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Married to a Paedophile (2018)
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This programme contains descriptions of sexual behaviour which some viewers may find disturbing. So tell me quietly, who's nice, who's not? Lovely over there with the van. Horrible to the right, horrible to your left. The guy in the bungalow there spoke to me very awkwardly but said I had nothing to be afraid of. Enemy, enemy. Hello. OK? Yes, well, cold, how are you? Yes, I'm fine. Nice one or horrible? Yeah, nice. No, she lives at the end. Do people tend to know each other's business? Yeah, of course, people notice things, it's not like police cars turn up every day round here. What's the thing you're really worried about? I have visions of people coming up the Close with machetes and all sorts, poisoning my cats. Because that's what people do, unfortunately. Look at that, the one I was telling you about, look at her, smug. And what had she written? This woman she starts an absolute vendetta against this couple in the village. He'd been convicted of viewing indecent images. Here we go, here we go. "He has no fucking rights, he should be shot on sight", 92 shares. "Sick twisted evil bastard, needs castrating and his eyes covering in tape". "Cut his bits off, and choke him with them, dirty bastard". "Sod their human rights", 'their' you notice, the two of them, "got to wonder about the wife". "This woman must be a whore". Nice, isn't it? "His wife is probably as sick as him. This disgusting pair have no remorse for what he has done, please share this with all friends, so that we can get the maximum exposure of dirty scum". Look at this. "I hope they both get beaten badly, knock the shit out of them, sickos". You know that could be me. So is this the room? Yeah. This is the part of the house that was Alex's, and that's the chair that he used to sit on and he would have his computer on that desk over there. So that is where he used to retreat in the evenings. When the police came they did spend quite a lot of time in here, as you can imagine, and they did remove quite a lot of items from here. What do you use it for now? I don't really have a use for it, I mean you can see at the moment there's books, CDs and family photograph albums, but I don't feel comfortable in here any more. Actually, made a conscious decision to keep the door shut. Six weeks ago Kate had just got dressed and was coming downstairs for breakfast when there was a knock at the door. Five police officers came in and arrested her husband, Alex, on suspicion of downloading sexual images of children. He was shaking, he kept repeating "I'm not a paedophile, I'm not a paedophile". They took Alex into custody and seized all the computers from the home, including Kate's personal laptop. They wanted to do a deep scan. It's pretty upsetting and shameful to have to go to a police station and beg for my stuff back. What are they thinking? Are they thinking I'm somehow associated with this crime? I can feel my stomach going. It is the place where everything that I was certain of was taken from me. He was questioned for over 12 hours and then, eventually, they ushered me and Alex into this horrible little concrete room, very sort of stark, couple of plastic chairs and a table, and bare walls, echoey little room, and said, "Alex has got something to tell you". That was when he confessed. Alex was released on bail that night and the couple drove home. A week later he packed a car load of his possessions and moved out. Does anyone want a cup of tea, or...? Love one, please. What have you got in the kitchen? Um, I've got fridge freezer, microwave, kettle, gas cooker. It's quite small, isn't it? I don't suppose you could put a big roast in there? Oh, the guy who sold me it reckoned he'd made Yorkshire pudding in there, but he was a liar. Well, appreciate you letting us come and have a look at it, because I don't think you were that keen initially were you? Mm, do you want milk? Yes, please. Since leaving the family home of 20 years, Alex has been living here, 170 miles away. I mean how have your circumstances changed? Not so long ago, I mean, what were you? Six bedroom house, large gardens. Good job. Good job, respected in the community. And now? Yeah, and now... Yes. And the shame of what I did, I didn't expect any more than this. All the way through the arrest and time in the cells and things, the police were asking 'was I going to kill myself?' It helps you realise that, actually, this is pretty socially unacceptable. I certainly find it very hard to think about it, I've looked through the police reports, and filed them away the other day and had a quick glance and was horrified at some of the descriptions. Felt guilty at making the police officer look at these images. It was children, yeah? Some of them? Yeah, all ages. When you start to think about what it is you've actually been looking at, you can see why, you know, people... ..can go off you. You all right? Shall we go? I did ask about ages of children, and things like that. What he told me was that he'd seen pretty much everything. Which just came as something I couldn't quite comprehend, really. As far as I was aware we were a happy, ordinary couple. Don't really see any pictures of Alex around here then. No. No. I've got photo albums, but I haven't really been back to those to have a look. That's my mother. That's me getting married. So, that's the acceptable wedding photograph to still have out now? Oh, yeah, definitely. Because it's just you and your mum. Because it's mum, yeah. Was it a good day? It was actually, yeah, it was a lovely day, it was a real country wedding. That's the wedding dress, and the veil. Brilliant. Oh, my God. It's real 1990s isn't it? It's great. Got a few marks on it but I made the veil. Can you forgive him? No. "My darling. It was nice not having to queue up so long in the visitor centre today. I hardly recognised you at first with your new haircut, and different clothes. Would he do your beard as well, do you think?" I just generally tell him about what's happening. I printed a lot of very mundane pictures of the chickens and things, but things that we would normally have been involved with, and I couldn't send him pictures of the grandchildren because he wasn't allowed to receive them. Robert is near the end of a 16 month prison sentence for downloading sexual images of children. Do you still love him? Yes. "It's a lovely day today." You sound quite chipper. Yeah, and I am feeling chipper at the moment. Which is good, he's coming out in three days and you're feeling chipper. Yeah. "Can't wait to collect you on Monday, and start our lives together again." "Love..." Are you going to use your real name? No, of course I'm not. Well, what are you going to be called then? God knows. "Can't wait to collect you on Monday and start our different lives together again, love, Helen." And I'll put a smiley, I think. There we are. # And as I walk along the sea # Need you to know, I'm on my way How did you sleep last night? I didn't. I was up at four, came down and had a cup of tea, I just couldn't sleep for excitement. While he's been in prison, Helen has visited her husband, Robert, every week. He's being released later today. That is a lovely dress. I wore this, this is a special dress because we bought this for I think my grandson's first birthday, and they had a garden party and it was a really lovely, fun day. Don't know if he'll remember that but just like it, you know. I only wear it on special occasions. Were you partly feeling like you were dressing...? For a date. Really? And I have felt like that before, when I've gone to the prison, and I've made an effort, dressed up a bit, shaved my legs and things like that. Does sometimes feel a little bit like that. He got quite a long sentence didn't he? Well, most of my husband's images were in the most serious category. Were they young? Very young. Yeah. Children the age of my grandchildren. I know that he bitterly regrets that he did it. Do you think he's a paedophile? I think he genuinely... He tells me has no sexual interest in children, and that he would never have progressed to doing anything to a child in real life. But you know, many women if they'd discovered that their husbands had been looking at those images, would have had nothing to do with him right from that point really, and yet what makes you still want to have him in your life? I do love him. You know, you can't just switch off those feelings, and I've loved him for 44 years, and you can't just switch that off. As a condition of his release Robert's not allowed to sleep in a house where there are children. Helen has rented him a place nearby. I've said to him "You're not going to be able to live with me when you come out". And that's because of your grandchildren? Because of the chil... the grandchildren. And the only way around that was for him to live somewhere else, and that's what we've arranged. So it's not far, this flat, is it? No, four minutes. It's just far enough away though that, hopefully, nobody will know him. You all right? When I came to view this was all shielded off, and you couldn't see what this was going to be and now I see there'll be children living there. I bought a new set of sheets yesterday, washed them overnight. Washed them to make them more soft for him? Yeah, because they're all stiff when they're brand-new. That's beyond the call of duty isn't it? I know that when he is alone here, for the first time he's going to feel very bleak, very unhappy, and the more I can do to make him feel comfortable, the better. When I was looking for flats this jumped out of at me, if he fears that a vigilante wanted to attack him, at least he can check who's at the front door before he answers it, which might be important. One of my neighbour's daughters told me that in her block of flats there was a young man who had been released from prison after similar offences, and he lived there with his elderly mother who was in a wheelchair, and people broke in and beat him up in front of his mother. Do you think he's worried about that? He is worried about that, yeah. They could firebomb, they could smash his windows, throw excrement at the house. PHONE RINGS That's my husband. Hello, darling. Oh, will you? We'd better go then soon. How does he sound? Happy. Same as me, really. He said his stomach's churning, he didn't sleep very well. He thinks he'll be out in 40 minutes. See you later. Bye. Three months on from his arrest, Alex has received his sentence from the Court. He's not been sent to prison, instead he's been given a 12 months Community Order, and must attend weekly counselling sessions. My Community Order says that I should sign the Sex Offender's Register, I can't delete my internet history, I've got to tell the police if I buy new computers. What about teaching? Is that it for teaching now? As part of the sentence the judge announced that I'd be barred from teaching, so that's an end to that career. So what's your set up now? Where...? Working nights in a manual job. I managed to get a job from an employer who values... well, they don't value me, they probably haven't even noticed I work there but... but who know that I've got a conviction but aren't worried. What about your workmates do they know? No. Oh, no. No, I think if people knew there'd be horrible suspicions and... ..there's always that, sort of, worry about people taking direct action. Do you worry about that? Yeah. Which is why it's so important that I remain anonymous. So Alex was a teacher here, how long was he here for? About 15 years. I do know that the police, at some point, went into the school and removed his laptop. He didn't do anything in the school, there was nothing on his school laptop, but there will have been people who will have seen what was going on, and perhaps speculated. Yeah, that could get tongues wagging couldn't it? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean I've had people shouting at me to leave their children alone. One minute, somebody said what to you? Yes, I have had people shouting at me to leave their children alone. And what did you do? Left their children alone. OK, so it's next left. Is it? Yeah. It's that one, no, it's this one, not that not that one. Not that one? Oh, I'll turn round here. That's it. Cor. You all right? Oh, dear, my stomach's flipping out. It's here. Now this is it, you know. Every time I sort of think what's going to happen in a minute, my stomach goes... flips over. Is that him? CAR HORN Oops. What are you doing out here? Waiting. I know, I can't help it. I was worried. Why were you worried? I don't know. HE SOBS Oh, no. What, thinking I wasn't coming? Just took time. Yeah, but I didn't think you were going to be this late. I'm sorry. It's nearly... look, it's gone 11 o'clock. Have you got Wi-Fi here? No, there's no Wi-Fi here. I have a 3G dongle with... Is that allowed? I think the realisation from the authorities is that, actually they can't stop you. But I've set some rules for myself. I don't sit on the internet for more than half an hour. Before I use the internet I know what I'm going to do and things, because that's where the problems came in. By the time Alex was arrested both his daughters had finished school and left home. His eldest, Lucy, will be 21 tomorrow. About 200. You've got lots of your daughters actually here, look. They'd hate to see that. Would they, why? Aren't people embarrassed by their old school photos? How would birthdays go when you were at home with your daughters and Kate? My mum would come over and make a cake, so, which was nice, a lovely tradition. To be honest, I... I was always a bit tired, you know, and some of that will have been down to porn use. I knew I had a problem with porn, probably ten years ago, and at the time I was just looking at normal adult material, but as I got bored with that I looked for more extreme material. I kept trying to stop but would always end up going back to it when things went wrong at work, or in other parts of my life. If I make excuses it sounds as if I'm not taking responsibility for my actions, but I've got to try and find an explanation because if I am the immoral person it'll be very hard to live with myself. I've got a pretty good idea from what he has told me that, you know, these images were very extreme. He kept talking about how he'd seen images and I got really angry, I said "No, you haven't just seen things, no, you went looking for things, it was an active process". I'm really angry that he would want to look at this stuff, when he had me, what was wrong with me? Why not just stick with what was right, what he should have been looking at, which was me? Kate has been living on her own since the week after Alex's arrest. She's now decided to take lodgers in, and rent out her spare room. It's a relief, really, have a bit of income, and, obviously, I'm not working, so I do need to cull, really. Will you tell your new lodgers what happened with Alex? No. They'll make friends with, or at least, they'll certainly meet your neighbours won't they? They will find out at some point. Just really hope they don't. I mean... They will though won't they? I don't know. What makes you think they won't? I can't imagine them just bringing it up in conversation "Oh by the way..." but my best hope is they'll just keep themselves to themselves. That will be my hope. It is a tricky one. I can't imagine, I mean, even if they did find out, I can't imagine they'd turn round and say "We want to finish our tenancy because an internet offender lived here", can you, really? It's not me, I didn't do it, you know. They're dealing with somebody honourable, it's not like I'm leading a secret double life. No, but it's so interesting isn't it as to whether you feel that that that's something that you need to... Conceal. Yeah. Got a lot of albums there. Yeah. I don't really want to go through the photo albums. Why is that? I don't really want to look at pictures of us as a family, at the moment. How do you think the girls are coping at the moment? They've got so many distractions in their lives, they've both got boyfriends, I just think they feel that their life's not here. Are your daughters seeing much of Alex? I don't ask them too many questions about it... but I think so. Hello. Hello. I apologise for wearing my uniform, I came straight from the night shift. I'm training at the moment, I'm learning how to load lorries. How exciting. We don't hug, do we? Or do we? Yes, we do, it's just usually awkward. Ah, it looks good. Apart from the bit on the floor. Yeah, well it's much better than it was last time. Yes. Yeah. I did that picture yesterday. You should do something with your art. Yeah, I spend a lot of my time considering possible careers I could still go down. Well, so am I. Yeah. # Happy birthday to you # You look like a monkey # And you smell like one too.# Thank you. Shall I blow out the candles? I think you're meant to. Who's that from? Charlotte. My sister, yes. She's still angry with me, I think. Refusing to have contact, basically, and refusing to attend the same family functions. Which is the stigma of the crime. At some level it seems appropriate that there is an awkward thing there that means that I am reminded that this is serious, and it has affected a lot of people, you guys in particular. Ooh. It's a non-stick wok. Some people that go through this, they do lose family members. Did you worry that you'd lose the girls? Oh, definitely. I thought they'd want nothing to do with me. And certainly after this all came out I was too embarrassed to try and keep contact with you for a little while anyway. I was scared. I have put off speaking to him, basically. I remember sitting in the kitchen of my flat, having an hour long conversation with him, it was very odd. I'd not heard him cry before. That was hard and there was just a lot of confusion, I remember just going back and forth between 'how could he do this?' to 'at least now he's getting some help' and 'I feel sorry for him, I empathise with him... ..and I'm angry at him'. There's always going to be a part of me that thinks, I don't understand... I understand him becoming addicted to a thing, but it's very hard to understand becoming addicted to that. It's very difficult identifying what the underlying cause was. I was depressed, I became addicted to the use of pornography. Do you think that whatever it was to drove you to look at the images, do you think it's something that you can be cured from? I am recovering, I hope, and part of my recovery is the fact that I've got to be the best father that I can be. I wrote a very long letter to you in the aftermath... ..which you've never seen, I wanted to explain things a bit. I don't know whether you'll want to address it or not. If you wanted me to read a letter I'd probably read it. Yeah. I don't think you should punish yourself on our behalf, or anything, like that's yeah, I don't think of your crimes when I think of you, you know. Afterwards when several things have come up, the one thing that's been handled badly is I never got the phone call to Lucy was the one to pass it on to me, it's just been 'Oh, I'm too young to understand', I think there's been that kind of attitude, and I'm not young, you know. We handled that terribly badly. It's been a devastating experience for everyone. I ended up harming the people I love the most. You've both been very kind to me. You've allowed me to bumble around on the periphery of your lives, popping up every now and again to fix a broken chair or... You decide what you do want for your birthday. I can give you driving lessons if you want. Bye, darling. Bye. CHICKENS CLUCK No, you don't, Violet. CHICKENS SQUAWK Here you go, love, here's your tea. Door's broken now. Robert has been out of prison for two weeks now. He sleeps in his rented flat, and comes to the family home on days when the grandchildren aren't there. Do you think Robert might be up for talking to us about what's happened? He might, but he doesn't at the moment. Do your neighbours know where he's been, and what he did? My immediate neighbours do. I can see your neighbour there now, actually. Yeah. What do they think about him being back here? She just made it clear that, while I was having Robert visiting the house, she is not to be involved with me. So, have you got on well with this neighbour in the past? Oh, yes, we used to be quite close friends. I took round some rhubarb yesterday, which I've always done. And she was rather taken aback, rather reluctant to speak to me, and was looking around obviously to see if Robert was around. And I...naively said to her, "Well, it's all going well, "and he's settling into his new flat". And she said, "Well I'm afraid I don't think "he's been punished enough at all. "He shouldn't have been allowed out, and he shouldn't be allowed anywhere "where there are children." And I do like feel like saying, "Well, what do you think should have happened, then, what do you think? "Should he have had the death penalty?" Did you have any inkling of what was going on? Not at all. My husband had always spent a lot of time on the computer looking at train-related things and his hobbies, so I never looked into what he was looking at, at all. So, what's up there? That's his territory, and it's all untouched, really...yeah. Do you not go up there now? Well, there's nothing up there to interest me. Can we have a look? SHE GRUNTS Oh, dear...it's a bit cobwebby. The children think this is absolute fairy land up here. So, how much time would he spend up here? Several hours at a time. I don't know half of what's up here. My neighbour did tell me, "Oh, do you know your husband stands "and stares out the window at us"? They're very unhappy at the idea that my husband might have watched children in the garden. But I know that what he was interested in is watching the red kites. We get a lot of red kites around this area, and he like...he was interested in watching birds, and that's what he was watching. But people interpret everything in a different light, once they know what's happened. LAWNMOWER IN DISTANCE I did ask him what he was watching, and he said it was the birds, and also, he watches the trains. Cos you can see a train line from here. Apparently. I'd never really know what he's thinking, not really. And some questions are too painful to ask. Like what? Like whether he had any inappropriate thoughts of our grandchildren. It's too unbearable...I don't think I can cope with knowing. DOOR OPENS Hello! SHE LAUGHS It's been six months since Kate's husband, Alex, moved out of the house. And their divorce has just come through. Do you need to put... "I'm a woman, and I'm looking for a man." Oh, he looks nice. Which one, him? Oh, look, every eight minutes, a single finds love. "I have a great sense of humour." Goes from "doesn't apply at all" to "completely applicable", and you've got seven options on that. Slightly applicable. Slightly applicable, yeah. Next? What's that one? "I laugh often." I'm not sure that I laugh as much at the moment, as I did before everything kicked off with Alex. Erm... Maybe not completely applicable. "My emotional state is stable." Erm... Whether it is... as stable as it...should be. So that's...again, it's a difficult one, isn't it? Do you think you're actually ready for a new relationship? I suppose I've got two choices I can make. One of them is I can assume that, because somebody let me down in the past, I'm going to be let down again. Or the alternative is I can actually trust somebody, take the risk, and... ..if I'm hurt again, then that will be the price I pay. I just want to kind of go for it, really. Alex is still living alone, and doing night shifts in a warehouse. In his spare time, he's working his way through the 12 steps of a treatment programme for sex addiction. What's that? This is my sex addict recovery pack. HE CHUCKLES What have you got in there? Oh, just sort of...reading stuff, and books, and notes, and things. So, how's it all going, then? At the moment, I'm concentrating on... ..getting clear of the addictive stuff, and living in the present. I don't want to have any risk of going back into... ..having a porn addiction. I try not to spend lots of time in the caravan, so most of the time, I'm out there...walking, or... I met a heron this morning. And how do you feel about how it's going with the girls? It's always nice to see them, I'm incredibly proud of their courage in sort of keeping up contact with me, and... ..you know, it'd be very easy for them to bury themselves in their own lives. Do you think they may have questioned whether you'd ever had any inappropriate thoughts about them or their friends? This is... HE CLEARS THROA This is a letter to Lucy and Jess that I wrote shortly after my arrest. "Dear Lucy and Jess... I am not a paedophile. "I am not sexually aroused by children. "The things I have done are all virtual, "the other side of a glass screen. "I don't relate images on a computer screen with the actual acts. "I realise that this will make me seem immoral, "but this addiction of mine has led me to some very disturbing images. "Unfortunately, the further I explored, the more obsessive "and compulsive my behaviour became. "Much of the thrill was finding new things, and this certainly led "to the current situation. "I'm going to get treated now. "Looking forward, I hope that you will think, 'My dad was OK "'90% of the time, but he did something so unbelievably stupid "'the other 10%.' "This is like a car crash, which is all my fault." Here we are. And don't get crumbs on the floor. Let's just shut the door, so they don't overhear what we're saying. It's two months since Helen's husband, Robert, was released from prison. His grandchildren still haven't seen him. What do you think they've picked up about what's going on? Now look at this. Whether that's their grandfather crossed out, I... I don't know. They apparently were very upset when they were told that they weren't going to see their grandfather at the moment. My son said he asked them, you know "What do you think happens to people if they do something wrong?" and the children said "Oh, they go to jail" and that's where they said "Well grandad's done something wrong, and he's gone to prison". My granddaughter is quite enquiring, and wanted to know a lot more detail, and she's quite angry that she hasn't been told why he went to prison. "Do cats eat bats I wonder? And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself in a dreamy sort of way, 'Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats? Sometimes..." So Robert can't sleep here, but he's not he's not forbidden from seeing the grandchildren at all is he? No. There is no restriction on him spending time with them. It's our son and daughter-in-law who don't want him to see the children at the moment. They want answers. My daughter-in-law is not prepared to allow him to see the grandchildren, until she's had those answers. What questions does your daughter-in-law want the answers to? There were some details that came out at the trial, that she is absolutely haunted by. Like what? Horrible things. One of the videos that he looked at was of a breast-feeding baby who was taken from his mother, and the man masturbated and ejaculated all over the baby's face. My daughter-in-law used to breast-feed in front of Robert, in the house, and she's absolutely haunted, worrying what he was thinking, and was he having fantasies when he was witnessing that. She wants reassurance that he never, ever thought of actually carrying any of these things out. Is that them? Is that your daughter-in-law? Yes, it is, yeah, don't know how they're feeling, but I'm feeling rather apprehensive. Ever since his trial Robert's son and daughter-in-law have been reluctant to see him, but they have agreed to mediation to confront him with his offences, and to decide whether to allow him to see his grandchildren again. Take a seat Robert, there. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dr Campbell. So the first point is to know from everyone, what do you really want to achieve with this meeting? Are you worried about him? I just wondered how he is. He, of course, feels awful about it. And he's really unhappy about how it all turned out obviously, and starting over has been hard, on his own. You know, hopefully he'll find a partner. Do you think it's realistic that he'll find a partner? Surely, at some point he'd have to tell that partner about the past. Yeah, but loads of people have pasts, I think he'd just have to find someone who could understand the crime he committed isn't a defining feature of his personality. But I think that very few people would be comfortable knowing that. Your complete discomfort with it, maybe, makes you think that other people would be always equally as uncomfortable. Hmm, well, it is such a taboo, it instils such feelings of revulsion, just that association, sex and children. Yeah, I think it's more complicated than just the crime with him. I think that came out of a product of him being mentally ill, and unhappy, and not thinking. I think you're, perhaps, oversimplifying the nature of what he did. Anybody who views images that are illegal, are consciously committing a crime. They're adults, they know the nature of what they're looking at, and they know that it's not acceptable, and there must be something rather unpleasant that is prompting them to do it. But that unpleasant thing is still an illness. Well, there must be a point at which your morality, or your conscience speaks. I think that's probably quite a simplistic view of mental illness. Perhaps, you don't really understand the idea of, kind of, taking responsibility for your own actions. You know we are in control of what we do. We come at it from very different perspectives because you're... you don't really understand, like, depression. I think I can join a lot of the dots which make sense for me, and I... What do you mean by join the dots, what do you mean? Join the dots of how illness led to action and... What, you can sort of imagine how that would happen? I can see how it might happen. You sound very forgiving. You know it's different for me because I'm a partner, rather than a child. You're flesh and blood, it's a different... ..betrayal, really. Let's try to come with some scenarios. The therapist went round and asked why they were there, and what they wanted to get out of the meeting. What did Robert say he wanted to get out of it? That he wanted to be able to see the children again. Sally drew back into her corner and was saying, "Well, that's not going to happen unless I see real signs of change within you". His view was 'Well, I didn't actually touch a child and they were all old videos, and it's all exaggerated'. He's adamant that he didn't watch a lot of the videos, that he collected them, downloaded them, looked at them sufficiently to categorise them, and then put them away to watch another time. I said to him "But you did watch some didn't you?" He reluctantly admitted that he did. Sally breast-fed both her children in front of him, how did he feel about that and was he thinking about those images when he watched her? He denied it completely, he's denying completely that he saw that video. He says that he cannot remember viewing it at all. We don't know. We'll never know. Try and get some sleep. I'll see you tomorrow. You all right? I haven't quite got over the feeling that he's betrayed me, and I've got this 'how could you?' feeling in relationship to our grandchildren. I just... I'm struggling with it. It's been almost a year since Alex was arrested and the whole family had to start dealing with the trauma it caused. You seem happy. Yeah. Got a new man. You've got a lot of photos of him, are you still taking lots of selfies? Yeah, we do take quite a few. You're still in that honeymoon then ? Yes. I woke up one morning and my iPad was just going absolutely insane, going 'ding, ding, ding, ding, ding'. My partner, as he is now, was liking all of the statements that I'd written on my profile. What about this one? That's quite nice. Stunning gardens. It may be a bit sort of overlooked outside, I don't know. Top end of our... Oh, it is isn't it? ..budget, really. This is quite exciting, so you're going to move in together? Yes. It is exciting, because it feels like a new start. What about that one? A walled garden and an orchard. Kate is there anything that you're looking for, that's different from this house, particularly? I'm certainly looking for somewhere that we have absolute privacy. I don't particularly want to have a lot of neighbours too close. No neighbours or nice neighbours? Prefer no neighbours really, because I don't really want to have that pressure. Richard, you've had to take all of this onboard as well haven't you? Yeah. It has been hard at times. Yeah. It was something that, you know, I told you about fairly early on, wasn't it? We didn't... you knew what my past was. Mmm. I think it would have been very difficult if it had emerged a long way down the line. People did warn me that it's probably not something you mention on a first date. We'll just stick the L-Plates on. Yeah. You stick one on that side. There you go. OK. Oh, I can't even remember all the stuff we did last time. Check the hand brake's on. Put the clutch all the way in. Wait that's the... Accelerator. So just put it into first gear. CAR OVER REVS No. It's not subtle at all. Right, let's listen for the biting point. Ah, hah. And off we go. Yeah. Let go of the handbrake, let go! The handbrake yeah, sorry. OK steer, come on, down the middle. Leave a good distance on the left. Yeah, sorry. OK. Look out for that cyclist. Signal left again. OK. Still in first gear. I find I'm a lot more interested in their lives than I was before. I'm enjoying hearing about their lives. In the past I was more in my own world. And has that in any sense led to a better relationship? In a way I'd hope so, but... That's nice. Yeah, but it was the only photo she could find of the three of us together. I have a lovely life now in a way. You know you've got enough money to have a night cap, decent piece of cheese and some Maltesers. I don't want to sound too happy about it, because of all the misery and everything else that it's caused but I think life's a bit simpler for me now. PHONE RINGS Sorry. Apologies for that. Who's that? That was a sex addict. Friend of yours? Yeah. Mike's in a very similar situation to me actually, he... slightly different crime but a similar outcome. I was given his number as someone who needed support and was able to support him over the phone a bit, and chat and things. In terms of recovery you know I'm building a life now, I'm very much bottom up. I can't answer questions like 'what are my plans for the future?' What I can say is I've got a list of things to do tomorrow, that I know will keep me out of trouble. No, I want to throw that one! "Dear Robert. We had a good journey and got here early evening. The cottage is really nice with lovely views from the windows. The children are very excited about taking Pippa for walks, and paddling in streams with her. My feelings haven't changed and they won't. Keep your chin up, Helen." It's been seven months since Robert was released from prison. The relationship between him and his son and daughter-in-law hasn't improved. Come on then. Good girl. So who's this? This is Pippa. She's... oh, she's made life so much more bearable for me. She's just lovely. The children love her and... Does your husband like dogs? Not much. There's a good girl. So how are things with you and Robert now? We are now fully separated. We are still friends but we are separated, and every day I have to remind Robert about that. He's gradually coming round to it. So what changed? I felt I had to choose between my husband and the grandchildren, and I have chosen the grandchildren. He's never really accepted what happened, and would like to pretend that it didn't really happen. And how do you feel about that? I feel free. Yeah, my end down. It's kind of like a dividing line, a watershed, you know this is my new relationship now and I don't want it tainted by association with Alex and the past. Do you feel you'll ever be completely rid of this? No. It's always just there, that little bit in the background, of unease. When I meet somebody, how much they know, are they looking at me thinking 'Yeah, she's the woman who was married to the sex offender' and all the rest of it? So when you unpack at the other side what are you going to do with the photo albums? I think they'll probably just go up in my loft. They can sit there for a bit and then at some point I'll go through them, I guess. |
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