But how else do you cope when your mentally ill mother has killed your little brother and sister by scalding them with boiling water?This is a harrowing true story of how one little girl endured the most tragic of childhoods. But it's also the ultimate tale of forgiveness.Follow Nikkia on her heartbreaking journey, as she attempts to find answers and rekindle a relationship with her mother behind the gates of a secure psychiatric hospital.Deeply moving, Mummy is a Killer proves that love really is the strongest emotion of all.

    No-one knew the London businessman was born into a world beyond poverty, the son of a rapist father and disturbed mother. Abandoned as a baby, he spent most of his childhood in care and suffered appalling sexual abuse. But no-one knew. But a call from the abuser's wife, 30 years on, proved he was living in a house of cards.The youngest of five children, David was the son of a drunkard rapist father and a mentally unhinged mother. His father was jailed and his mother deserted the family, leaving five urchins to battle to survive in an inner city Glaswegian slum. Rescued, but separated, David grows up with vague memories of Ma, but no memory of his siblings.For the next years of his young life David was shipped from pillar to post, until the authorities decided the best place for him and his youngest sister was Quarriers Children's village, where he was delivered into the hands of a paedophile.Helpless, powerless and alone, it was beaten into David that no-one cared for him and no-one loved him.Finally David escapes and goes on to build a life of success, determined to bury his secret and never tell anyone what happened to him. Then he receives a phone call from his abuser's wife, and all that he has built comes tumbling down. She asks David to be a character witness on behalf of the man who stole his childhood. Instead David chooses to tell the truth, turning the tide for detectives involved in a massive investigation and changing his own life forever. This is his remarkable story.

    Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch and subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. Their step-father kept a loaded rifle by the door to make sure the young girls were too terrified to try to escape. No rescue would ever come since the few people who knew they existed did not care.When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community. Devastated to again find herself in a world of fear, cruelty, and abuse, Misty was sexually assaulted by the bishop. As Misty recalls, "Amish sexual abusers are only shunned by the church for six weeks, a punishment that never seems to work... I knew I had to get help, and one freezing morning in early March, I made a dash for a tiny police station in rural Minnesota. After reporting the bishop, I left the Amish and found myself plummeted into a strange modern world with only a second-grade education and no ID or social security card."

    She stopped at no lengths in her campaign to tear him to pieces both mentally and physically. In his chilling memoir, Alex describes how he received the most unnecessary and appalling treatment in mental institutions because of her actions, to the point where his mental and physical health deteriorated to a perilous state. Covering her tracks with cunning deception, his mother began by beating him repeatedly and forcing him to take a dangerous mix of amphetamines and Valium. His health already in balance, and raped by an uncle, the professionals believed his mother's lies. Mental asylums in Greece and the UK followed, as did isolation cells and ECT. But his mother's hatred was to take a more sinister turn still - how much more could Alex take and still survive? Not since Sickened has there been a book that catalogues a child's experience of being made devastatingly ill at the hands of their mother. Dramatic and uniquely shocking, this is a memoir that will haunt the reader long after they close the final page.

    Three-year-old Kevin was the victim, betrayed by the parents who should have protected him.This isn't a nice story. It's not a novel. It's raw and told in actual diary entries. Day by day and month by month, the author describes what she heard, what she saw, and how she tried to get help for little Kevin. This is a true story of child abuse, and it describes real events in the state of New Hampshire during 2011 and 2012. It's a harsh plea for child abuse awareness.

    It reveals three lives, separate but entwined, that have experienced unspeakable horror, unrelenting loyalty and unforgettable courage.From as early as three years old, Juliana, Celeste and Kristina were treated as sexual beings by their 'guardians' in the infamous religious cult known as the Children of God. They were made to watch and mimic orgies, received love letters and sexual advances from men old enough to be their grandfather, and were forced into abusive relationships. They were denied access to formal schooling, had to wander the streets begging for money, and were mercilessly beaten for 'crimes' as unpredictable as reading an encyclopaedia.Finally, unable to live with the guilt of what had happened to her children, their mother escaped with Kristina, cutting herself off from her remaining children in a bid to save at least one child. Desperate to save her sisters, Kristina eventually returned to the place of her torture to free Celeste. Years later, Juliana found the courage to escape, knowing that the child she was carrying would be subjected to the same fate if she did not.Now the three sisters have finally come together to reveal in full and horrific detail their existence within the Children of God cult. Their stories reveal a community spread throughout the world and its legacy of anorexia, depression, drug abuse, suicide and even murder. Lives are ripped apart and painstakingly mended with a shared strength that finally enabled the sisters to free themselves from the shadows of their past.

    We were human toys. Just a piece of meat for someone to play with.'Barbara O'Hare was just 12 when she was admitted to the psychiatric hospital, Aston Hall, in 1971. From a troubled home, she'd hoped she would find sanctuary there. But within hours, Barbara was tied down, drugged with sodium amytal - a truth-telling drug - and then abused by its head physician, Dr Kenneth Milner.The terrifying drug experimentation and relentless abuse that lasted throughout her stay damaged her for life. But somehow, Barbara clung on to her inner strength and eventually found herself leading a campaign to demand answers for potentially hundreds of victims.A shocking account of how vulnerable children were preyed upon by the doctor entrusted with their care, and why it must never happen again.

    This is a powerful true story of one young girls struggle to survive the state care system in the 70's and 80's. Amelia has just one wish, to make it to adulthood, to hold her destiny in her own hands. This is a harrowing true story, one of survival and human strength. Amelia has been separated from all her siblings never to see them again for many years, she is moved from one children's home to another, until finally it's just too much for her to bear. Amelia starts to wonder about the peace and finality of her own death.

    For all the children who suffered in this terrible place. For all those I consider my brothers and sisters; the ones who died, the ones who lost their minds, the ones who drown their memories everyday in a bottle of whisky, I tell this for you.Because in the end we are all brothers and sisters – and if we don’t feel that bond of love between each other, just as human beings, then we are nothing. We are no better than the monsters that ran the convents.”Based in Ireland in the 1960s and 70s, Kathleen’s story is a story of extreme hardship, suffering and abuse. It is the story of 11 siblings, abandoned by their mother and torn from their father, incarcerated in convents and then driven apart in the cruellest ways imaginable; it is the story of their ruined childhoods and their fight for recompense. But more than that, it is a story of courage, survival and the incredible strength of sibling bonds against overwhelming adversities.Out of terrible darkness comes a remarkable story. In the tradition of Irish storytelling, Kathleen offers a mesmerising account of her family’s experience.

    Sophie was routinely neglected and harmed, starved and left to fend for herself. Social workers were often involved but, despite numerous visits and extensive reports, nothing was ever done.When Sophie was six, her life took another horrible turn: her adored grandfather began to sexually abuse her.Please Will Someone Help Me? is Sophie Young's heartbreaking story about a young girl at the mercy of the adult world. With full access to her social work files, she shows how those who are meant to help children can be blind to the reality of their lives; but how, ultimately, love conquers all.Sophie Young was the eldest of three, born into a dysfunctional family that she fought for years to escape. Now forty years old, she lives in England with her husband and children, and works as a volunteer for a national children's charity.

    But behind the facade of respectability lurked a hideous reality. Cynthia was just eight years old when she was sexually abused by her father amongst others. Shortly before her eleventh birthday she was made pregnant and, minutes after giving birth to the baby, Cynthia watched in horror as her own mother murdered the tiny infant, named Noleen, by repeatedly stabbing her with a knitting needle. Cynthia's mother then wrapped the baby girl in a plastic bag, dumped her in an alleyway and made her daughter go back to school and pretend nothing had ever happened. After enduring many more years of rape and violence, Cynthia came forward and reported her abuse and Noleen's death. Finally, in 2007, after a fifteen-year legal fight to have her baby girl formally identified, the jury at the 'Dun Laoghaire Baby' inquest declared that the baby found dead in an alleyway thirty-four years previously was Noleen Murphy, the daughter of Cynthia Owen. Cynthia's is a horrific story of brutality and loss, but ultimately, it is an account of love, immense bravery and her fight for justice in Noleen's name.

    It was the last her family and friends saw of her for over eighteen years. On 26 August 2009, Dugard, her daughters, and Phillip Craig Garrido appeared in the office of her kidnapper's parole officer in California. Their unusual behaviour sparked an investigation that led to the positive identification of Jaycee Lee Dugard, living in a tent behind Garrido's home. During her time in captivity, at the age of fourteen and seventeen, she gave birth to two daughters, both fathered by Garrido. Dugard's memoir is written by the 30-year-old herself and covers the period from the time of her abduction in 1991 up until the present. In her stark, utterly honest and unflinching narrative, Jaycee opens up about what she experienced, including how she feels now, a year after being found. Garrido and his wife Nancy have since pleaded guilty to their crimes.

    His parents are trying to make a fresh start, but their gangland bosses are about to catch up with the family and Craig will pay a terrible price ...Edgar is a twelve year old boy whom nobody wants, not even the staff at the residential unit where he lives. Just when it seems that there might be a way of getting through to him, his mother reveals a secret that changes everything ...innie is a teenage boy who knows exactly what his gangster father is capable of, of how he,makes problems disappear. He also knows he has become a very big problem for his father ...... One man's fight to give these children the future they deserve.IN 15 years as a child protection worker, Shane Dunphy saw children growing up in horrific situations. He also saw their amazing ability to survive those unpromising beginnings.

    I had been looking for sweets. I put my hand in the bag and felt a sticky liquid on my fingers, then I looked at it. A red smear. Then I looked in the bag: bloody knives and clothes. It didn't feel good. What did it mean? I don't know. There are no answers; I daren't ask the questions'Growing up in poverty in London's East End, Kathy was eight years old when her father forced her mother into prostitution. When their mother fled, leaving Kathy and her sisters behind, the girls stuck fiercely together while being passed from children's homes to boarding schools. Then, on a rare trip home, Kathy looked out the window to see a man firing four shots into a Rolls-Royce. It took several seconds for her to realise the victim was her mother's lover, and the gunman was her father.Kathy began her haunting memoir when, as an adult, she travelled back to London, to find out who her gangster father really was. A compelling memoir of an extraordinary childhood, Dance for your Daddy is a true story of the effects on one family of poverty and affluence, violence and love.

    Plunged into a care system that neglected them, Isobel and Alex were expected to come to nothing, and had only each other to rely on.Isobel and Alex’s mother used to do everything with them. A full-time teacher, she dedicated herself to her children, partly in order to give them every possible opportunity in life, and partly to keep them out of the way of their increasingly eccentric, erratic and unpleasant father.Their father, a violent and frightening man, spent most of his time locked in his bedroom, a room the rest of the family never ventured into. He became increasingly bitter and angry at the outside world in general, and at his wife and children in particular. The local community feared his outbursts as much as Isobel and Alex did, but the neighbours saw far less of him as he became increasingly housebound. No one came to the Kerr’s house to visit.When Isobel was 15 and Alex 13, they came home from school to find police everywhere. Their father had stabbed their mother between fifty and sixty times with a sharpened chisel. As far as anyone could tell the attack was unprovoked and of incredible savagery, but the children were given the minimum amount of information. No one wanted to upset them unnecessarily.Their mother had been an only child and they had never been in contact with their father's family. There was no one else for them to turn to - except each other.This is an inspiring story of a brother and sister who only had each other, and a powerful testament to what can be achieved through courage and love.