Latest news with #childhoodtrauma
The Sun
18 hours ago
- Entertainment
- The Sun
I was addicted to drugs by 12 & a mum by 14 – then the man who promised to rescue me turned out to be the worst monster
HE was supposed to be her knight in shining armour - saving Karla Solomon from her challenging upbringing. And for a while he really was. But every fairy tale comes to an end, sooner or later. 4 4 Born in California and then moving to Texas, Karla's childhood was very heavy - blighted by drug abuse, 'friendships' with adults twice her age and eventually running away from home. By 12, Karla had become severely addicted to drugs - and felt forced to sell her tiny body in exchange for cash. ''I remember giving a man a b***job at the back of his car just so I could get a chicken nugget Happy Meal,'' she bravely shared in an interview with Soft White Underbelly. When she was 14 - and already arrested by the police more than a dozen times - Karla fell pregnant. She kept the baby and made a go of it with her then-partner, but eventually they split and Karla met her now-husband. The couple moved back to Texas to be closer to Karla's mum - but then she became addicted to pain killers and ran away again, this time to Louisiana. Now a mum-of-three, Karla was determined not to return to her former live and tried to make her money doing music videos. But a rapper she performed for soon turned nasty, demanding sex instead of the cash she was promised. Karla, then 29, escaped but was too scared to return to the home her children lived in, so turned to a high profile local man she knew only as 'Fat', but whose real name is Herman Fox. Next thing she knew, she was in a whirlwind relationship. Who is Craig France and how long did the sexual predator get for his offences ''Within days he was taking me to the mall, buying be beautiful things,'' she told KSAT News. ''He was completely doting on me, taking me to the most expensive hotels. Spending the whole night pampering me, talking to me, finding out my hopes and dreams and aspirations.'' She truly believed she was in a loving relationship and her life would now change. One day, Fat took her on a drive. Throughout the course of the day, Karla noticed he sent women into motels to have sex with men, and took the money they brought back. 'My Prince Charming turned into a monster like that," she said. Eventually Karla was driven to a cheap hotel herself. "I run for the door and he holds me and kisses me and tells me sweet things about how I just need to do it one time until he finds another girl. And I do it," she explained sadly. ''But then I have to do it again and again and again and before I know it I have a $1500 (£1,110) a day quota that I have to meet every day.'' If she could not give him the money, Fox threatened she would be ''severely sexually abused, sodomised and beaten''. Over the course of 54 days, she was trafficked from Louisiana to Texas, then Colorado and back. She recalls: 'A lot of people don't understand (and say) 'Well, Karla you were in your car, couldn't you have left?' I tried." One day Fox left his car keys on a chest of drawers, while he went to another hotel room to check on one of his girls and Karla made a run for it. ''I drove as far away as possible,'' said Karla, who by then was addicted to methamphetamine and weighed less than 7 stone. ''I had been beaten so badly that my ribcage was completely crushed, I had bruises all over my body from trying to protect myself from all of his blows.'' 'I'm gonna do the same thing to her' But as Karla was calling her now-husband for help, she started receiving messages from Fox, ordering her to return - immediately. 'He sent me a video. It was where my daughter gets on and off the bus. He said 'I'm gonna take her, and I'm gonna do the same thing to her.'' Desperate to save her daughter, she went back to him. 'It was move-in week at A&M [Texas A&M University) and that's a big attraction for traffickers," she said. ''Because there's a lot of men in town that have a lot of money because they're putting their boys off to college, or girls. ''And there's a lot of new college boys who want to have parties. My quota goes up to $2500 (£1,900). This goes on for about seven days." What Is Human Trafficking? Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labour or commercial sex act. Every year, millions of men, women, and children are trafficked worldwide – including right here in the UK. It can happen in any community and victims can be any age, race, gender, or nationality. Traffickers might use the following methods to lure victims into trafficking situations: Violence Manipulation False promises of well-paying jobs Romantic relationships Language barriers, fear of their traffickers, and/or fear of law enforcement frequently keep victims from seeking help, making human trafficking a hidden crime. Traffickers look for people who are easy targets for a variety of reasons, including: Psychological or emotional vulnerability Economic hardship Lack of a social safety net Natural disasters Political instability. Source: Blue Campaign Thankfully for Karla, behind the scenes a huge criminal investigation was going on, and Fox was arrested shortly afterwards. ''I collapsed on the floor and I told DPS [state police], 'You guys just saved my life'.'' At the hospital, Karla was diagnosed with STDs, a severe addiction to crystal meth and complex PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). ''They determined I had multiple broken ribs - they don't see how I was still alive because the bones were so close to puncturing all of my major organs. ''I couldn't look anyone in the face - all I could do was cry and shake like a leaf.'' At that point police were able to arrest Fox on a marijuana charge but still had to build a case against him for any trafficking charges. He eventually took a plea deal and was sentenced to 30 years in prison without parole. 4 Trying to end her suffering Back in Texas, where she was living with her mum and stepdad again, Karla struggled with severe PTSD and even tried to take her own life. A close friend stepped in, helping her realise she had a bigger purpose - and her gut-wrenching trauma suddenly became her therapy. 'We started a ministry together. We just opened our first safe house for girls just like me. We're looking to expand,' Karla told KSAT News in 2019. Now, approaching her 40th birthday, Karla lives with her husband and their three kids. She presents to police and airport staff, explaining how they can increase efforts to combat trafficking - a crime that a shocking 27.6 million people worldwide are subjected to, according to data by Homeland Security. 'The one thing I still get emotional about is helping other girls and boys. ''There's this one girl I've been working with and she's left and came back, and left and came back and I get it. ''And she's finally made the decision she's not going back. And that's just the most beautiful - because I did that.'
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
People With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Often Develop These 15 Traits as Adults, a Psychologist Says
People With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Often Develop These 15 Traits as Adults, a Psychologist Says originally appeared on Parade. These days, it seems like more and more people are talking about "unresolved childhood trauma," and what that can look like in adulthood. For Dr. Robyn Koslowitz, licensed school psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist and educational director of the Targeted Parenting Institute, the topic is of Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted To Be (out July 1), Dr. Koslowitz's inspiration for researching and focusing on post-traumatic parenting actually came from her own story."I had PTSD at a time when no one was talking about PTSD. This was before 9/11—when trauma wasn't in the cultural lexicon, when we didn't yet have language like 'trauma-informed' or 'triggered,'' she tells Parade. "I had panic attacks and flashbacks, but I didn't have a name for them. I just knew: 'Something's wrong, and I don't know how to fix it.'"Then, she got pregnant."I started asking myself: 'If it's this hard for me to be in my body, what is it like for the baby inside me? What's my stress doing to my child?' And as my children grew, those questions deepened: 'Will my damage damage them?'" she explains."I devoured parenting books—but they all felt like they were written for someone who was already on the third floor of the building, just trying to get to the roof (and there's an elevator!)," Dr. Koslowitz continues. "I was in the sub-basement. No lights. No stairs. No map. I didn't need a gentle parenting script—I needed a way out."She didn't have the resources she needed at the time, so she created one for other adults going through similar experiences."I wrote the book I needed back then," she says. "Not a book that tells you how to parent from the third floor—but the one that helps you build the staircase when you're still in the dark. A book that says: you can break the cycle. You can stop your damage from damaging your child. And you can heal yourself while you raise your child."Now, Dr. Koslowitz is sharing 15 common traits of adults with unresolved childhood trauma and how that experience can not only impact you long-term as a parent—but also as a friend, family member, partner, employee and person in general. Plus, she provides tips to begin "Unresolved trauma is anything that was too big, too painful or too overwhelming for your nervous system to process at the time—and it's still stuck inside you now," Dr. Koslowitz tells Parade. "It's not just about what happened to you; it's about what happens inside you when you're reminded of it." It can be difficult to wrap your mind around it."The best way to think about this is that we all have a trauma app installed in our bodies that is trained to do X when we experience Y," she explains. "This app is designed to protect us, but sometimes it overrides its permissions. You're not choosing to overreact or shut down—your trauma app is making that choice for you. It's like an emergency system that gets activated, even when the emergency is long over."Related: "Unresolved trauma isn't always about what people traditionally think of as trauma," Dr. Koslowitz explains. "Yes, it includes physical, emotional or sexual abuse. But it also includes growing up in chaos, in emotional neglect or in homes where love was conditional. It includes being the child of a parent with addiction or mental illness. It includes being shamed for having needs. And it includes never feeling safe—physically or emotionally.""What makes it traumatic is the impact, not just the event," she continues. "It's the messages that you're too much, you're not enough or you're on your own." Related: "You're always scanning for what might go wrong," Dr. Koslowitz explains. "In parenting or relationships, this often shows up as criticism—it feels safer to spot problems before they spot you."Related: "You become a human mood ring, constantly attuned to everyone else's emotions," she says. "When others were unhappy in your childhood, it was dangerous—so now, you try to prevent that at all costs."Related: "You shut down emotionally, especially in high-stress moments," she shares. "This isn't coldness—it's protection. Feeling too much once overwhelmed your system, so now, you stay disconnected. Another term for this is alexythymia." "Conflict once meant danger—or guaranteed loss," Dr. Koslowitz explains. "Even when you 'won,' you lost something: peace, safety, a relationship. So now, you avoid conflict entirely, even when it matters." "You say sorry for existing," she reveals. "You may have had trauma that others didn't and internalized the idea that your needs were 'too much.' But having needs doesn't mean you're needy. It means you're human."Related: "You believe that if you just get everything exactly right, no one will get hurt—especially not your child," Dr. Koslowitz says about parenting with unresolved childhood trauma. "Mistakes feel emotionally dangerous, not just inconvenient."Related: "You don't just think I did something wrong, you feel I am wrong," she explains. "Trauma teaches you that your worth is conditional—and mistakes seem to confirm your deepest fears." "You learned the hard way not to rely on anyone," Dr. Koslowitz says. "In parenting, this can morph into helicoptering—because you don't trust teachers, relatives or even your own child to navigate life safely. In romantic relationships, it looks like emotional distance or constant testing." "Trauma trains you to believe that control = safety," she stresses. "So when something's uncertain, you panic. You overprepare, overanalyze or freeze entirely—because once, lack of control meant real harm or the sensation of life being out of control felt overwhelming."Related: "You go from 0 to 100 in seconds," Dr. Koslowitz explains. "There's no pause between trigger and reaction because your nervous system still thinks it's protecting you from danger. Imagine a fire alarm that starts beeping wildly the instant you turn on the oven to cook a meal." "Vulnerability once led to exploitation, so now it feels like weakness," she shares. "You stay 'strong,' stoic or busy—anything to avoid being seen as soft or exposed."Related: "You might miss hunger cues, ignore fatigue or not notice tension until you're in pain," Dr. Koslowitz reveals. "Trauma taught you to live in your head, not your body. This can also happen during dissociation."Related: "Your child's distress feels unbearable—because it echoes your own," she says about how this can impact you as a parent. "You forget that supported distress can build resilience. You never had that support, so it's hard to trust that they will." "Life comes with no guarantees," Dr. Koslowitz says. "But if trauma taught you that uncertainty leads to pain, then not knowing feels like free-falling. You're constantly trying to control the uncontrollable. You try to predict, perfect and prevent—at the cost of peace." "You're the caretaker—but struggle to let others care for you," she says. "Somewhere along the line, you learned your needs would be dismissed, mocked or unmet. So now, you give and give… and silently feel empty."Related: "Start by recognizing: It's not you—it's your trauma," Dr. Koslowitz stresses. "You're reacting the way your nervous system was wired to protect you. But protection isn't the same as parenting. And healing begins when we stop shaming ourselves for our survival strategies."And that's not all."Start with curiosity," she continues. "Notice your triggers. When do you feel flooded, shut down, or out of proportion? That's your trauma app running—trying to solve a danger that's not actually present."It's also a good idea to speak with a licensed professional. "Therapy can be life-changing—especially trauma-informed models like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Internal Family Systems (IFS) or somatic therapies," Dr. Koslowitz explains. "But healing doesn't only happen in therapy. It happens in the moments when you pause, choose a different response, repair after rupture, or extend compassion to your inner child."And if you're now a parent who still needs to heal from your childhood wounds while raising your own children, she wants to emphasize: "Your inner child can't raise a child—but parenting your child can heal your inner child. Parenting should be healing, not triggering. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to be present. Over and over again." Up Next:Dr. Robyn Koslowitz, licensed school psychologist, licensed clinical psychologist, educational director of the Targeted Parenting Institute and author of Post-Traumatic Parenting: Break the Cycle and Become the Parent You Always Wanted To Be People With Unresolved Childhood Trauma Often Develop These 15 Traits as Adults, a Psychologist Says first appeared on Parade on Jun 30, 2025 This story was originally reported by Parade on Jun 30, 2025, where it first appeared.
Forbes
21-06-2025
- Health
- Forbes
2 Ways That ‘Childhood Trauma' Rewires The Brain — By A Psychologist
Research reveals how childhood trauma restructures the brain and immune system in ways that can last ... More well into adulthood. Most well-informed people are aware of how often traumatic childhood experiences are associated with serious mental health conditions later in life. What few people know, however, is how exactly trauma gives rise to these disorders. Some attribute it to emotional scarring, or psychological wounds that live only in the mind. But according to 2022 research from Brain, Behavior, & Immunity - Health, these wounds are in no way metaphorical. To the brain, trauma can be as real and physical as a cut, a burn or a broken bone. Here are two major ways that childhood trauma physically reshapes the brain, essentially rewiring individuals biologically. 1. Trauma Trains The Body And Brain To Stay On High Alert When a child is exposed to repeated threats, their body and brain have no choice but to adapt. And one of the first systems to respond, in such cases, is the immune system. As you may already know, the immune system's primary purpose is to protect us in situations it perceives to be risky. In most cases, this pertains to illness, injury, infections, viruses, bacteria and so on — but also to stressful situations. Should it sense a threat of any of these kinds, it readies itself to respond. But when abuse, neglect or instability are the norm in a child's life, their immune system remains ready and activated. The body cannot afford to respond to these environmental stressors in the way it would to a specific, localized or short-lived threat; constant threats necessitate constant vigilance. As such, since the immune system believes it's permanently at risk, it operates accordingly at all times. It produces chemical messengers — specifically, inflammatory molecules — to protect the body from infection or injury, but in extreme excess. However, without any physical wounds to tend to, this overproduction gives rise to chronic inflammation. Astoundingly, the 2022 study discovered elevated levels of these inflammatory markers years, even decades, after the participants' trauma. Typically, these inflammatory molecules are transmitted via the bloodstream to whichever site they're needed; in healthy individuals, the blood-brain barrier (BBB) usually prevents them from entering the brain. But, with enough exposure to trauma, this barrier can become much easier to bypass. As a result, these molecules begin crossing into the brain, where they're not usually meant to go. Once they cross the barrier, they begin to interfere with key neurological functions. This, in turn, can significantly impact a child's mood, memory or attention. Notably, if the body never gets the message that it's safe — that is, if a child is constantly exposed to trauma without any breaks — this state of hypervigilance can eventually give rise to serious mental health challenges. And, in severe cases, the brain's physical architecture begins to shift in response to the ongoing sense of danger. 2. Trauma Can Cause White Matter To Fray To understand what this chronic inflammation can do, it helps to think of the brain in the same way you would a town, rather than just an arbitrary collection of parts or lobes. This town is built with two primary materials: white and gray matter. In the simplest of terms, white matter is what keeps your brain running smoothly. It comprises billions of long, fibrous threads that allow your most important brain regions (your gray matter) to communicate with one another. In this case, gray matter would be the neighborhoods of the town, where your thoughts and feelings 'live.' White matter, on the other hand, is the highway system they use to travel. According to the 2022 study, individuals with bipolar disorder who had experienced adverse childhood experiences showed clear signs of white matter disruption. Specifically, their brain scans revealed lower levels of fractional anisotropy, which is a measure used to assess how coherent and structured these white matter tracts are. In essence, the aforementioned inflammation can result in lasting damage to an individual's white matter. In most cases, this means the brain's internal communication system will function less efficiently than that of a person without trauma. When white matter is intact and well-organized, it acts much like well-planned and well-looked after roads: information moves quickly and efficiently across the brain. But once white matter connections are lost, tangled or damaged, those signals slow down or get misrouted — much like cars do on a road with potholes, cracks or fading paint. This is exactly what the brain looks like when it's frequently exposed to trauma in early life: a collection of unkempt, interconnected roads, on which cars struggle significantly to travel. And this kind of 'unkemptness' in the brain's highway system has very real, functional consequences. The study notes that damage to the white matter's structural integrity can lead to miscommunication between some of the brain's most essential regions. In turn, it's considerably more challenging for the emotional centers of the brain to communicate with the areas responsible for logic and regulation. This can lead to dysfunction in: As a result, an individual might feel perpetually on edge without ever really knowing why. Even in situations where they have every logical reason to feel safe, they might struggle to calm themselves down. And despite immense exhaustion or tiredness, they might find themselves lying wide awake at night. Even the smallest, most inconsequential decisions can feel overwhelming, since the mental routes that once effortlessly facilitated those processes can feel as though they're punctuated with delays and detours. Unfortunately, these responses can persist well into adulthood, and well past their years of trauma. That said, this doesn't mean that the brain is 'broken,' nor that it has 'failed.' It just means that the brain has adapted to danger and inflammation in the only way it was designed to: by reinforcing defensive pathways to protect itself. When faced with trauma, the brain makes an executive decision to prioritize survival over flexibility — even if that means day-to-day functioning might be a bit more difficult later on in life. This is a sign of resilience, not failure. The effects of trauma can linger, but so can resilience. Take this science-backed test to find out how you respond to life's challenges: Brief Resilience Scale
CBC
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Chyana Marie Sage crafts a memoir steeped in Indigenous tradition and a strong sense of empathy
Chyana Marie Sage's memoir, Soft As Bones, is her quest to better understand the childhood trauma and abuse that scarred her family. It's also a tapestry of poetry, history, Cree language, traditional ceremony and folklore — and delves into her experiences and those of her family with compassion and strength. "Writing this book has been the most cathartic experience of my life," said Sage on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "Healing is a lifelong journey and it never ends and we're continually growing. But writing this book allowed me to release, to process and release so much that was stored up in my nervous system." Sage is a Cree, Métis and Salish writer from Edmonton who is now based in New York. She joined Roach to share the catharsis she felt from writing about painful memories and the care she took to portray everyone with empathy. Soft As Bones is a phrase that I understand has been part of your life for a few years now. It's your Instagram handle. It's the name of your YouTube channel and now the name of this book. What do those three words mean to you? Soft As Bones is this phrase that came to me and this was years before the book was the book. I was living in London, Ont. at the time and I was sitting there just having my morning tea. Then, in my head, came the words "soft as bones." I sat with it and I ruminated on it and it kind of encapsulates my philosophy on human beings, like specifically Indigenous folks, but really all people. It's this idea that we are equal parts strength as much as we are delicate and fragile, because our bones are our foundation, they're our building blocks. They're very strong. They give us the capability to stand and give us structure, but yet they can also break very easily. However, they also have immense capacity for healing as well. I just think it's this beautiful metaphor for us as human beings, like holding space for us to be strong as much as we are fragile, and allowing those to coexist together. In the second section of the book, you share a lot about your mom's back story and her own struggles when she was growing up. What did you want readers to know about your mom? How could I write this story without her and her voice and her experience? Because I needed to go back into the past, and not just my own past, but all of our past to to understand how all of our stories came together and and how what happened in our family unit unfolded. Because on paper, you can look at a fact and think, "Well, oh my God, my mom fell in love with the guy that was in prison. Of course, this wasn't going to go well, right?" And you can insert all of these judgments for what a terrible decision or this and that. But life is not that simple. Life is not black and white. And so I wanted to not just write, "OK, my mom fell in love with this charming man in prison, but it was how does one get to that point?" I tried my best to do this with everyone in the book, but I really want people to understand the full scope of the person because we are not just the bad things we do. We are so much more than that. I really wanted to do everybody justice, especially my mother, so readers could understand where she was at, mentally, in all of that. One of the other things that you do in the second section of the book is you weave this story of your mom's teen years and that of your own teen years with the eight stages of a drum making ceremony that you attended when you were 14. What was important about that ceremony for you as a young person? Oh, so much. It's an honour to be able to make your own drum. It's not something that everybody gets to do, even if you're Native. It's like a coming of age thing, right? So now my time has come and I get to make this drum. And when you're making this drum, you're so connected to, A, everyone that's there, the elder that's leading it, and B, you really feel connected to your entire ancestry. As much as there is a lot of difficulty in this memoir, it was really important to me to capture a lot of the beauty of my culture. The history and the importance of that is so strong because I just think about my family members who were not allowed to do that. And I'm not talking about my ancestors, I'm talking about my family members. I'm talking about my grandparents. I'm talking about my aunts and uncles who were in residential schools who are still alive today. For me to be able to do that and have that ceremony was just a very emotional and powerful experience, even if at the time, at 14, you don't feel the scope of it then, but you know that it's special and you know that you're grateful for it. It felt like such a celebration and a moment of beauty. Because as much as there is a lot of difficulty in this memoir, it was really important to me to capture a lot of the beauty of my culture because there is so much beauty and love and healing and connection in my culture. I wanted to share a little bit of that with the rest of the world.
Daily Mail
14-06-2025
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE My sick father started raping me when I was nine and told me he was 'preparing me for marriage'. When I confessed to my little sister at 14, I learnt of horrors I could never have imagined
Two sisters have revealed their childhood agony after their sick father repeatedly raped them both, telling them he was helping them 'prepare to be good wives'. Taylor-Rae Eason, 22, and her sister Chloe, 20, were subject to a horrific campaign of sexual abuse from Mark Jones, who was jailed in April for 24 years. After carrying out depraved assaults on his daughters, Jones would tell them the abuse was 'just a way of life' for girls - and offered them measly cash incentives to keep quiet. Now safe in the knowledge her father is behind bars and now a parent herself, Taylor, from South Wales, has opened up about the horrific ways in which Jones inflicted his cruel campaign upon his children. 'Growing up, Dad was my world,' she said. 'I loved him so much before he unleashed hell on me and my sister. He'd take us to the cinema or for picnics. He was a great dad.' Jones and the girls' mother split up when they were children, but the sisters still spent every weekend at their beloved father's house. But Taylor's image of her doting dad was shattered when she turned nine and he began to prey upon her. One day, he sent Chloe, then seven, to the park next to his house with a friend. 'While we watched TV in the living room Dad suddenly began tickling me all over,' Taylor recounted. 'Out of nowhere he grabbed my privates and told me I was "beautiful". 'I was so confused and wondered if it was what dads did.' The following weekend, Jones sent Chloe to the park again. When Taylor mentioned she needed some money for summer clothes, he told her: 'If you play a game with me, I'll give you some'. 'I figured he meant a game of chess,' she continued. 'But he had something else in mind. 'Moments later, he pulled down his trousers and boxers. Walking up to me, I froze as he pressed his privates into me. 'I told him I didn't want to but he said that "this is what dads do to daughters to get them ready for their husbands". Though it felt wrong, I trusted him.' Before long, the sexual abuse became routine for Taylor, who was also forced to touch her abuser. Taylor recounted one instance where she was painfully assaulted - and could do nothing but wait for the horror to end. 'He undressed me and pushed his fingers inside me. I told him it hurt but he carried on without a word,' she explained. 'He didn't care I was in pain. So, I looked up at the white swirls on the ceiling. Gritted my teeth until he was finished.' As Taylor lived out a nightmare at the hands of her abuser, she had no idea that he was also preying upon Chloe too. 'Whenever Chloe was in bed asleep, or downstairs playing, he'd pounce,' Taylor revealed. Even forced me to sleep next to him in his pull-out bed in our room.' The constant assaults began to affect Taylor's education as she started playing truant. 'I hated going to Dad's, but with Mum working long hours as a carer, I had no choice,' she added. In 2017 when Taylor was 14 years old, a sex education class confirmed her worst fears - that she was being abused by her father. That night, she confided in Chloe. 'When I told her weird stuff was happening in Dad's bedroom, she started to cry,' Taylor recalled. 'When she admitted he was hurting her sexually, too, I was horrified.' Chloe went on to tell her sister how her dad had started abusing her when she was six. Together, they devised a plan to tell their mother and confront Jones. However, when the sisters warned their father they were going to speak up about the abuse, they were left frightened. 'He flew into a rage, claimed no one would believe us. Terrified, we kept quiet,' Taylor said. That day the girls bought cannabis and smoked it for the first time. Jones used this as a way to continue abusing his daughters. 'Weeks later, after running out of drugs, I went to his,' she recounted. 'He said he'd buy me more but I had to do something for him first. 'I laid down on the bed and he climbed on top of me, forcing himself inside me. All I could do was stare at the ceiling as he raped me.' Afterwards, Jones handed Taylor £60. For the next two years, he continued to use his daughters and offered them cash in exchange for silence. In 2017, he took the girls on a holiday to Wales, which they 'reluctantly' agreed to as long as they could bring some friends. 'One evening, with everyone else at the arcades, Dad made me stay behind in the chalet,' Taylor explained. 'Offered me £40 spending money while he undid his trousers. 'I knew what he meant and he raped me again.' It wasn't until April 2020 that the truth emerged, after Chloe confessed everything to their mother - with Taylor finally admitting she was a victim too. 'Mum was beside herself,' the older sister said. 'Said it was her fault, but she wasn't to know.' The following week they reported Jones to the police and gave their statements - he denied the charges. In August 2021, Taylor fell pregnant - which she says 'saved her'. 'When my son was born, he was my reason to keep going,' she admitted. Due to Covid-19 delays the sisters had to endure a five-year wait before the case went to court - but in November 2024, the sisters bravely took turns giving evidence via video link. In April of this year, at Cardiff Crown Court, Jones, 65, from Barry, was found guilty of two counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault against Taylor. He was convicted of three counts of rape and one of attempted rape, as well as five counts of assault by penetration and four of causing a child to engage in sexual activity against Chloe. 'When the guilty verdict was in, Chloe called to deliver it,' she recalled. 'We were so emotional, having justice after so long. 'Dad was supposed to keep me and my sister safe. Instead, he hurt us in the sickest way. 'Now that he's been jailed we finally have justice. Knowing he'll die behind bars gives me some comfort. 'I want other survivors to know it's never too late for justice.'
