My brother Patrick remembers my first beating, of which I assume I was completely unaware. He was just five years old when he watched our mother punching herself again and again in her pregnant stomach while shouting at the top of her voice, 'I don't want this fucking child!'Ken and Patrick Doyle grew up in a family of nine children. For sixteen years their home was a place of suffering. Behind the doors of their ordinary, three-bedroomed house they were subjected to depri...

The heartbreaking but inspiring true story of a childhood of abuse, and finding a way out of the darkness.Peter was just a toddler when his mother tragically died after trying to abort a child they simply couldn't support.When his father swiftly replaced her with his mistress, Peter made the mistake of calling her 'Mummy'. Dragged outside, trampled on and shouted at, Peter never made that mistake again.Peter tried time and time again to flee the ter...

'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 ...

Paul Mason's father was a policeman. He was also a member of a sadistic paedophile ring. He would keep Paul locked up and naked in a tiny cupboard under the stairs of their home before sexually abusing him. This cycle of abuse continued for several years and also affected his brother. The cupboard became a horrific prison where fear and terror filled his every moment.The Cupboard Under the Stairs is a story of abuse at the mercy of adults whom Paul should have been able to...

At just five years old, Dana learned that there was no one she could trust. Most devastating of all, even her own mother betrayed her and in the most unimaginable way. For years, Dana and her younger sister suffered at the hands of one of Britain's largest ever-known paedophile rings. And their mother did nothing to protect them.Only now is Dana's nightmare coming to an end as she crusades to put her abusers behind bars. In June 2007 the truth was finally exposed. Dana bravely test...

In December 1992, a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped and locked in a secret underground dungeon. She was chained by the neck in a coffin-shaped box. She was regularly raped. She thought she would die in that dank, dark hole. But, somehow, she survived to tell the tale.Virgin Books is proud to publish HELP ME by Katie Beers, an extraordinary true story which has already shot straight into the Top Ten in The New York Times.But perhaps what’s most troubling about Kati...

'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?

The one person who was meant to protect and love me above all else was the one person who refused to give it; who excelled at dishing out brutal punishments without fear of reprisals just for the fun of it.The sky was the limit when it came to my fathers demonic designs in ways to maltreat myself and my sister - bible, cooking utensils, vacuum cleaners and slippers were the regular tools of choice but whn he got bored Derek would resort to highly imaginative terror inducing techniq...

From the age of three Sheena Harrison was brought up by her grandmother whilst her own mother, Kathleen, sought work in America. Kathleen later returned for her daughter, but her mother refused to hand her over, saying Sheena had settled into her new home. She left once more for the States, believing that Sheena would be loved, cared for and kept safe. What she did not know was that Granny Morag would go on to allow, indeed facilitate, the horrific abuse of little Sheena. From the age of f...

Sophie Young tells her shocking true story in Please Will Someone Help Me?Sophie Young was born into a dysfunctional family, with a violent mother and father. 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....

A shocking and compelling memoir of a young girl's childhood spent suffering abuse at the hands of her father and his friends.Tracy Black was only five years old when her mother was hospitalised for the first of many occasions, leaving Tracy in the care of her father. His behaviour, seemingly overnight, changed from indifferent to violently abusive and, for the next seven years, Tracy was sexually ...

'I am six.We are sitting on the piano bench. Daddy's wearing his undershorts.That's all. I'm wearing my white underpants.That's all. It doesn't feel like we're going to make beautiful music ...'Catherine McCall's father was a high-profile doctor, her mother regularly hosted bridge parties. Growing up in their beautiful, historic home, Cathy appeared to have everything a girl could want.No one, not the neighbours, the nuns at school or her beloved grandmother, could...