lost my job due to stress and decided I couldn’t stay in England for ever fighting to see my daughter. I returned to Australia to try and rebuild my life, hoping to be able to continue some sort of relationship with Claudia by letter.

For the next thirteen years, I sent a letter once a month to Claudia, and birthday and Christmas cards and presents; but I never had a response, not once. I wrote to Susan many times but never had anything back from her either. I was determined not to give up completely, but realised that – for now – she had me beaten.

The week after Claudia’s eighteenth birthday, I decided to try and find her and re-establish contact now that her mother could no longer stop her seeing me. Tracking her down was fairly difficult, but after six months or so I managed to find an address for Claudia by employing an English solicitor and private investigation firm from Australia.

I wrote to Claudia, via my solicitor, saying I would like to get back in touch with her and hoped maybe I could eventually come over and see her if she would agree to that. I obviously knew it was going to be difficult for her to see me after so much time, I didn’t even know if she was going to remember me as the last time I saw her she was just four years old! Maybe she’d heard so many bad stories about me she’d never want to see me at all?

The next few weeks waiting for a reply were the longest weeks of my life. Each day I waited for a phone call, letter or email; praying she would get in touch. Eventually, after about six weeks, I got a reply from my English solicitor, saying that Claudia had been in touch with them and that she did want to meet me. Of course, I was overjoyed to hear this.

Imagine my shock though, when my solicitor told me that Claudia’s mother had always told her that her father was dead!

Susan had told Claudia that I had died when she was four years old. It suddenly became clear why I had never received replies to any of my letters or presents, Susan must have intercepted them for all those years. I could hardly believe anyone could do such a terrible thing to their own daughter, or expect to get away with it for ever.

I’ve been over to England twice now to see Claudia since we got in touch and she’s coming over this summer to stay with me in Australia for a few weeks and do some travelling.

So at least my story ends fairly happily, even though the intervening years have been full of despair and heartache. She’s a lovely girl – though she’s a young woman now of course – it’s hard for me not to think of her as that little baby girl I used to hold all those years ago. Claudia is very angry with her mother and hasn’t spoken to her for six months.

In her last letter Claudia said she was thinking of coming over to work in Australia in her gap year and stay with me for a while longer.

I do so hope she does.

(Identifying features have been changed to protect the individuals involved).

She never contacted me, never answered her phone and I didn’t see Sarah again for four months. Overnight, I had gone from being a full-time dad to not even knowing where my daughter lived, and having no idea when I would see her again.

I tried talking to our GP, social services, the Police, our health visitor; but no-one would help. They all said “It’s a civil matter. See a solicitor”.

After about a month of writing letters to my wife (at her parent’s address) asking her to try mediation, I finally gave up and went to see a solicitor. At the solicitor’s I found I had no right to see my daughter, even though I was her dad and she’d lived with me for years. My wife now said she was not going to let me see Sarah at all as she apparently thought ‘this was best’.

In order to see her again, I would have to go to court and apply for a ‘contact order’ – requiring my wife to let me see my daughter – even though I had done nothing wrong.

A few months later we had the first court hearing and I was granted one hour a week to see Sarah at a ‘supervised contact centre’. Contact centres are degrading and humiliating for the parent and child, they’re little better than a prison visit. I couldn’t take my daughter out of the room and I was watched like a criminal the whole time. Sarah hadn’t seen me at all for four months and was now only able to see me in this unnatural environment.

I could not understand how a mother could treat her daughter this way, but it appeared she wasn’t concerned about the damage and distress she was causing Sarah. It seems the end result of ending Sarah’s relationship with me was just so much more important to her.

Finally, eight months after Sarah had been taken, and after social services had investigated, the court made a contact order where I was granted unsupervised contact with Sarah all day every Sunday. This was meant to increase to two days a week after three months.

I started seeing Sarah on my own again and we began to rebuild our relationship. However, this lasted just three weeks. My wife then broke the court order, saying I couldn’t see Sarah again unless I agreed to go back to the contact centre. She gave no reason for this except she was ‘not happy’ with where I was taking Sarah – even though we were doing perfectly normal things like going to visit her grandparents and the park.

I went back to my solicitor but I was told that the court would not enforce the contact order they had made just weeks before!

It was up to me to apply to the court again to enforce the order and persuade the court yet again that I should be allowed to see my daughter! This would mean more delay, more expense (I had already spent over £5000 on legal bills) and still more distress to Sarah. I was beginning to realise, at last, what a farce the family courts really are.

So now I have no choice but to go back to court. I try to believe that the system will eventually protect my daughter’s right to have a dad, despite her mother’s wish to remove me from Sarah’s life.

In the meantime, Sarah and me have to make do with one hour a week in a contact centre.
Sarah needs her dad back – not just someone she visits like a prisoner once a week.

(Identifying features have been changed to protect the individuals involved).

I got divorced 15 years ago. It was particularly acrimonious and my ex-wife has remained very bitter towards me, even though it was her who had an affair and ended our relationship. We have three children, one girl and two younger boys, they were 14, 12 and 10 when we split up.

My oldest girl is now nearly thirty and I have now started to meet her at last, and we are trying to rebuild our relationship and somehow make up for the fifteen years we were forced apart.

Immediately after we split up, my wife blocked me from seeing my kids. She went to court to get an order denying me access – she was allowed to accompany them and speak in court, I wasn’t. She then began poisoning them against me, my daughter now realises this is what happened to her and her two brothers, although at the time they naturally believed what their mother told them.

My wife’s parting words to me were “Although I know you are their biological father, I’m going to make damn sure you’re never anything else to them!”.

I moved out of the house, but when I realised she really was going to take my children away from me my whole life literally fell apart. I lost my job because I couldn’t cope with the stress and was almost penniless for years, moving between a string of temporary jobs, trying to rebuild my life without my children.

The courts were no help at all. Although I got a contact order allowing me to see my kids my wife just wouldn’t allow it and the courts did nothing.

So for the last fifteen years I’ve been devastated, unable to see my children and only imagining the things they were told about me. Even when they were old enough to decide for themselves, they didn’t want to see me.

I’ve always paid towards child support, and in the last few years I have managed to get myself back together financially, so I paid most of the costs of the children to go through university. I never receive any thanks from them though, they saw me as purely a cash supply!

My life changed when I met my daughter by chance a couple of years ago. I invited her to meet with me and have her say. She shouted and ranted at me for a long time, she said I had deserted them all and believed all sorts of bad things about me. Now she has calmed down and accepts they were unfairly poisoned against me for years by lies their mother told them. At last we are now starting to become friends and getting to know each other again.

My daughter’s boyfriend has told me recently that she and her brothers are all still too petrified of their mum to go against her. Even though they’re all now in their twenties, she still has a hold on them.

I know my boys live just 50 miles away, and they come back home to see their mum quite often. Every Saturday for years I’ve wandered around town like a zombie in the hope I might see them. But I never have.

I try not to hold too much against my ex-wife – she was a good mum to them in many ways – I just want to get back a relationship with my children before I’m too old. They’re obviously too confused to realise I have always loved them more than anything – not a day goes by when I don’t think about them.

I’ll do anything to reconcile with my boys, it’s the one last thing I want to do with my life, for their sake and mine. Hopefully my daughter will be able to help her brothers understand and meet me, given enough time.

So many wasted years.

(Identifying features have been changed to protect the individuals involved).