Sophie Hayes - Trafficked: My Story of Surviving, Escaping, and Transcending Abduction into Prostitution

My brothers eighteenth birthday party was an elaborate eventa glamorous celebration that had been carefully planned by my mother down to the very last detail so that nothing could go wrong. We had a beautiful meal at a hotel with all our family and friends and when everyone had finished eating, my father took the microphone and announced that hed been asked by my mother to give a speech about his eldest son. There were many good things that could be said about my brother, and a whole host of funny and touching anecdotes that could be told about him. So as the room fell quiet and everyone turned to look at my father, they were all smiling with a benign expectancy that quickly turned to horror when he announced that he could think of nothing to say other than that he was disappointed to have fathered such a useless piece of shit.

For a moment, there was a stunned silence and then, as a low murmur of disapproval spread around the room, my grandfather leaped to his feet, snatched the microphone from my fathers hand, and, with tears in his eyes, began to talk about all the good things his grandson, Jason, had done and how much everyone in the family loved him.

When I eventually dared to look at my brother, he was sitting completely still, staring into the distance above everyones heads with an expression of almost physical pain on his face. I looked away quickly, feeling sick, and wondered how any man could do such a terrible thing to anyone, let alone his own child, who was guilty of nothing other than trying for eighteen years to gain his fathers love and approval.

I think I knew in that moment that my parents marriage was over, although it had a few more death throes to go through before they divorced.

Another event that finally tipped the balance for my mother occurred one night not long after Jasons birthday. I had come home from an evening out and, not realizing that Jason and his girlfriend, Harriet, were babysitting for a neighbor, had locked the front door and gone to bed. Half an hour later, I was awakened by the sound of the doorbell. It rang just once, but almost immediately I heard footsteps thundering down the stairs and then Harriets voice calling my mums name and screaming, Hes going to kill him. Help! Please! Someone help !

My mother had already reached the top of the stairs by the time Id jumped out of bed and rushed onto the landing. As I ran after her into the hallway, I could see Jason standing on the doorstep with blood pouring from his nose.

Harriet was sobbing and my father was waving his arms in the air and shouting, when suddenly Jason stepped forward, pushed Dad out of the way, and yelled, Youre a fucking wanker. I hate you. Why dont you go away and leave us all alone? Then Jason rushed up the stairs and locked himself in his bedroom. My father smirked, shrugged his shoulders, and went to bed.

Luckily, the commotion hadnt woken my younger sister and brothers, so Harriet, my mum, and I went into the kitchen. For a few moments, we sat together around the table in a state of shocked disbelief, until Mum eventually broke the silence by asking the question that was in all of our minds when she said, What the hell just happened?

It turned out that my father had been so annoyed at having been woken up by Jasons tentative ring on the doorbell that hed flung open the front door and, without saying a word, head-butted his own son.

My mother sighed and lifted her hands off the table in a gesture of weary defeat as she said, Well, thats it then. I cant stand by and allow him to hit my children. Thats one thing Im not prepared to put up with.

I felt terrible about what had happenednot just because I felt so sorry for Jason, but also because I knew it was my fault. Jason didnt have a key to the front door and I hadnt made sure he was home before I locked it that night. Even now, I cant bear to think of the distress my thoughtlessness caused him.

So that was the second of the three final straws for my mother. The last one came as a result of someone telling her that my father was seeing other women. When she confronted him, theyd been shouting and arguing for ages by the time I walked into the living room and heard Dad shout at Mum, She was a dead ringer for you, only much younger. Then he stormed out of the room and Mum burst into tears.

It turned out that Mums dead ringer hadnt been the only woman Dad had been sleeping with. There were dozens of them. Apparently, hed joined a group of swingersnot the sort who swap partners, but the ones who go to parties that have been organized for the specific purpose of having sex with total strangers paid to do whatever weird and kinky things men like my dad want them to do.

When Mum left him, she discovered hed remortgaged the house, not for financial reasonshe earned a considerable income and didnt have any money worriesbut because hed been siphoning money into foreign bank accounts. So Mum got very little money from the divorce, but she didnt really care, because all she wanted by then was to get away from my father and make a new home for herself and her children, where no one shouted at her and told her constantly that she was useless and stupid.

I was seventeen when my parents separated, and Ive rarely spoken to my father since then.

***

I was just a few hours old when I was placed in my fathers arms for the first time. Apparently, I started to scream and he glanced down at me, handed me back to my mother, and promptly lost all interest in me. It was an indifference that soon became mutual, and by the time I was in my early teens, Id learned to accept the fact that I didnt like my own father. Fortunately, though, Ive always loved my mumas well as being a really good mother, shes my best friend and I can talk to her about almost anything.