The Runaway Schoolgirl (12 page)

A
lthough it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that a trial would be taking place, Forrest was given one more chance to make a plea of guilty and avoid the inevitable nightmare for all concerned. If only he would admit to the crime that was so obvious to the rest of us, we could start to put this whole nightmare behind us.

So, on Friday, 17 May, I found myself back in Lewes Crown Court again, this time with my friend Chloe and Sarah, as Paul couldn’t get the time off work. On this occasion, Forrest would definitely be there in person – he had no choice in the matter – and so, once again, I psyched myself up to see him face to face.

Forrest’s parents and his sister Carrie also attended. His mother Julie’s face had the same drained look that I’d seen during the press conference she and her husband Jim had
given, back in September. Their daughter appeared to be comforting her and Jim Forrest was deep in conversation with the barrister and solicitor. It seemed that he was the one dealing with all the legal processes.

Sitting right behind us there was a line of reporters. Chloe whispered in my ear: ‘Don’t react, don’t say anything.’ I just sat there between Chloe and Sarah, clutching their hands.

When Forrest was brought up into the defendant’s box, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I wanted to take in every detail of this bastard who had taken my child’s innocence.

He was wearing a badly fitting suit, but he looked relaxed and gave his family a thumbs-up and mouthed the words ‘I’m fine’. All I could do was stare and stare at him. If my eyes could have burnt into him, he would have been in flames. At one point, he flicked his eyes over to me for less than a second, but he never looked at me again.

As soon as the proceedings started, his body language changed and he went from being casual – maybe even cocky and relaxed – to much more upright and respectful. He put his hands down by his sides, as if he’d been coached to look as open and trustworthy as possible.

The judge came in and, after all the required legalese had been delivered, asked Forrest to stand up. He asked him how he pleaded: guilty or not guilty?

Once again, those chilling words …

‘Not guilty.’

As I sat there, trying my very hardest not to react, I could hear the reporters’ pens scratching at their notepads as they scribbled away furiously. I held Sarah and Chloe’s hands in a vice-like grip. Every shred of emotion I was feeling went into my fingers. This wasn’t happening, was it?

I had promised that I wouldn’t make a scene in court. Now I was actually there with him in front of me, it took every cell in my body to stop myself from standing up and screaming, ‘You’re a bastard! Do you know what you’re doing to my daughter?’ But with Sarah and Chloe’s support, I was able to stay calm, although it took one hell of a lot of effort not to let my emotions fly.

I thought back to the initial statement that I had given to the police when Gemma disappeared. They had asked me if I’d given Forrest permission to take her out of the country and I had told them that no, I most certainly had not.

At the time, they had told me that this was all the evidence they would need to find him guilty of abduction. I also had Gemma’s words in my head: that if I could just change my statement then all of this would go away. Except it couldn’t just ‘go away’. I couldn’t just change my statement and I knew in my heart of hearts that, painful as all of this was going to be, it was the right thing to do.

Afterwards, outside the court, chief inspector for child protection Mark Ling, DI Neil Ralph and the prosecution barrister Richard Barton came over to talk to us, and I could see Forrest’s family out of the corner of my eye. At one point, I saw his sister making a move to come over to me, but she was held back by her mum. I was unnerved, as I didn’t know if she wanted to talk to me or have a go at me – I still wonder now what she would have said to me.

The press wanted me to give them a statement, but I refused. I was too upset to put my feelings into words. I’d been given plenty of opportunities to speak to the press, but I never did – I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was always worried what would be said about my family and my
parenting skills, not to mention the impact it was having on my children.

The crazy thing was, if Forrest had admitted to the crime months ago when he first appeared at Eastbourne Magistrates’ Court, he would most likely have been walking free by now. The judge would have taken his swift plea, good behaviour and cooperation into account. Instead the nightmare was about to step up a gear. The trial was set to begin in just over three weeks’ time, on Monday, 10 June.

There was no escaping the fact that we faced a trial, and Gemma would have to be involved, whether or not she was happy about it. We had to get her to understand that. As much as she hated the words ‘victim’ and ‘witness’, she was both.

Mark Ling visited Gemma at Max’s house and explained to her as gently as he could that she was going to be called as a witness. If she refused to attend court, the judge would have no option but to subpoena her. Should she then refuse to follow the subpoena, she would be arrested.

One way or another, she had to go to court. Mark Ling tried to make her understand that it was the Crown Prosecution Service who were bringing the case against Forrest, not her family, and that she had no choice about whether or not she could attend. But no matter what Mark, Max or anyone else said about it, Gemma remained defiant: she wasn’t going, and that was that.

The victim support team invited her to go and have a look round the courtroom, so that she wouldn’t be so daunted on the actual day that she would have to stand as a witness. They thought that if she was more familiar with the surroundings, it wouldn’t seem so scary. They must have asked me a dozen times, and I passed on all their messages via Max but again, there was no way she was going to change her mind.

In the meantime, Gemma had her GCSEs to get through. Although this would normally be one of the most challenging periods in a teenager’s life, in a strange way it was helpful because it gave her another focus in life other than the court case. By this point, she had started to go off the rails a bit and was not attending FLESS when she should, but Max and I agreed that it was important for her to attend her exams, and he promised to ensure that she turned up for them.

As had previously been arranged, Gemma went back to Kennedy High School to sit her exams. Unfortunately, the arrangements they made for her were woefully inadequate. It would have been too distracting for her to sit with her old classmates, so instead they stuck her in a room by the reception, hardly the right conditions for sitting an exam. To make matters worse, the laptop they gave her to use didn’t work properly and the printer was out of ink. Not surprisingly, after this disastrous start, we decided we had no choice but to make other arrangements and she was very quickly moved to another school to sit the remainder of her exams.

Needless to say, I didn’t have very high expectations for Gemma’s results. With everything that had been happening, I took it for granted that she wouldn’t get any decent grades. Once again, though – and I can say it very happily this time – I was wrong. Gemma did brilliantly. Sadly, of course, at the time I had no idea how the exams were going because she was still refusing to speak to me. I was so grateful for all the support that FLESS had given her, she never would have got through her exams otherwise.

O
n Gemma’s fifteenth birthday the year before, we had talked about how her sixteenth was going to be extra-special. As a family, we have always made a big thing about ‘significant’ birthdays – five, thirteen, sixteen, eighteen and so on – so this year was going to be a real treat. Gemma had even been talking about where she would like to go, ruling out where she didn’t like before then moving on to her next choice.

All of that, of course, was long before this terrible period when all of our lives had been turned upside down. I hadn’t spoken to her since she had left home and moved in with Max, and she wasn’t acknowledging my texts, so I had a heavy heart, knowing I wouldn’t be part of her birthday that year.

As we got closer to her sixteenth birthday on Sunday, 2 June, I became very quiet and withdrawn. Paul was really lovely and caring with me, saying there would be other years we
could celebrate together and reassuring me that this was only a temporary problem in our relationship. But all my efforts to reconnect with her had failed. I was finding it very difficult to come to terms with the fact that she had totally blanked me out of her life.

Max was very understanding about the situation and reassured me that he would make sure that Gemma had a great birthday. He arranged to take her out for a nice meal with the rest of his family and I knew he would make a big fuss over her. In a way, selfishly, that made things worse for me because I wanted to be part of it.

Gemma loves make-up and perfume, so I bought her some nice treats and took Paul’s advice to leave a special present for another time when we could properly celebrate as mother and daughter again. Even so, I didn’t let up trying to contact her and really hoped that she would get in touch.

Then I heard that she had been hearing stories – I don’t know who from – that I didn’t want to see her or have anything to do with her again. I can only think it was the online parasites trying to drive a further wedge between us. Now I was coming up against brick wall after brick wall and people seemed determined to keep us apart.

On the day of her birthday, I kept hoping that she would come back home but it wasn’t to be. Maddie took Gemma the presents we had got her, and about an hour later, I got a text from Gemma. All it said was ‘thank you’. It wasn’t much, but at least it was something – I was thankful that she had been in touch at all. Paul put his arm round me. ‘You’ve done the right thing,’ he said.

Max continued to reassure me that Gemma was OK and that, despite the looming trial, she was still able to enjoy her
birthday. I wasn’t jealous of him as such, I was just upset that I couldn’t be with her, knowing it was another day of my daughter’s childhood that Forrest had stolen from me.

The trial date was getting much closer now – it was due to start in a week’s time, on Monday, 10 June 2013. Finally, after months of waiting, I would be able to get some answers to why Forrest had been able to destroy our lives.

A
nd so, finally, the trial that we had all been dreading began.

I knew that I wouldn’t be able to sit in the courtroom until I had taken the stand to give evidence, but I was determined to be nearby throughout the trial. I knew, too, that I couldn’t be told anything about what had happened until then either, but it didn’t matter to me: I just had to be there.

The original plan was for Paul to come with me every day. Paul and I had taken two weeks’ holiday leave and his mum had kindly said she would move in and look after Alfie and Lilly for the duration of the trial. We wanted the situation at home to be as normal as possible for the little ones.

Various friends and family members had asked if they could go along and sit in the public gallery. To be quite honest, I didn’t know if it was a good idea or not – I wasn’t really functioning
properly at the time – but I was very grateful that they wanted to be there for me. I feel incredibly lucky to have had such a great support network while living through this nightmare.

Poor Lilly had a terrible night on the Sunday and woke up with a raging temperature. Added to that, Paul’s mum was also feeling poorly, so I was torn between staying at home to look after my youngest daughter or going to court to support my eldest one. After much agonising, Paul and I decided that he would stay at home with Lilly and I would drive myself to court. Mum and Charlotte offered to take me, but I thought the 20-minute drive on my own might help me mentally prepare for the fortnight to come. I drove there in silence, trying to get my head around what was in store.

I got to Lewes, parked in a car park a little way from the court and met up with my friends Chloe, Darcee and Sarah. There was a really solemn atmosphere; we were all so nervous about what lay ahead. Sarah tried to reassure me that there was nothing for me to be anxious about – the first day was really just a formality, she explained, with the jury being sworn in and the prosecution presenting their case and so on – but it didn’t take away from the fact that we were all so freaked out by the whole experience. We went for a coffee and tried to keep our spirits up, but the silent moments told the real story.

Lewes Crown Court is at the top of a hill, and when we finished our coffees we walked up the hill, laughing about how steep it was. When we reached the top, we saw that there was a crowd of photographers and reporters waiting outside the court and a number of camera crews had set up pitches across the road, and the nerves took over again. As we took in the scene, we wondered how the hell we were going to get into the building without being mobbed by reporters.

We decided to just march straight up there and through the banks of photographers. As soon as we approached them, that dreaded click-click-click-click-click noise fired off from every direction as they craned to get pictures of anyone who was going into the court. It was so frightening.

Once inside, we were helped through the security checks and directed upstairs into the witness services area, where we met a very nice lady who had been assigned to look after us for the duration of the case. Then chief inspector for child protection Mark Ling and DI Neil Ralph came in to check that I was OK, and reiterated to me that I wouldn’t be able to go into the courtroom or be told about any of the proceedings until after I had given my evidence. They looked as nervous as me, but then I suppose it was a big deal for all of us: we all wanted everything to go smoothly.

Next the prosecution barrister, Richard Barton, came to see us and he went through the running order of witnesses. Gemma was due to appear tomorrow, after which it would be my turn, followed by Forrest’s wife Emily, Gemma’s teachers and other kids from her school. He warned me that the running order would be subject to change, depending on how events unfolded.

There were some smaller witness rooms off to the side of where we were waiting and in the main room there was a small TV screen displaying a list of the cases that were being heard that day. I read through the list and there it was: Court 2, Jeremy Ayre Forrest, 10am.

I couldn’t take my eyes off it. There was the name of the man who we first knew as Mr Forrest the teacher, then as Jeremy Forrest the abductor and, finally, as Jeremy Ayre Forrest, the accused.

I was already aware that Forrest called himself Jeremy Ayre when he performed as a musician and had used the name on social media sites like Twitter, but I didn’t realise until that moment that Ayre was his middle name. It is hard to describe how I was feeling as I saw those words on the screen. I was trying to reconcile how three words could add up to so much destruction. It was only then that I really began to understand what we were about to go through. I felt physically sick.

An announcement came over the PA system: ‘All parties in the case of Jeremy Ayre Forrest, please go to court number two’. Suddenly, it was all happening.

Chloe went into the courtroom with Mum and Charlotte, while Darcee and I settled in the witness area for what was to be an interminable wait. We talked about everything and anything, stupid things to try and make the time go quickly, and chatted with the witness services people. Time seemed to hardly move at all. I kept guiltily thinking about my poor baby Lilly and I felt bad that I wasn’t at home looking after her. Truth be told, though, she was probably better off being with Paul that day; my nerves were in tatters.

At around midday, the judge, Michael Lawson, QC, adjourned the session for an hour’s lunch break and Chloe popped up to see us. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t dying to ask her what had been going on, but I knew how important it was that I wasn’t told anything at all about the case. All I was allowed to know was that a jury of eight men and four women had been sworn in and that the judge had made his opening statement.

We met up with Mum and my sister Charlotte and went off in search of somewhere away from all the madness of the
court and the photographers and press to have lunch. We found a lovely 1950s-style tearoom called Lewesiana, which is where we subsequently went every single day of the case. It was our safe haven.

In a way, I remember thinking at the time it was strange that we were all so worried about the trial – after all, surely there could be no shadow of a doubt that Forrest was guilty of abduction? Gemma and Forrest had been seen boarding the ferry and I knew for sure that I hadn’t given him permission to take my daughter away, so the evidence was cut and dried. Whereas previously I had wondered if I might somehow have given him permission by mistake, I was now in a completely different headspace.

I knew for certain that I hadn’t; I knew for certain that Forrest was guilty. And yet, even with that knowledge, what scared me was the unknown. He had kept saying, ‘The truth will come out’, and I was living on my nerves, wondering what the hell he meant when he said that.

I didn’t feel like eating and was fretting about Lilly; I’d been in touch with Paul and my baby wasn’t feeling any better. But the thing most heavily playing on my mind was the thought of Gemma having to give evidence the next day. I cannot believe any parent would be happy with their child having to do that; the idea of her facing a barrage of questions was just unbearable. I would have made it all stop right there and then if I could, but I couldn’t. It was all out of my hands.

Back at the court for the afternoon session, Darcee and I watched people coming in and out of the witness services rooms. To pass the time, we tried to guess what they might be there for. I knew that I wasn’t serving any useful purpose being there, but I wanted to be on hand in case there was
anything I could help with. I couldn’t bear to be anywhere else.

The afternoon session finished at 4pm and we briefly met up again with Mark Ling and Neil Ralph. They reassured me that the afternoon session had gone exactly as planned and told me that Richard Barton had given the opening statement for the prosecution. I knew the gist of what he would have said; it was the defence statement that was totally unknown territory. Maybe then we would finally find out what Forrest meant when he said, ‘The truth will come out.’

Back home afterwards, Lilly looked worse than when I’d left her, so I whisked her off to the GP, who informed me that my baby had tonsillitis. I felt so guilty for not having been there for her.

I had sent a couple of texts to update everyone on what was going on, but obviously I didn’t have much to tell. As far as actual facts were concerned, all the press could actually report at this point was that the trial had begun, but I knew that they would be stirring up all kinds of stuff about Gemma having bulimia and self-harm issues over the next few days. But I didn’t care. I wasn’t going to read any of it, I wasn’t interested in anyone else’s take on what was going on; for me the important thing was to support my family. However, I wanted Gemma to read every single piece of evidence that was coming out about him so that she could understand what kind of man he was.

Today had been nothing, I knew there was much worse to come.

The next day Gemma would give evidence. We still weren’t on speaking terms, but I sent her a text: ‘I’ll be thinking of you tomorrow. If you need me, I’ll be there. I love you’. Once again, though, I didn’t hear back from her.

Later that evening, Neil Ralph called to confirm with me where Gemma would be the next morning. She was going to be sitting a maths exam at a nearby school first thing, and the plan was for our family liaison officer Hannah and Max to meet her there afterwards and bring her to court. There was still no guarantee that she would go willingly, but I had to trust her to do the right thing.