The bastard offspring of cocaine, crack first entered the UK in the early 1990s. By the end of the decade Britain's inner cities were in the midst of a crack epidemic, with users being responsible for a massive proportion of crime -- 95% of street shootings are crack-related, for example. Communities, especially in London, were crying out for help, but there were only two specialist units in the whole of the capital.One of them, Haringey Drugs Squad, embarked on a war on crack, aim...

'Nobody wants you, so we have to put up with you. We'll soon knock the disobedience out of you...'Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned by their mother outside Nazareth House Convent - a Belfast orphanage run by nuns. Little did they know the unimaginable cruelty they'd endure within its walls.Frances suffered horrifically at the hands of the Sisters: brutally beaten, worked like a slave, abused and molested, the convent regime stripped her...

With the reputation as the hardest and most dangerous female criminal in Britain, Gypsy Jane Lee was feared and respected throughout London's criminal underworld. This is her true story. During a terrifying journey that began as a 14-year-old armed robber, she has been shot four times, tasered three times by police and served three jail terms. Convicted for armed robbery she was released from prison only to go out and attempt to murder four people. Gypsy Jane has led a life packed with cri...

What could cause a mother to believe that giving away her newborn baby is her only option? Cathy Glass is about to find out. From author of Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller Damaged comes a harrowing and moving memoir about tiny Harrison, left in Cathy’s care, and the potentially fatal family secret of his beginnings.When Cathy is first asked to foster one-day old Harrison her only concern is if she will remember how to look after a baby. But upon collecting Harrison from ...

'If you say anything to your mother, I'll tell her it was your brother. And then he'll be locked away in prison forever because of you.'Zara's stepfather, Hassan, mercilessly bullied her brother and sister. But at just seven years old Zara knew she could never tell anyone about what Hassan was doing to her.For the next nine years, she kept the terrible secret, until eventually she found the courage to fight back. But was she too late to save the people she loved?

ONE REMARKABLE WOMAN.OVER 30 YEARS OF FOSTERING.THE STORY OF ONE CHILD SHE COULD NEVER FORGET.The true story of a troubled boy with a dark secret…Seven-year-old Reece is the last of six siblings to be taken into foster care. He can't cope with school and is often excluded for his violent and aggressive outbursts. But behind that anger is a kind little boy with secrets – he's just too scared ...

'Why did you leave me? Why did you get messed up with all of those drugs? Why did you kill my brother and sister? Didn't you love us enough?'Nikkia Roberson has been asking these questions for most of her life. 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 ...

From the author of international bestsellers A Circle of Children and Lovey comes an inspiring true story of a gifted teacher’s determination to understand the ‘rotten’ city kid everyone has given up on.Sitting quiet and withdrawn at a battered school desk, Luke had the looks of a shy angel – and a past that special needs teacher Mary MacCracken could barely believe.Already Luke had been picked up 24 times by the police. He’d set over a dozen major fires, and had a staggeri...

Unforgivable is the shocking real-life story of suffering and survival from child abuse victim Collette Elliott."I brought you into this world and I can take you out with one click of my fingers."What if Baby P or Daniel Pelka had lived to tell their tale?Collette Elliott once had a similar story. She slipped through the net and only just survived.Her childhood was a place of filth and terror. Her prostitute mother abused and neglec...

A true story of abuse. Three sisters. A shattered Irish childhood.Joyce, June and Paula Kavanagh were three sisters born to a family of ten in Ballyfermot, Dublin in the 1960s. Their father abused all three of them in the family home throughout their childhood. In 1989, the sisters made the brave decision to bring charges against their father and, in 1990, the state took a successful case against him. He was convicted and imprisoned.Click, Click is...

Bestselling author and foster carer Casey Watson tells the shocking and deeply moving true story of two sisters who carry a terrible secret.This is a first taste of the ‘Unit’ series: several stories about ‘difficult’ children Casey helped during her time as a behaviour manager at her local comprehensive.Casey doesn’t know what to expect when seventeen-year-old twins Scarlett and Jade join her class. The girls seem grounded but they never leave each other’s side, although t...

He was my religious teacher. I should have been able to trust him. But he made me do unspeakable things…At seven years old, Nabila Sharma began her lessons at the mosque as every good Muslim girl does. But from the minute she looked up at her Imam, the man who held her spiritual future in his hands, she knew something was wrong.Over the next five years Nabila’s life became unbearable. While she was behind the doors of the mosque, the most sacred of places, the Imam brutally...