|
is it me..but thought under age sex was illegal? -
12-05-08, 11:51 PM
A 15-year-old girl explains why she ran off with an unemployed father-of-three ... and her mother tells how it broke her heart
By NATASHA COURTENAY-SMITH - More by this author » Last updated at 23:24pm on 12th May 2008
According to her parents, 15-year-old Victoria Pilkington has enjoyed a "five-star upbringing".
Home is a four-bedroom detached house in West Sussex, holidays are taken twice a year in Spain and America, and Victoria has spent her life enjoying every hobby imaginable, from horseriding to ice-skating and martial arts.
Victoria herself was proving to be something of a model daughter. Well-mannered, bubbly and affectionate, she had ambitions to become a lawyer.
Her mother Suzanne, 45, and stepfather Richard, 38, considered themselves blessed to have her.
Today, they should be making last-minute preparations for Victoria's GCSEs, due to start in a fortnight.
Instead, the family's plans are in tatters.
Seven weeks ago, Victoria ran away from the family home to be with her 26-year-old boyfriend, Jack Moore, an unemployed father of three children.
Now Victoria and Jack have set up home together in a run-down council house in Bletchingley, Surrey.
Until the day she left, her devastated parents hadn't even known of their daughter's relationship. Understandably, they are distraught.
"I'm living every mother's nightmare," says Suzanne.
"My under-age daughter has run off with a man 11 years her senior and the police say they can't intervene unless she makes a complaint.
"I wish I could snatch Victoria back, but the police say I'd be breaking the law. As for Victoria, well, when I describe her, I want to make it clear I'm talking in the past tense.
"In the little contact I've had with her since she ran away, she's incredibly rude and has sworn at me. She's no longer attending school, despite the big ambitions she had for her life. As far as I'm concerned, my daughter has either had a personality transplant or been brainwashed by this man."
Certainly, when I visit Victoria at the property they now call home, which they share with one of Jack's friends, it is clear much has changed in her life.
With no carpet on the floor and the most rudimentary of kitchens, the couple don't even have a bedroom.
Victoria sleeps on a battered old sofa, while Jack beds down each night on a lumpy old armchair opposite.
School is rapidly becoming a fading memory.
The only reminder of her once lofty ambitions is a battered sociology book on a wobbly coffee table. Instead, Victoria and Jack spend their days with his family and friends, or taking long walks.
"Once, I would have walked into a house like this and turned my nose up at the squalor," says Victoria.
"But I used to be a total snob. Of course, I can see this isn't as nice as Mum's house, but I'm happier here than I ever was there. Mum looks down on Jack because of his social class — but he's a far better person than she is.
"Mum thinks she gave me this perfect life. Well, it may have looked perfect on the outside but it didn't feel that way. I was under so much pressure to be who she wanted me to be — a conventional, immaculate, good little girl who never went out. She pushed me to breaking point.
"Now is my chance to have what I want out of life. I know what I have now might not look like much, but as weird as it sounds, I prefer my life this way. I certainly won't be going home."
Victoria and Jack met in February, when he was working in her local shop.
"I found Jack incredibly charming and down to earth," says Victoria.
"He has none of the airs and graces so typical in my family. I quickly realised he was from the 'real world' — not the cossetted and sheltered existence I lived in.
"Jack told me he had three children from a previous relationship, but that didn't put me off. Although he and his ex are no longer together, he still sees his children regularly and I've met them, too. He's a great dad. I wasn't bothered about his age either — age is just a number, after all."
The relationship became intimate within weeks, but Victoria's parents were oblivious.
"The first we knew about Jack was when we got a phonecall on Easter Monday from a friend, saying his son had spotted Victoria in town with this man called Jack," says Suzanne, who divorced Victoria's father more than a decade ago.
She has two other children, Bertie, 21, and Georgia, her three-year-old daughter by Richard.
"I said I'd never heard Victoria talking about a Jack. Then, this friend told me that not only was Jack 26 years old, but he was known for being into drugs.
"When I got home, I asked Victoria who Jack was. She completely denied knowing anyone called Jack and ran back upstairs to her room.
"I heard her pick up the cordless phone upstairs, so I called up to her to come down immediately. She walked down the stairs, threw the phone at me and ran out of the front door.
Richard ran down the road to find her but had no luck. Half an hour later, a neighbour knocked on our door to say Victoria had gone into their house, called Jack and he'd picked her up in a car.
"We were completely stunned. I couldn't believe our perfect daughter had done such a thing."
Worse was to come. After looking in her daughter's room for clues about Jack's address, Suzanne came across a packet of contraceptive pills.
Until then, she was convinced her daughter was a virgin.
Suzanne and Richard called the police to report their daughter missing, but the following day the police told them Victoria didn't want to return home.
Suzanne says: "The police said they believed the couple to be at Jack's mother's house in Bletchingley, but that they didn't have the power to go in there and bring her home," says Suzanne.
"In my mind, my daughter had effectively been kidnapped. I couldn't believe there was nothing we could do."
In desperation, Suzanne and Richard drove to Jack's mother's house, having been given the address by the police.What they discovered horrified them.
"The house had doors hanging off, ferrets in cages, piles of rubbish everywhere and dirty clothes hanging on a washing-line," says Suzanne.
"I wept when I saw it. As the door was standing open, Richard and I went in. The property was in an even worse state inside. There were empty cardboard boxes and old newspapers everywhere."
Surrounded by the mess was Victoria.
"She was sitting on the sofa, looking sheepish with this man at her side. She was wearing a dirty tracksuit and her hair was filthy. I'd never seen her in such a state.
"After a brief chat, Victoria agreed to come home. When we got back, we sat her down and explained that we understood she loved Jack, but that he was too old for her, and that he would get into a lot of trouble if they carried on seeing each other.
"I said it was 12 weeks until she turned 16, at which point I couldn't stop her seeing Jack, but until then she should focus on her GCSEs."
But when her parents woke up the following morning, Victoria's bed was empty.
She had run away again, and has not returned since.
"Richard and I spent 20 hours a day driving around the streets looking for her, putting up posters and calling everyone we could think of," says Suzanne.
"It was then that we started hearing all sorts of rumours about Jack, that he'd given her cannabis. I was distraught, half expecting a call saying Victoria had been found dead."
Suzanne was reassured by police that once Victoria and Jack were located, they would be detained for 72 hours and her daughter would be returned home.
However, when the police did eventually locate the runaways just over a month ago — once again at Jack's mother's house — the couple were not detained.
In the past few weeks, Suzanne has had virtually no contact with her daughter, save for the occasional call and an alarming letter.
"Victoria wrote to us, and the first page of the letter was all about how much she missed us, and her sister Georgia," says Suzanne.
"But the second page was full of swear words and aggressive language. I was chilled to my core. I am sure the words came from Jack. He must have been standing over her telling her what to write."
Most troubling of all, Suzanne claims an anonymous posting on the website of her local newspaper suggests Victoria is now pregnant.
However, these pregnancy rumours are strenuously denied by Jack and Victoria, who insist they are not sleeping together at the moment and won't be doing so until she turns 16 in July.
African heart, African mind
|
is it me..but thought under age sex was illegal?
Linear Mode
