MY ABUSER walked me down the aisle

Helen thought it was just her suffering at the hands of her stepdad

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I can still vividly remember one night when I was 10, silently creeping out onto the landing with my younger sister, Angela, then eight, our matching pink skirts swishing in unison. We were meant to be in our room, playing, but our mum was downstairs with her new boyfriend, and Angela and I were desperate to see what he was like.

Until then, it had been just Mum, Angela and me, as our dad wasn't around. So, of course, we were naturally curious to find out more about the man entering our lives.

As we peeped through the bannisters at the top of the stairs, we could see a tall man cuddling our mum by the front door. As Angela and I sniggered at their affection, we tiptoed back to our shared room, giggling.

We didn't know it then, but the man we were so desperate to catch a glimpse of was to become a man who'd haunt our nightmares for years.

Glen, 18, was a decade younger than Mum, and when she finally introduced us, he seemed to take an instant dislike to me and Angela, especially after he moved in.

When Mum wasn't around, he'd bark orders at us, telling us to tidy up.

Every day we'd clean comp paral with our room, before Glen then inspected it. One day he screamed at us that we'd not done a good enough job. He flipped our beds upside down as we cowered, terrified. Every day, Glen made me do the washing and make dinner while Angela vacuumed and cleaned.

Mum wasn't around much and we were too scared to tell her how mean Glen was to us, so instead we just lived in fear.

One afternoon, Glen shouted at us when he found a bite had been taken from a doughnut he was saving.

He was so angry, he made both Angela and me take a bite out of another doughnut so that he could compare the teeth marks.

When he realised that it was Angela, he punished us both, making us stand against the wall with our arms out.

Agonising cruelty