Acid Row Read online

  And why not?

  Demand for housing following the baby-boom after the war had led to poor design and sloppy construction. The inevitable result was costly maintenance with only the most glaring problems being addressed. Ill health was endemic, particularly among the young and the old, for whom the cold, wet conditions, coupled with poor diets, weakened constitutions. Depression was common, as was addiction to prescription pills.

  Like the road to hell, Bassindale had begun with good intentions but it was now little more than a receptacle for society’s rejects. A constant drain on the public purse. A source of resentment to taxpayers, irritation to the police and unmitigating despair to the teachers, health and social workers who were expected to work there. For the majority of the inhabitants it was a prison. The frail and frightened elderly barricaded themselves inside their flats; desperate single mothers and fatherless children steered clear of trouble by living their lives behind locked doors. Only angry, alienated youth flourished briefly in this barren landscape by stalking the streets and controlling the traffic in drugs and prostitution. Before they, too, found themselves in prison.

  In 1954 an idealistic Labour councillor had caused a sign to be erected at the end of Bassindale Row South, the first point of entry off the main road. It said inoffensively: ‘Welcome to Bassindale.’ Over the years the sign was regularly vandalized with graffiti, only to be as regularly replaced by the local council. Then, in 1990, during the last year of Margaret Thatcher’s premiership, the same council, under pressure to reduce its costs, cancelled its budget for the replacement of signs. Thereafter, the graffiti was allowed to remain, untouched by Bassindale’s inhabitants who saw it as a truer description of where they lived.

  WELCOME TO ASSID ROW

  Acid Row. A place of deprivation where literacy was poor, drugs endemic and fights commonplace.

  Fay Baldwin, obsessively replaying Sophie Morrison’s dismissal of her the previous evening, wrenched four-year-old Rosie Patterson’s arm violently to prevent the child wiping her dirty hands and nose on Fay’s newly cleaned suit. She had come across her in the street, playing with her brother, and she couldn’t resist the chance to give their pregnant teenage mother a piece of her mind, particularly as Melanie wouldn’t yet know that Fay was to be replaced as her health visitor.

  She felt herself vindicated to find the girl curled upon the settee with a cigarette in one hand, a can of lager in the other and Neighbours on the television. It proved everything she had ever said about Melanie’s unsuitability as a mother. Rather less easy to cope with was the way Melanie was dressed, in a skimpy top and tiny shorts that revealed long brown legs and a softly rounded tummy with the growing bump of her six-month foetus.

  Jealousy ate into Fay’s soul while she pretended to herself that she was shocked to see anyone flaunt herself so shamelessly. ‘It won’t do, Melanie,’ she lectured the girl sternly. ‘Rosie and Ben are too young to play outside on their own. You really must be more responsible.’

  The girl’s eyes remained glued to the soap opera. ‘Rosie knows what she’s doing, don’t you, sweetheart? Tell the lady.’

  ‘Down ply rown cars. Down ply wiv neeles,’ the four-year-old chanted, giving her two-year-old brother a gratuitous cuff over the head as if to demonstrate how she kept him in order.

  ‘Told you,’ said Melanie proudly. ‘She’s a good girl, is Rosie.’

  Fay had to use every ounce of self-control not to smack the brazen creature. She had spent thirty years in this hell-hole, trying to instil ideas on health, hygiene and contraception into generations of the same families, and the situation was getting worse. This one had had her first baby at fourteen, her second at sixteen and was pregnant with her third before she’d even reached twenty. She had only the vaguest idea who the fathers were, cared less, and regularly dumped the children on her own mother – whose youngest child was younger than Rosie – to take herself off for days on end to ‘get her head straight’.

  She was lazy and uneducated and had been housed in this maisonette because social services thought she might develop into a better parent away from her mother’s ‘unhelpful’ influence. It was a vain hope. She lived in unbelievable squalor, was regularly stoned or drunk, and alternated between lavishing love on her children when she was in the mood and ignoring them entirely when she wasn’t. The gossip was that ‘getting her head straight’ was a euphemism for an intermittent (between-pregnancies) career as a glamour model, but as she didn’t want her benefit stopped she never owned up to it.

  ‘They’ll be taken away from you if you go on neglecting them,’ the woman warned.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, blah, blah.’ Melanie flicked her a knowing look. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Miss Baldwin? You’d have them off me quick as winking if you ever found any bruises. Bet it makes you sick you never have.’

  Irritated, the woman knelt down in front of the child. ‘Do you know why you shouldn’t play round cars, Rosie?’

  ‘Mum’ll ’it us.’

  Melanie beamed at her and took a drag from her cigarette. ‘I’ve never hit you in my life, darlin’,’ she said comfortably. ‘Never would. You don’t play round cars ’cos they’re dangerous. That’s what the lady wanted you to say.’ She flicked Fay a mischievous glance. ‘Isn’t that right, Miss?’

  Fay ignored her. ‘You said you weren’t supposed to play with needles, Rosie, but do you know what a needle looks like?’

  ‘ ’Course I do. One of my dads uses ’em.’

  Annoyed, Melanie swung her legs off the settee and dropped her fag end into the lager can. ‘You leave her alone,’ she told the woman. ‘You’re not the police, and you’re not our social worker, so it’s no business of yours to quiz my kids about their dads. They’re fit and healthy, they’ve had their jabs and they both get weighed regular. That’s all you need to know. Capeesh? You’ve got no right to waltz in here whenever you bloody feel like it. There’s only one person from the Centre’s allowed to do that . . . and that’s Sophie.’

  Fay stood up. Somewhere at the back of her mind an inner voice urged caution, but she was too resentful to take heed of it. ‘Your children have been on the “at risk” register since the day they were born, Melanie,’ she snapped. ‘That means I have the right, and the duty, to inspect them whenever I think fit. Look at them! They’re disgusting. When did either of them last have a bath or a change of clothes?’

  ‘The Social know I love my kids and that’s all that fucking matters.’

  ‘If you loved them you’d take care of them.’

  ‘What would you know about it? Where are your kids . . . Miss?’

  ‘You know very well I don’t have any.’

  ‘Too sodding right.’ She pulled her daughter close, mingling her beautiful blonde hair with the child’s. ‘Who loves you better than anything, Rosie?’

  ‘Mum.’

  ‘And who do you love, sweetheart?’

  The child put her finger on her mother’s lips. ‘Mum.’

  ‘So do you wanna live with Mum or with the lady?’

  Tears bloomed in the little girl’s eyes. ‘Wiv’ you, wiv’ you,’ she howled, flinging her arms around Melanie’s neck as if she expected to be torn away from her at any minute.

  ‘See,’ Melanie told the health visitor with a smirk of triumph. ‘Now tell me I don’t care for my babies.’

  Something finally snapped inside Fay. Perhaps her sleepless night had taken its toll. Perhaps, more simply, the taunts of an empty life were the last straw. ‘My God, you’re so ignorant,’ she stormed. ‘Do you think it’s difficult to manipulate a child’s affections?’ She motioned angrily towards the window. ‘There’s a paedophile in this street who could take your little Rosie away from you with a handful of sweets because she’s never learnt when love is honestly given and when it isn’t. And who will society blame, Melanie? You?’ She gave a withering laugh. ‘Of course not . . . You’ll weep crocodile tears while the people who genuinely cared for Rosie – me, and your soc
ial worker – get crucified for leaving her with someone so inadequate.’

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t reckon you should be telling me this.’

  ‘Why not? It’s the truth.’

  ‘Where’s this paedophile then? Which number?’

  Too late, Fay knew she’d overstepped the mark. It was privileged information and she’d given it away in anger. ‘That’s not the issue,’ she said lamely.

  ‘Like hell it isn’t! If I’ve got a sicko living near me, I wanna know about it.’ She reared up off the sofa and towered over the little spinster. ‘I know you think I’m a lousy mum, but I’ve never harmed them and I never would. Dirt don’t kill a kid and neither does a bit of swearing now and then.’ She thrust her face into the woman’s. ‘Sickos do, though. So where is he? What’s his name?’

  ‘I’m not allowed to tell you.’

  Melanie bunched her fists. ‘Do you want me to make you?’

  Terrified, Fay retreated towards the door. ‘It’s a Polish name,’ she said cravenly before she fled.

  She was trembling as she stepped out on to Humbert Street. How could she have been so stupid? Would Melanie give her away? Would there be an inquiry? Had she jeopardized her pension? Her mind was consumed with finding excuses. It was hardly her fault. It was a stupid idea to house a paedophile in Acid Row. There was no way it could remain a secret. Prison was second home to the men on the estate. Someone was bound to recognize him from his time inside. Her fear began to abate. If anyone asked, she would say she’d heard on the grapevine that it had happened already. Who knew where gossip began in this place? The most ridiculous rumours spread like wildfire. It wasn’t as if she’d given Melanie a name . . .

  With burgeoning confidence she set off down the road, glancing sideways as she passed number 23. There was an elderly man at the window. He shrank back as he caught her eye, fearful of being noticed, and she felt herself justified. He was white-faced and unhealthy-looking – like a maggot – and her instinctive shudder of distaste smothered any idea of warning him or the police that his life was in danger.

  In any case, she hated paedophiles with a passion. She had seen their handiwork too often on the minds and bodies of the children who called them Daddy.

  Contribution to the Concern for Children Website – feature filed in March 2001

  Death of Innocence

  At the end of one of the most horrific murder trials of the last ten years, Marie-Th賨se Kouao, 44, and her boyfriend, Carl Manning, 28, were jailed for life for the brutal torture and murder of Kouao’s grand-niece, 8-yr-old Anna Climbie. Anna, born and raised in the Ivory Coast, had been entrusted to Kouao’s care by loving parents after the killer aunt, who styled herself to her extended family in Africa as a ‘wealthy and successful woman’, had offered to give the child a better life in England. In truth she was a fraudulent scrounger who needed a ‘daughter’ to work the welfare system.

  Little Anna died from hypothermia and malnutrition after being forced to live naked in a bath, bound hand and foot, and covered only with a dustbin bag. She was tethered like a dog and fed scraps which she had to eat off the floor. Her body showed 128 marks of beating which Kouao, posing as her mother, convinced doctors and social workers were self-inflicted. She also persuaded religious leaders to perform exorcism on the traumatized and tormented child, claiming she was possessed by devils.

  During the trial, Kouao, who carried a Bible to persuade the jury she was a religious woman, said she was being attacked by other prisoners while on remand in Holloway jail. It was a shameless demonstration of the double standards by which this murderess operated. ‘They beat me and break my things,’ she wept. ‘It’s very hard to cope.’ In response, her cross-examiner demanded angrily: ‘How easy was it for Anna to cope with what you did to her?’

  It is tempting to dismiss Kouao as an evil aberrancy, but the statistics of child murder in the UK make alarming reading. An average of two children die every week at the hands of their parents or carers, thousands more are so badly abused and neglected that their physical and psychological damage is irreparable. By contrast, fewer than five children a year are killed by strangers.

  When the News of the World, the UK’s biggest-selling newspaper, launched its campaign last year to ‘out’ paedophiles, in line with Megan’s Law in the US, by publishing names, addresses and photographs of known offenders, opinions about the campaign’s effectiveness were polarized. The public, shocked by a recent and horrific child murder by a suspected paedophile, largely welcomed it. Police, probation officers and child-abuse lawyers argued that it was counterproductive and likely to force paedophiles to abandon therapy and go into hiding for fear of vigilante attacks.

  Their warnings quickly became reality. According to a report drawn up by probation officers, sex offenders in all parts of Britain had already moved, changed their names and broken contact with police, or were considering such action. More alarmingly, following the publication of 83 names, addresses and photographs in the Sunday tabloid, angry vigilante mobs attacked the homes of some of these alleged paedophiles and rioted in the streets ouside.

  In almost every instance the target was an innocent person, either because the newspaper had printed a wrong or out-of-date address or because the vigilantes believed the home-owner looked like one of the photographs. The most bizarre and troubling incident was the vandalization of a female paediatrician’s house and car by an ignorant mob who thought ‘paediatrician’ – a doctor who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of children’s diseases – was synonymous with ‘paedophile’ – an adult who is sexually attracted to children.

  In the wake of these incidents the News of the World suspended its campaign after promising at the outset to ‘name and shame’ every paedophile in the UK. ‘Our job now is to force the government to act [on Megan’s law],’ said the embattled editor, ‘and we’ll name and shame every politician who stands in our way.’

  The debate about how to deal with paedophiles rages on, yet the statistics show that thousands of children are more at risk within their own homes than on the streets. Following a recent trial of paedophiles who shared indecent images of children over the Net, a police spokesman pointed to a disturbingly domestic element in the pornography now on display. ‘Early child pornography was filmed in studios,’ he said, ‘but the latest images look as though they’ve been filmed inside the children’s homes. You can see toys in the background. This suggests one or more of the parents was involved in the abuse.’

  However comfortable the belief that only sadistic strangers prey on children, we focus on the paedophile at our peril. Little Anna Climbie was brutalized and murdered by the people who were supposed to be looking after her. Countless babies have been shaken to death at the hands of angry carers. Childline logs 15,000 calls a day from distressed children. Most sexual abuse is perpetrated within the home. Most paedophiles were sexually abused as children. Child pornography exists because parents take part in, sell, or abandon their little ones to corruption.

  Are we ready yet to ‘name and shame’ the real abusers?

  Anne Cattrell

  Two

  20–26 July 2001

  SUSPICION IN HUMBERT STREET focused on number 23, not because the occupant had a Polish name but because an adult man had recently moved in. It had been Mary Fallon’s house until one of her five children died of pneumonia while awaiting surgery for heart problems. The council denied liability but moved the family hastily to the healthier climes of the newer Portisfield Estate, which was twenty miles away on the other side of the city and a great deal more attractive, having benefited from lessons learnt in Acid Row.

  After that, number 23 had stood empty for months with its windows boarded over until council workers turned up unexpectedly to air the place with some warm July sun, and paint over the cracks and mould in the plaster. Shortly afterwards, the new tenant moved in. Or tenants? There was some confusion about how many were in there. The neighbours at 25 said it was tw
o men – they could hear the rumble of deep conversation through the walls – but only one ever came out to do the shopping. A middle-aged fellow with sandy hair, pale skin and a shy smile.

  There was also confusion about how and when they arrived, as no one remembered seeing a pantechnicon in the street. A rumour spread that the police had escorted them there at dead of night along with their furniture, but old Mrs Carthew at number 9, who sat at her window all day, said they came in a van on a Monday morning and helped the driver unload it themselves. No one believed her because her bad days outweighed her good days, and it seemed unlikely that she was lucid enough to know it was a Monday or even remember the event afterwards.

  Police involvement was more appealing because it made sense. Particularly to the young, who lived on conspiracy theory. Why were the men brought in under cover of darkness? Why did the second one never emerge in the daytime? Why was the shopper’s face so pale? It was a contamination. Like something out of The X-Files. Vampire perverts hunting in packs.

  Mrs Carthew said they were father and son, claiming she’d opened her window to ask them. No one believed her because there wasn’t a window in Acid Row that a senile old fool could open. It took hammers and chisels to prise them loose from their frames. And even if she could, her house was too far away from 23 for that sort of idle chit-chat.

  The preferred interpretation was that they were gay – doubly sick therefore – and mothers with daughters breathed quiet sighs of relief while warning their lads to be careful. Youngsters hung around outside the house for a couple of days, shouting insults and baring their bottoms, but, when nothing happened and no one appeared at the windows, they grew bored and went back to the amusement arcades.