The Evil Within: Murdered by her stepbrother – the crime that shocked a nation. The heartbreaking story of Becky Watts by her father. Darren Galsworthy

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СКАЧАТЬ loud tantrums. She’d never lost that powerful set of lungs she’d displayed in hospital, and she demonstrated them publicly on many occasions. When we went to a birds of prey show, she screamed so loudly she upset all the birds.

      ‘Will the family with the very loud toddler please leave, as you are interrupting the show?’ said an angry female voice over the tannoy.

      Anjie and I were mortified, and I tried to hide my embarrassment. I picked Becky up and stomped out of the building then plonked her down on the pavement outside, where she continued to scream and screech at me. To Anjie’s horror, I sat myself down a few metres away and started making the same noises back to Becky. People didn’t know what to think as they watched us screeching away. It certainly shut her up! I can laugh about it now, but it was a waste of the ticket price – a whole £18 I was never going to see again.

      When Becky was three, we took the kids on holiday to Exmouth. Danny, Nathan and I armed ourselves with little fishing nets and went searching for crabs and limpets when, all of a sudden, Becky decided it was time for a tantrum. She stood on the sand a few metres away from us and screamed her head off. No amount of coaxing from Anjie or me could make her calm down, so in the end I picked her up, put her on her lilo and paddled her into the sea.

      ‘If you don’t start behaving, I’m going to let go and you’ll end up over in France,’ I warned, pointing to show her the direction.

      She looked at my face, trying to work out if I was serious, and when I stayed deadpan she decided to calm down.

      Maybe some of Becky’s tantrums were about testing her own power, the way all toddlers do, but they were also a way of getting our attention because she was still not talking by then. She had been slow to walk and crawl, not finding her feet till well after her second birthday, and at two years old she wasn’t talking yet – she didn’t use recognisable words until she was well past her third birthday. I wasn’t unduly worried at first because I know all kids pick up these skills at their own pace, but the tantrums meant she could be a handful at times.

      She might have been demanding, but she was also an extremely affectionate child. All she had to do was look up at me and smile and she would have me wrapped completely around her little finger. She was always reaching up for a cuddle. Her favourite place to be was cuddled up with Anjie or me, or hanging with her arms around Anjie’s neck. She was my princess and I adored her.

      It always melted my heart when I spotted Danny and Becky peeping through the curtains at their mother’s house, waiting for my car to pull up outside on a Friday evening. The minute they saw us turning onto their street, Danny would fling open the front door, and, as soon as she could walk, Becky had a habit of rushing out to greet us. This might have been cute but it scared me silly, as I had to pull over quickly and jump out of the car to make sure she didn’t run straight into traffic.

      As happy as the kids were to see me, Tanya was always less so. Communication between us as parents reached an all-time low after Anjie and Nathan came into my life. I tried to keep my cool and let things wash over me, but handovers remained incredibly tense, difficult times.

      Becky and Danny would be very quiet when they first arrived at our place on Friday evenings. It was as if it took them a few hours to warm up and start enjoying themselves. I just assumed the pair of them were taking some time to get used to the new family unit, but Anjie had her doubts.

      ‘Have you noticed how Becky has starting sitting on the sofa all the time in just one spot?’ she said to me after we put them to bed one evening. ‘It comes across like she’s scared to move, like she’s been told off for it. I had to plead with her just to come and play on the floor with me and Danny.’

      ‘She’ll come around,’ I reassured her, but in the back of my mind I knew she had a point. Some weekends, the kids would be timid and jumpy, as if the slightest thing unnerved them. Once, when I went to pick them up, Danny was hiding underneath Tanya’s kitchen table.

      I tried to talk to Tanya about their behaviour but, to be honest, communication between us was too difficult. She just shrugged when I brought it up.

      ‘Maybe they don’t like being there with you and your new family,’ she suggested. I knew it wasn’t that because once they relaxed – usually by Saturday morning – they were giggling and laughing and having a great time.

      Tanya and I often clashed over the state of the old clothes the kids were wearing when they came to us. Anjie and I went out and bought them new outfits, but the following week they would come back in the old clothes again. Once or twice, Becky didn’t even have any shoes on when she got into my car, and I couldn’t find a suitable pair for her in Tanya’s house. Every time I raised the issue with Tanya, she threatened to call the police to remove me from her home. Despite the fact that I was paying child maintenance every month, Anjie and I were having to buy the kids loads of essentials every time we saw them. In the end, we kept the clothes we bought for them at our house, so at least they always had something nice to wear when they were with us.

      On Sunday nights, when we got into the car for me to drive them both home, Becky would cry her eyes out the whole way, and cling to me like a limpet as I carried her out of the car and up the front path.

      ‘Come on, sweetheart, it’s OK,’ I’d say as I tried to reassure her. ‘You’re going to see Mummy now and you’ll come back to Daddy’s house next weekend.’

      No matter what I said, it was absolutely heartbreaking for me to leave her that upset. Danny never cried, but he would sigh and drag his feet.

      I used to drive home to Anjie feeling terrible and trying desperately to understand what was going on. ‘I know they like spending time with us and we have lots of fun together, but it’s not just that. It’s as if they don’t want to go home,’ I said to her in bed one night. ‘Becky just didn’t want me to leave. Something’s wrong, Anjie.’

      I didn’t want to seem like an ex complaining, but eventually I was so worried I phoned social services.

      ‘We’ll look into it,’ I was told, but as far as I could tell nothing happened. I called again and again, but I might as well have been hitting my head against a brick wall for all the good it did.

      Then, in September 2001, when Becky was three and Danny was five, everything changed. I opened the door to a man who introduced himself as Dave and said he was a social worker. I invited him in and he wasted no time in telling us why he was paying us a visit.

      ‘I have an update about your children, Daniel and Rebecca,’ he said, and Anjie shot me a concerned glance. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr Galsworthy, but the pair of them have been taken into care.’

      I stared at him in shock, and my stomach tightened into a knot.

      ‘Are the children OK?’ Anjie asked him. She sounded panicked. ‘Has something happened to them?’

      ‘The children are fine,’ Dave answered. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. They are both fit and healthy, but we weren’t sure they were being properly cared for at home with their mother so we deemed it necessary to step in. They’ll be staying with a foster family until we decide what to do.’

      I was horrified to think of children of mine being in care, being looked after by strangers. What had been happening to them at home?

      ‘I want my kids to come and live here with me,’ I said, and Dave nodded.

      ‘I imagine you do, Mr Galsworthy, but it’s now a case of reviewing their care and deciding СКАЧАТЬ