Post by Angel on Nov 20, 2010 15:35:29 GMT -5
Our 15-year-old daughter ran away to be with a man she met on the internet... I didn’t think it happened to clever girls
For the first six months, no one knew if she was dead or alive. Then, Gill was forced to keep her distance, helpless to intervene when Sammy decided to get married at 16.
‘I used to think things like that didn’t happen to clever girls from a loving home,’ says Gill, a retail manager, who has been married to Sammy’s engineer father Bob, 44, for 20 years, and also has a son Jack, 15.
‘Sammy was doing well at school, had plans for a career and to travel. But all that counted for nothing after she met that man.’
That man is unemployed David Manning, 21, whom the Osborns claim encouraged their daughter to leave home. Though it pains Gill to say it, he is Sammy’s husband.
But she is quick to add her daughter has ‘seen sense’ and is starting divorce proceedings.
Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, Sammy comes across as a typical teenager — wilful and determined at times and yet also shy and naive.
And here is the crux of the matter. Headstrong teenagers are nothing new. But as the Osborns discovered to their cost, the advent of computers in bedrooms has opened a
terrifying outlet for adolescent emotions.
Sammy was just 15 when she vanished.
Now, two years on and full of remorse, she is trying to rebuild her life with her parents — and disentangle herself from a relationship that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Her parents thought she was using her computer for homework when, in fact, she was spending hours on MSN Messenger and the social networking site Bebo.
‘Everyone makes friends on the internet these days. I’m no different,’ she says. ‘I was 13 when a friend I’d met online introduced me to David Manning and we started emailing each other all the time.
‘We’d chat for hours about music and things like that. It wasn’t long before I felt I could talk to him about anything.’
The could not have been more different. Sammy was a diligent grammar school pupil from Buckingham, who had ambitions to be a teacher and enjoyed all the trappings of a middle-class upbringing.
Manning, from Bristol, was the product of a broken home who had fathered a child at 17.
‘I had everything he didn’t. His mother had left when he was little and he had a child of his own he did not see. At school, there were so many high expectations of me. Getting to know David was my escape.’
It wasn’t long before the naive Sammy had convinced herself she was in love with this hapless individual. The next step was to meet him, without her parents’ knowledge.
A date was arranged in Milton Keynes, where Sammy often went with friends on Saturdays. She shrugs at the suggestion she might have been putting herself in danger by meeting a stranger.
‘It wasn’t as if David was some random weirdo in his 40s — I would never have met someone like that. I’d seen photos, so I knew what to expect and I wasn’t nervous.
‘At 5ft 7in, he wasn’t big or threatening. It was awkward at first — it’s easier talking on-line than face to face — but I instantly felt the same connection with him.’
After a few furtive dates, Gill started to notice a change in her daughter.
‘Sammy suddenly became secretive,’ she says. ‘She spent hours online and if I asked who she was talking to, she became moody and sullen. I thought she was going through a phase, but then she began getting long phone calls that left her distressed.
‘We learned she had this older boyfriend who demanded all her attention. We urged her to break it off. But she wouldn’t listen.’
Even though she promised nothing intimate would happen and that Manning “respected” her, we stressed she was too young to be getting into this type of relationship.’
Refusing to listen to reason, Sammy packed a bag of clothes and her homework books and slipped out of the house, leaving a note to say she would be back in a week.
She also left an address in Wales, which turned out to be wrong.
Worried sick, the Osborns alerted the police. Sammy was found with Manning in Bristol, where they were questioned at a police station.
She told the police her mother had hit her, hoping this would stop them from taking her home. But after ten days, the wilful teenager was back home.
'Sammy was dirty and unkempt - she looked as if she hadn't washed for days,' says Gill.
'When I tried to hug her, she pushed me away. She was agitated and hostile. I was so scared something awful had happened, but she would not speak to me. Our daughter had become a stranger who hated us.
'When we turned to social services for help, we were merely advised to give her condoms so she would not get pregnant. I was furious that they viewed the situation so lightly.
'I was floundering. When I broached the subject with Sammy, she was enraged. She called me "sick" and a "pervert" for even thinking she may be having a sexual relationship.'
Not long after, Sammy left home again, this time with nothing except the clothes she was wearing.
Her family suspected she was with Manning, but the police could find no trace of her at the terrace house he shares with his jobless father, Cyril, in the Fishponds area of Bristol. So Gill feared the worst.
'I trawled the websites Sammy had used, looking for clues about where she could be. I was horrified by the messages and films that had been posted by Manning,' she says.
'In them, he declared his love for Sammy saying "I can't live without you" and "I will never leave you".
'Suddenly, I understood why Sammy had changed. She'd been bombarded with messages which turned her against the life she knew. I just prayed that wherever she was that she would find the strength to break away.'
But there was not a word. Sammy admits she saw the missing posters that appeared in town centres across the country - in one, her face appeared alongside that of Madeleine McCann - and yet made no attempt to contact the police or her family to reassure them she was safe and well.
'I didn't ring Mum or write because I did not want the police to trace me,' she says.
'Then, the longer I'd been away, the more difficult it was to go back and pick up the pieces at home and school.
'I know it must sound awful, but I didn't really give my mum's feelings much thought. I just thought she'd be really mad at me.
'I decided to stay in hiding until I was 16, when no one could make me go home. I crossed off the months on a calendar.'
Not long after her 16th birthday, Sammy rang a runaway helpline to pass on the message she was safe, but had no plans to return home.
'I was 16, I could legally live with David and no one could tell me what I should be doing. I just wanted to be left alone,' she says.
The pair got married in Scotland, where a 16-year-old does not need parental consent. The bride wore jeans, trainers and a hoodie.
'I knew I was a bit young to be getting married, but I thought it was romantic and would make people accept I was with David,' she says.
Gill found out about the wedding only when social workers contacted her, after they had been informed by the police.
'Though I blamed the man she was with for brainwashing her against us, it still felt like a huge betrayal,' she says.
'Many of our friends said: "She's made her choice, just forget about her. Get on with your life." But I don't think any parent could. You can't just forget 15 years of love.'
For a year, while her friends sat and passed their GCSEs, Sammy stuck with the man who had changed her life so drastically. But she was far from happy.
Manning, she says, was unable to work due to health problems, and they survived on benefits and cheap microwave meals in a house which was dirty and unkempt.
'I spent most of my time in the bedroom I shared with David,' she says. 'I didn't go downstairs much.
'I started wanting to see my mum, dad and brother again. David and I were becoming distant. I'm convinced he was talking to other girls on the internet. I just couldn't trust him. Gradually, I began to realise that if I stayed with him, I would never be anyone or have anything.'
Lonely and feeling trapped, Sammy sent her mother an email from a library computer at the end of November. 'I just want to say hi - and I'm sorry,' she wrote.
Having fallen victim to a number of hoaxes, Gill emailed back: 'Prove it's you.' Sammy replied by listing the names of her childhood pets.
It was a major breakthrough and, on Christmas Eve, when Sammy sent another email confessing she was fed up, Gill told her: 'I've just brought a big turkey for tomorrow - would you like to come home?'
Sammy thought about this for an hour and then said: 'Yes.' She fled her husband without a word, just as she had run away from her parents, with only the clothes she was wearing and a handbag with a few photos.
'We'd come full circle and I was elated to get my daughter back,' says Gill. 'It was nerve-racking when Sammy's mobile rang and it was Manning asking her where she was. "I'm with Mum and Dad - I'm going home," she replied.
'She hung up and he kept ringing. But every time, she told him it was over. It's a tragedy that she has missed so much of her education. She should be going to university next year like her friends. But she is a determined, intelligent girl and I'm sure she will make up for lost time.
'I am just pleased she did not come back with a baby in tow. That was my biggest fear. I used to say to Bob: "What if she ends up with six kids, living on benefits?" '
Sammy rolls her eyes like a typical teenager. 'I don't want children. I'm much too young and that would never have happened,' she says.
After putting her family through such a terrible ordeal, the teenager is determined to make amends and become a model daughter. Her return is particularly timely as her father has just been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia.
'I would not have blamed my parents for turning me away after the way I've behaved,' she says. 'Before I left, there is nothing they could have done differently. I thought I knew best.
'Now I realise that, at 15, you are not ready to make those choices and I was certainly too young to marry at 16. I'm determined to move on and make something of my life.'
The Osborns have their daughter back, but how many other families will be torn apart by the men who prey on teenage girls, reaching into their bedrooms and turning them against their parents - thanks to the dangerous power of the internet?
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1155687/Our-15-year-old-daughter-ran-away-man-met-internet--I-didn-8217-t-think-happened-clever-girls.html
For the first six months, no one knew if she was dead or alive. Then, Gill was forced to keep her distance, helpless to intervene when Sammy decided to get married at 16.
‘I used to think things like that didn’t happen to clever girls from a loving home,’ says Gill, a retail manager, who has been married to Sammy’s engineer father Bob, 44, for 20 years, and also has a son Jack, 15.
‘Sammy was doing well at school, had plans for a career and to travel. But all that counted for nothing after she met that man.’
That man is unemployed David Manning, 21, whom the Osborns claim encouraged their daughter to leave home. Though it pains Gill to say it, he is Sammy’s husband.
But she is quick to add her daughter has ‘seen sense’ and is starting divorce proceedings.
Speaking for the first time about her ordeal, Sammy comes across as a typical teenager — wilful and determined at times and yet also shy and naive.
And here is the crux of the matter. Headstrong teenagers are nothing new. But as the Osborns discovered to their cost, the advent of computers in bedrooms has opened a
terrifying outlet for adolescent emotions.
Sammy was just 15 when she vanished.
Now, two years on and full of remorse, she is trying to rebuild her life with her parents — and disentangle herself from a relationship that will haunt her for the rest of her life.
Her parents thought she was using her computer for homework when, in fact, she was spending hours on MSN Messenger and the social networking site Bebo.
‘Everyone makes friends on the internet these days. I’m no different,’ she says. ‘I was 13 when a friend I’d met online introduced me to David Manning and we started emailing each other all the time.
‘We’d chat for hours about music and things like that. It wasn’t long before I felt I could talk to him about anything.’
The could not have been more different. Sammy was a diligent grammar school pupil from Buckingham, who had ambitions to be a teacher and enjoyed all the trappings of a middle-class upbringing.
Manning, from Bristol, was the product of a broken home who had fathered a child at 17.
‘I had everything he didn’t. His mother had left when he was little and he had a child of his own he did not see. At school, there were so many high expectations of me. Getting to know David was my escape.’
It wasn’t long before the naive Sammy had convinced herself she was in love with this hapless individual. The next step was to meet him, without her parents’ knowledge.
A date was arranged in Milton Keynes, where Sammy often went with friends on Saturdays. She shrugs at the suggestion she might have been putting herself in danger by meeting a stranger.
‘It wasn’t as if David was some random weirdo in his 40s — I would never have met someone like that. I’d seen photos, so I knew what to expect and I wasn’t nervous.
‘At 5ft 7in, he wasn’t big or threatening. It was awkward at first — it’s easier talking on-line than face to face — but I instantly felt the same connection with him.’
After a few furtive dates, Gill started to notice a change in her daughter.
‘Sammy suddenly became secretive,’ she says. ‘She spent hours online and if I asked who she was talking to, she became moody and sullen. I thought she was going through a phase, but then she began getting long phone calls that left her distressed.
‘We learned she had this older boyfriend who demanded all her attention. We urged her to break it off. But she wouldn’t listen.’
Even though she promised nothing intimate would happen and that Manning “respected” her, we stressed she was too young to be getting into this type of relationship.’
Refusing to listen to reason, Sammy packed a bag of clothes and her homework books and slipped out of the house, leaving a note to say she would be back in a week.
She also left an address in Wales, which turned out to be wrong.
Worried sick, the Osborns alerted the police. Sammy was found with Manning in Bristol, where they were questioned at a police station.
She told the police her mother had hit her, hoping this would stop them from taking her home. But after ten days, the wilful teenager was back home.
'Sammy was dirty and unkempt - she looked as if she hadn't washed for days,' says Gill.
'When I tried to hug her, she pushed me away. She was agitated and hostile. I was so scared something awful had happened, but she would not speak to me. Our daughter had become a stranger who hated us.
'When we turned to social services for help, we were merely advised to give her condoms so she would not get pregnant. I was furious that they viewed the situation so lightly.
'I was floundering. When I broached the subject with Sammy, she was enraged. She called me "sick" and a "pervert" for even thinking she may be having a sexual relationship.'
Not long after, Sammy left home again, this time with nothing except the clothes she was wearing.
Her family suspected she was with Manning, but the police could find no trace of her at the terrace house he shares with his jobless father, Cyril, in the Fishponds area of Bristol. So Gill feared the worst.
'I trawled the websites Sammy had used, looking for clues about where she could be. I was horrified by the messages and films that had been posted by Manning,' she says.
'In them, he declared his love for Sammy saying "I can't live without you" and "I will never leave you".
'Suddenly, I understood why Sammy had changed. She'd been bombarded with messages which turned her against the life she knew. I just prayed that wherever she was that she would find the strength to break away.'
But there was not a word. Sammy admits she saw the missing posters that appeared in town centres across the country - in one, her face appeared alongside that of Madeleine McCann - and yet made no attempt to contact the police or her family to reassure them she was safe and well.
'I didn't ring Mum or write because I did not want the police to trace me,' she says.
'Then, the longer I'd been away, the more difficult it was to go back and pick up the pieces at home and school.
'I know it must sound awful, but I didn't really give my mum's feelings much thought. I just thought she'd be really mad at me.
'I decided to stay in hiding until I was 16, when no one could make me go home. I crossed off the months on a calendar.'
Not long after her 16th birthday, Sammy rang a runaway helpline to pass on the message she was safe, but had no plans to return home.
'I was 16, I could legally live with David and no one could tell me what I should be doing. I just wanted to be left alone,' she says.
The pair got married in Scotland, where a 16-year-old does not need parental consent. The bride wore jeans, trainers and a hoodie.
'I knew I was a bit young to be getting married, but I thought it was romantic and would make people accept I was with David,' she says.
Gill found out about the wedding only when social workers contacted her, after they had been informed by the police.
'Though I blamed the man she was with for brainwashing her against us, it still felt like a huge betrayal,' she says.
'Many of our friends said: "She's made her choice, just forget about her. Get on with your life." But I don't think any parent could. You can't just forget 15 years of love.'
For a year, while her friends sat and passed their GCSEs, Sammy stuck with the man who had changed her life so drastically. But she was far from happy.
Manning, she says, was unable to work due to health problems, and they survived on benefits and cheap microwave meals in a house which was dirty and unkempt.
'I spent most of my time in the bedroom I shared with David,' she says. 'I didn't go downstairs much.
'I started wanting to see my mum, dad and brother again. David and I were becoming distant. I'm convinced he was talking to other girls on the internet. I just couldn't trust him. Gradually, I began to realise that if I stayed with him, I would never be anyone or have anything.'
Lonely and feeling trapped, Sammy sent her mother an email from a library computer at the end of November. 'I just want to say hi - and I'm sorry,' she wrote.
Having fallen victim to a number of hoaxes, Gill emailed back: 'Prove it's you.' Sammy replied by listing the names of her childhood pets.
It was a major breakthrough and, on Christmas Eve, when Sammy sent another email confessing she was fed up, Gill told her: 'I've just brought a big turkey for tomorrow - would you like to come home?'
Sammy thought about this for an hour and then said: 'Yes.' She fled her husband without a word, just as she had run away from her parents, with only the clothes she was wearing and a handbag with a few photos.
'We'd come full circle and I was elated to get my daughter back,' says Gill. 'It was nerve-racking when Sammy's mobile rang and it was Manning asking her where she was. "I'm with Mum and Dad - I'm going home," she replied.
'She hung up and he kept ringing. But every time, she told him it was over. It's a tragedy that she has missed so much of her education. She should be going to university next year like her friends. But she is a determined, intelligent girl and I'm sure she will make up for lost time.
'I am just pleased she did not come back with a baby in tow. That was my biggest fear. I used to say to Bob: "What if she ends up with six kids, living on benefits?" '
Sammy rolls her eyes like a typical teenager. 'I don't want children. I'm much too young and that would never have happened,' she says.
After putting her family through such a terrible ordeal, the teenager is determined to make amends and become a model daughter. Her return is particularly timely as her father has just been diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukaemia.
'I would not have blamed my parents for turning me away after the way I've behaved,' she says. 'Before I left, there is nothing they could have done differently. I thought I knew best.
'Now I realise that, at 15, you are not ready to make those choices and I was certainly too young to marry at 16. I'm determined to move on and make something of my life.'
The Osborns have their daughter back, but how many other families will be torn apart by the men who prey on teenage girls, reaching into their bedrooms and turning them against their parents - thanks to the dangerous power of the internet?
www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1155687/Our-15-year-old-daughter-ran-away-man-met-internet--I-didn-8217-t-think-happened-clever-girls.html