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Murder waiting to happen

Would Mum ever be free from her life of fear?


Published by: Fiona Locke and Jean Jollands
Published on: 16 August 2012

Hot tears streamed down my face as my mum Sandra Maralhas tried to brush them away.
‘What's wrong?' she pushed.
‘It's the kids at school,' I admitted. ‘They were laughing at me because my coat's too small.'
As I held up the fraying sleeves, Mum's eyes flashed with guilt.
‘Don't listen to them,' she hushed, raking a hand gently through my hair. ‘It doesn't matter what you look like on the outside. What matters is how you are on the inside,' she grinned. ‘And you're my perfect boy!'
Mum always instinctively knew how to make me smile.
A single mum to me and my brother Jordan, three, life was hard for her. I was only six, but knew how much she struggled. She'd lost her own mother to cancer when she was only 15, met my dad and had me and Jordan by the time she was 21. When my dad walked out, she'd struggled to make ends meet.
But the truth was I didn't need the latest toy when I had Mum. She made everything fun. Whenever she could scrape up the money, there'd be lazy day trips to the seaside and, at home, she'd lovingly teach me her recipes.
‘C'mon,' she insisted now. ‘Let's bake you something yummy!'
With her long, black shiny hair and infectious smile, she seemed to light up the room.
By the time I was seven, there was a new glint in Mum's eyes and soon the reason became clear.
‘Boys, I want you to meet Mummy's friend...' she smiled to me and Jordan one day, introducing us to Joaquim Marrafa. ‘Everyone calls him Luis.'
‘Hello, mister...' he winked at me.
He was big, with dark hair and a moustache.
I loved that he had a cool motorbike.
‘Cor! Can I have a go on it? 'I gasped.
‘Sure,' he grinned.
It was a long time since Mum had anyone to fuss over her, and he was very attentive, taking her for romantic meals.
In time, they had a little girl, Maisy, and by the time I was eight, we'd all moved into a flat in Southcote, Reading, near Mum's sister, Auntie Ruth, 24.
Suddenly, Luis, 34, packed in his construction job and started slobbing around in his shorts, plonked in front of the computer all day - a bottle of scotch in one hand, a pouch of tobacco in the other.
‘Why isn't tea ready?' he'd roar if Mum was a minute late home from her supermarket job. 
‘And can't you shut those kids up?'
He tried to stop Mum having friends, hated her seeing Auntie Ruth. Jealous and controlling, he even accused her of having affairs. ‘You dirty, fat slut!' he'd rage if he saw a male name on her phone.
‘Go and watch a film in the living room, boys,' Mum ordered, trying to spare us the worse of Luis' rage. But she couldn't hide everything from us.
One day when she was dressing, I noticed bruises on her leg.
‘What happened, Mum?' I whimpered.
‘Silly me...' she said a bit too quickly. ‘I fell out of bed.'
But I knew she was lying. I was older than my years now, knew more than what she thought. The first time I actually saw Luis' fist fly at Mum, he was too quick for me to react. 
But his slaps and punches became a regular happening and, as I got older, I'd dive in between Mum and him to protect her.
‘No! Rui,' she begged, desperate to shield me.  
As the years passed and Mum fell pregnant with Leah, nothing changed. Even when she puffed and panted from her asthma, he showed no mercy.
‘Please leave him,' I urged.  Auntie Ruth begged her, too. But she was terrified of him and he'd drained her of every last drop of strength she had left. Deep down inside, she really believed that one day things would go back to those early days.
‘He's just stressed,' she insisted. ‘It'll be okay.'
But I was older now. The mum I knew and loved had disappeared. There was no more baking and, if I complained about a lad at school, she'd just shrug her shoulders.
‘What can I do?' she'd sigh. Her once-sparkling eyes were fading. Though I couldn't stop Luis hurting her, I wasn't going to stay and watch him.
‘I'm going to ask to go into care,' I hushed to Mum one
day. ‘I can't watch him do this to you any more.'
I was 13 now and wanted her to tell me that it was him that had to go, not me. I wanted her to hold me like she used to, ruffle my hair and tell me it'd be okay. But she didn't have any fight left.
‘If you think it's for the best,' she said, resigned.
In that moment, I hated her. As I went into foster care, I refused to talk to Mum for the next two years. ‘She's always asking about you. She misses you so much,' Auntie Ruth would tell me, sadly. She kept me up to date with how Mum was doing and, one day, I went with her when she collected Leah from school.
Suddenly, I spotted Mum at the school gates. By now, her eyes were dead, her weight had ballooned and her once-gorgeous hair hung limp. She was only 31, but she looked like an old woman. In that moment, my heart melted.
‘Mum...' I mouthed.
But we didn't have to say a word as we hugged each other tight, tears brimming. I was back in her life.
‘You've another sister, Megan,' she told me as we walked together. ‘I'm working in the local newsagents.'
‘And him?' I spat. She sighed.
‘I earn it, he spends it,' she shrugged. Mum knew now he wouldn't change.
‘I've tried to leave,' she said, seeing my face. ‘I took the kids to one hostel after another, but he always finds me. It's less grief if I stay.'
Torn in two, I tried to create the happy family I never had when, at 17, I settled down with my girlfriend Candice and we had a baby - Mia. Mum doted on her. ‘Wow! Me, a grandmother!' she beamed.
The following year, Mum had my brother Kyle. Then me and Candice had another little girl, Lily. But still I'd see bruises on Mum's arms. Then, in July last year, she phoned me. 
‘I've left him for good this time,' she promised. 
Auntie Ruth had four kids now, and had just moved into a bigger house the other side of town. Mum had packed her bags and, along with my brothers and sisters, had gone to live with her. 
‘I'm so proud of you, Mum,'
I said. But I was terrified she'd change her mind.
‘Don't worry,' she said, sensing my fear. ‘I've got a plan.'
I listened, relieved, as she explained that she was going
to give up the flat she'd shared with Luis and get rehoused.
‘I'm going to start life afresh,' she insisted.
And when I saw her soon after, she definitely looked
like a different person.
Auntie Ruth had put blonde streaks in her hair, and she'd bought herself a smart jacket and new pair of trainers. 
‘Looking good, Mum!' I grinned.
‘I feel like a new woman,' she chuckled. It was the first time I'd heard her really laugh in years.
Even when Luis got in touch complaining he didn't have enough money even to eat, she stayed firm.
But she couldn't bear to see anyone suffer. That's why she agreed to meet him once a week at Reading station to give him some of her benefit money.
‘Don't worry, it's in a public place,' she reassured me. 
Four months after she'd left him, I bumped into Mum, Auntie Ruth and my little brother Kyle in his pram, by chance in town. We went for a coffee, but Mum looked anxious. 
‘Luis has been on at me,' she admitted. ‘He's worried about the flat.'
The tenancy was in Mum's name, and he feared he'd be made homeless if she gave it up. 
‘He's said he been depressed since we broke up and wants me to go to the doctor's with him tomorrow...' she continued.
‘Let him sort himself out,' I begged. But she wouldn't listen.   
‘It'll be okay,' she hushed. ‘I'll meet you for lunch afterwards.
That next day, I sat and waited in McDonalds, but there was no sign of Mum.
Then my mobile rang. 
‘Is that Mr Castro?' the voice began. ‘We have your stepdad in custody. We need you to come to Reading police station.'
‘But I'm waiting for my mum,' I insisted, dread forming in my stomach. ‘Is she okay?' I pushed, but he refused to say more.
‘Just come to the station,' he said. I rushed down there.
‘Bet he's put her in hospital again,' I muttered.
When I arrived and gave my name, two officers led me into
a side room. 
‘Your stepdad says he's killed his girlfriend,' one began. ‘We found the deceased at an address - we think it's your mum.'
It was like the floor was crumbling beneath me as I tried to focus on his words.
‘Please, not my mum...' I half-cried, half-screamed.
Suddenly, I became hysterical as the news hit home.
I was taken to my aunt's.  Social services were already there, all my brothers and sisters huddled together crying. 
‘Mum's gone,' Jordan sobbed.
‘I know,' I whispered, gathering them all into my arms.
I was asked to identify Mum's body. Even from the doorway of the morgue, I could tell Mum's outline beneath the cover. A white sheet was pulled right up to her neck. 
‘Mum,' I whispered, as I gave her a kiss. My tears spilling on to her cheek made it looked like she was crying, too.
 Police said she'd been strangled - that monster had squeezed the last living breath out of her. Then he'd gone to the police station afterwards to confess. CCTV footage showed him pushing Kyle in his pram on the way. He'd even made strangulation signs to his neck to the shocked officer.  
He'd left six kids without a mum. Social services stepped in as my siblings' legal guardian, while I moved into Mum's old flat, desperate to be near her. Her jackets still hung in the doorway.
‘Why?' I sobbed, as I slept in the bedroom she'd been killed in.  
Three months later, me and my brother Jordan carried her coffin as her favourite Westlife song You Raise Me Up was played. 
‘You carried us through life, now it's our turn to carry you,'
I sobbed. Mum was cremated and the funeral director pulled me aside afterwards.
‘Take this,' he said, pressing a small purple bag into my hand. Opening up, I choked back a sob - it was a lock of Mum's hair.
I sat clutching it three months ago when Joaquim Marrafa, 46, pleaded not guilty to murder at Reading Crown Court. He insisted he had depression and, after admitted to strangling Mum, said he had no memory of it.
According to CCTV footage, they'd left around midday and had then gone back to the flat. Text messages by Mum showed she had been reluctant to go.
An argument had broken out and, shortly afterwards,
Mum had been strangled.
When I took the stand as a witness, I told the court of the years of emotional abuse and physical violence he'd put Mum through. ‘After 12 years, she'd finally broken free...'
It was a shock when the court heard Mum had had an abortion just four days before she'd died. Luis hadn't known, either. More proof she wanted him out of her life for good.
Despite his plea, Luis was found guilty by unanimous verdict, and jailed for life. As he was led away, he didn't even have the guts to look me in my eyes.
Only after Mum's death did I find letters saying she was relieved I'd been taken into care as a kid...
I'm scared that as Rui gets older he'll fight back more to protect me, and Luis will hurt him, she'd written.
It broke my heart. She'd only ever wanted to keep us safe.

Rui Castro, 20, Reading