Free The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland by Lily O'Brien Page A

police station, letting us play around with everything, just to keep us happy; but it didn’t last long and soon they had run out of ideas to keep us quiet.
    Then I noticed an old man sitting in the corner of the room and as I walked over to him, he shook his keys; I asked him what he was doing with the keys and he told me that the keys opened all the cell doors and that I could have them if I wanted. Without speaking, I grabbed the keys out of his hands and I ran over to one of the cell doors, I looked over at him and reached for the lock on the cell door and I put the key into the lock and I shouted to the prisoner inside that he could go home if he wanted to. But a police officer was standing right behind me and he was shaking his head from side to side, then one of the prisoners looked through the hatch at me and he told me that he didn’t want to go home and that I should keep the door locked.
    Then my brother Ted grabbed the keys from me and, one by one, he opened all of the cell doors, while telling everyone inside the cells that he was now in charge and they could all go home; but none of the prisoners came out of the cells. As some police officers were standing behind Ted and they were shaking their heads from side to side and indicating to the prisoners that they had to stay put. Then Ted moved along to an empty cell and we all followed him, and as he opened the door, we all stepped inside and we told Ted to lock the door behind us, and he did. Once Ted had locked the cell door, he told us all that he was going to run off with the keys and we began to shout and scream at him to let us out; but instead of opening the cell door, he went back to the other cells and he told all the prisoners to get out. And he told them all to swap places with each other and the police officers let him do it, and they were all smiling as he made all the prisoners swap cells with each other and then he locked them in again.
    After Ted had finished messing around, he let us all out of the cell and one of the police officers came over to us and he said that he was very sorry but we had to leave the police station and go with him; and then he told us that he was taking us to see our dad. We all shouted and screamed at each other with excitement and we all ran over to the door to get out. We just wanted to get out and go back home with daddy, but instead they put us all into a couple of police cars and drove us to the courthouse where daddy was waiting for us.
    Once we got to the courthouse, we were taken into a small room and sitting in the corner was daddy, and we were so happy to see him that we all ran over to him and we hugged and kissed him. We acted as if we had not seen him for years, and he began to cry and he gave us all a big hug back, while telling us that he was very sorry and that he loved us so much. Then a woman entered the room, she asked us all to follow her and she took us into the courtroom, where many people were sitting and waiting for us. They told us all to sit down, but Simon and I just hung on to daddy’s legs and we wouldn’t let go, so they let us stay with him while they talked to each other about us.
    Then everyone in the courtroom went very quiet and a member of the court staff began to read out our names and our ages, starting with the girls first. Lily age five, Daisy age six, Karen age ten, Jenny age eleven; and then the boys, Simon age four, Chris age nine, Ted age fourteen. Then the judge told everyone that daddy was not a fit and proper person to look after us and that all seven of his children would have to go into care. Daddy began to cry, so did Simon and then I began to cry, so I climbed up onto daddy’s lap and cuddled him, while some of the representatives from the social services gave evidence against daddy and the reasons why they should take us all away from him. They said they needed to put us into a children’s home so that we could be well looked after.
    The judge looked over at daddy and