The Evil Within: Murdered by her stepbrother – the crime that shocked a nation. The heartbreaking story of Becky Watts by her father
As we walked through the ward, Danny spotted Tanya and ran towards the cot where little Becky was sleeping.
‘Don’t wake her up!’ Tanya warned as he peered over the edge. I was proud of how quiet and gentle he was for a three-year-old. I could tell he instantly felt protective towards his baby sister.
‘Don’t you want to say hello to your daughter?’ Tanya asked me, and I sauntered over to the cot to have a better look.
Becky was a cute little thing, wrapped up tightly in a white blanket and with a little white cotton hat on her head. I didn’t want to fall in love but I simply couldn’t help myself. She was so adorable, I fell hook, line and sinker on the spot. It was overwhelming, just like the feeling I’d had when I first saw Danny. But was she mine, or was some other man going to come along and claim to be her dad? At that stage, I didn’t know.
Tanya took Becky home a few days later, and we went back to the routine of me having Danny each Friday to Sunday.
‘Why not take Becky as well?’ she asked one Friday night when Becky was three months old.
I was reluctant, as I didn’t want to spoil the time Danny and I spent together, but Tanya wouldn’t take no for an answer.
‘She is your daughter,’ she insisted. ‘You’re going to have to start looking after her sooner or later.’
‘We don’t know that she’s mine,’ I pointed out. ‘I’m not having her until I know the truth.’ I’d thought about getting a DNA test, but it was expensive and at that time I didn’t have the cash to spare.
Finally, Tanya said, ‘You’re not having Danny if you don’t take Becky too.’
She knew she would win with that. I was backed into a corner, with no choice other than to take little Becky home with me. I could remember all the routines from when Danny was a baby: getting up in the night to feed her from a bottle, bathing her carefully in a little baby bath, and dressing her in her tiny clothes. It was during these moments that I started to look at her more closely, and I noticed her hazel eyes were starting to look exactly the same as mine. I melted inside when she beamed up at me, and my stomach filled with butterflies whenever she reached out to grab my finger. I’ve always been a complete softie at heart, and Becky was winning me over more and more every time I saw her.
I was out one weekend with the kids, Danny holding my hand and Becky, who was six months old, in her pushchair, when I bumped into Anjie on Kingswood High Street. I felt flustered but Anjie’s face broke into a huge grin as soon as she saw me.
‘Darren! How are you? I haven’t seen you in ages!’ she said.
Suddenly, I got the same rush of electricity running through me as I’d had ten years previously, when we first met, and I felt tongue-tied. I’d caught glimpses of Anjie over the years while she was out and about in Bristol – usually with her little boy – but we’d never had the opportunity to chat properly.
‘Oh, you know – keeping busy,’ I forced myself to reply, gesturing at the kids.
‘They are very cute,’ she said, the smile not leaving her face. ‘Are you still with Tanya?’
‘Oh no, not at all,’ I answered quickly. I really wanted Anjie to know I was single. I was disappointed when she then told me she was in a relationship, although something in the way she talked about it gave me a hint she wasn’t too happy.
We parted, promising that we would go for a drink and a good catch-up soon, and for the rest of the day I thought of nothing else but her. I’d honestly never had such strong feelings for anyone in my life, and the possibility that things might work out between us was incredibly exciting.
A few months later, I was in the pub having a pint after work when she walked in with her friend Kim. I could tell from the expression on her face that she was not in a good way, although she raised a smile when I asked if I could get some drinks in and join them.
‘I was hoping to see you,’ Anjie said, taking a seat. ‘That’s why I came here.’
It turned out that things were on the rocks with her boyfriend, but she hadn’t had the guts to tell him yet. We had a few drinks and she came back to stay at my flat, just to clear her head. I said I was sorry she was having such a difficult time, although secretly of course I was delighted at the thought that she might soon be single. A few weeks after that night she broke up with her boyfriend, and we started seeing each other. I was over the moon.
Everything was so easy with Anjie. We instantly felt like we were two jigsaw-puzzle pieces that fitted together perfectly. She was warm, loving, gorgeous to look at and great fun to be with. I’d gaze at her sometimes and have to pinch myself because I couldn’t believe my luck. One night, when we were cuddled up in front of the television, she looked at me and said something that stopped my heart beating.
‘We were always meant to be together, you know,’ she said. ‘I always knew it would be you and me.’
It turned out that when we first met, Anjie had felt the same connection as I had. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for us to be together.
I soon realised that Anjie was the kindest person I had ever met. Most people have the ability to be kind, but with Anjie it just radiated from her. She was lovely to everyone she met, and could never do enough to help someone in need. She would spend her days helping elderly neighbours with their shopping and chores, and she loved being around children. I couldn’t believe my luck that I’d found someone like her. As far as I was concerned, she was an angel on earth.
Because Anjie’s previous relationship had been so troubled, she had taken the difficult decision to have her son, Nathan, stay with her mum, Margaret, during the week and come to her at weekends. Nathan was twelve when Anjie and I got together, and we decided that it was best for him to stay in the same school, which meant he had to stay with his nan, who lived five miles away. Anjie still saw him every day, though, because she used to walk over and take him to and from school, morning and afternoon, meaning that she had covered 20 miles by the end of the day. She was too broke to afford the bus fares.
Nathan didn’t see anything of his biological father, so when she decided it was time to introduce us, I was keen to make a good impression, hoping I might become a father figure to him.
‘Nathan, this is Darren,’ Anjie said when we picked him up from his grandmother’s one weekend.
‘I haven’t seen you since you were a little boy – you’ve grown loads since then.’ I grinned at Nathan, but he regarded me suspiciously. I could tell straight away that he was possessive of his mother. The minute we got to Anjie’s house, he wanted to play-fight with me in the garden. It took a few hours of playfully throwing him around for me to break the ice with him, and that was it – we were fine after that.
It was time for Anjie to meet Danny, who was four, and Becky, who was not quite two. This was a different kettle of fish as both my kids loved her the second they set eyes on her. Danny immediately sat next to her and listened, all ears, as she read him a story, while Becky just gazed at her in awe. Anjie was a natural mother, through and through.
When Nathan first met Danny, he shyly invited him up to his room to play computer games. Danny was thrilled – he didn’t have anything like that at home. Suddenly, a boy eight years older than him was inviting him to play on the PlayStation with him. That was awesome! They remained locked up in that room for hours, and we barely heard a peep out of them. I think Danny had always wanted an older brother, and Nathan provided someone for him to look up to. From then on, Danny adjusted to life as the ‘middle child’ in our family, which suited him just fine.
Becky was too young to play with Danny and Nathan, so she mainly spent her time with Anjie and me. She was quite a demanding child, who would scream at the top of her lungs for hours on end for no reason that we could ever work out. I’d had her checked out with a doctor and there was nothing physically wrong. It seemed as though she was just staking her claim for attention in the household. When we started feeding her solids instead of milk, she would scream in between spoonfuls of baby food because we weren’t giving it to her fast enough. She was like a little monster sometimes – but I was still a doting dad and nothing was too much trouble.
At first, I would often take my kids out for one day every weekend to give Nathan time alone with his mum, because he seemed a little jealous when she was affectionate towards my two, particularly Becky. But Anjie was adamant that she wanted us to be a family and that we should do things together. When she said that, I gave her a huge hug. I would have done anything for my kids and I think they knew that. I wanted to give them a proper family life – the life I’d never really had – even if I could only do it at the weekends. Anjie wanted to give them a great home too, so that’s what we set about doing. For the next fifteen years, all of our energy was put into making sure the three kids had a stable upbringing with plenty of love. And there was so much love in our house it was unreal.
Eventually, the kids and I were seeing so much of Anjie and Nathan that it made sense for me to move in to Anjie’s house in Hillfields, which was just a few miles from where I had been living in Barton Hill. We then moved together to a new house in the St George’s area. In both houses, Nathan had a room of his own, while Danny and Becky shared a room. During the week, the house was quiet as it was just Anjie and me, but at weekends it was like living in a madhouse with three kids running around, winding each other up and playing games. But we didn’t want it any other way.
I still hadn’t bothered to get a DNA test because I knew in my heart of hearts that Becky was my daughter. Tanya hadn’t named me on the birth certificate, though, and I wanted things to be clear, so when Becky was two years old I decided to go ahead with the test. When the results eventually came back they proved that she was definitely my daughter. By then, I loved her so much I don’t think it changed anything, but it did feel good knowing for sure that she was mine. I knew then that I would never, ever be forced to let her go.
Chapter 2
The fight
SATURDAY, 28 FEBRUARY 2015
Scores join search for missing Becky: Police have ramped up the hunt for Bristol teenager Becky Watts after she mysteriously vanished a week ago. A forensics team has combed her home for possible clues, the police helicopter has twice scoured the surrounding area – including Troopers Hill Nature Reserve, which lies two miles away – and police divers have been carrying out specialist open-water searches at the pond in nearby St George’s Park. Neighbouring forces from South Wales, Wiltshire, Devon and Cornwall, and Gloucestershire have now joined the operation, and police said yesterday that Detective Superintendent Liz Tunks, head of the major crime investigation unit, had taken over as senior investigating officer. Thousands of posters and leaflets have been distributed across the city, and there have been several public appeals for help by Becky’s family, but so far to no avail. In a tremendous show of support and solidarity, scores of volunteers have this week joined family, friends and neighbours to sweep the city for any sign of the missing schoolgirl. As time passes, hopes of finding her alive are fading. Pleading desperately for the return of his daughter on radio station Jack FM, Becky’s father, Darren Galsworthy, said: ‘It’s been absolute hell on earth. Someone out there knows something. I just want my girl back.’
After a gruelling week at work, I always looked forward to spending the weekends with my family. The sixteen-hour days I was doing as a sheet metal engineer would leave me completely knackered by Friday evening, but there was nothing more satisfying than picking up my kids for the weekend – Nathan from his nan’s and Danny and Becky from Tanya’s house in Cadbury Heath. It was easily my favourite part of the week. I immediately felt that little bit lighter the moment I clapped eyes on them.
Anjie and I would plan all sorts of activities for the kids: bowling and Laser Quest (a kind of hi-tech hide and seek) for the boys, or just simple trips to the park or beach. I was happiest when we were all together; it didn’t really matter what we were doing.
Around the age of two, Becky became a proper toddler, prone to having loud tantrums. She’d never lost that powerful set of lungs she’d displayed in hospital, and she demonstrated them publicly on many occasions. When we went to a birds of prey show, she screamed so loudly she upset all the birds.
‘Will the family with the very loud toddler please leave, as you are interrupting the show?’ said an angry female voice over the tannoy.
Anjie and I were mortified, and I tried to hide my embarrassment. I picked Becky up and stomped out of the building then plonked her down on the pavement outside, where she continued to scream and screech at me. To Anjie’s horror, I sat myself down a few metres away and started making the same noises back to Becky. People didn’t know what to think as they watched us screeching away. It certainly shut her up! I can laugh about it now, but it was a waste of the ticket price – a whole £18 I was never going to see again.
When Becky was three, we took the kids on holiday to Exmouth. Danny, Nathan and I armed ourselves with little fishing nets and went searching for crabs and limpets when, all of a sudden, Becky decided it was time for a tantrum. She stood on the sand a few metres away from us and screamed her head off. No amount of coaxing from Anjie or me could make her calm down, so in the end I picked her up, put her on her lilo and paddled her into the sea.
‘If you don’t start behaving, I’m going to let go and you’ll end up over in France,’ I warned, pointing to show her the direction.
She looked at my face, trying to work out if I was serious, and when I stayed deadpan she decided to calm down.
Maybe some of Becky’s tantrums were about testing her own power, the way all toddlers do, but they were also a way of getting our attention because she was still not talking by then. She had been slow to walk and crawl, not finding her feet till well after her second birthday, and at two years old she wasn’t talking yet – she didn’t use recognisable words until she was well past her third birthday. I wasn’t unduly worried at first because I know all kids pick up these skills at their own pace, but the tantrums meant she could be a handful at times.
She might have been demanding, but she was also an extremely affectionate child. All she had to do was look up at me and smile and she would have me wrapped completely around her little finger. She was always reaching up for a cuddle. Her favourite place to be was cuddled up with Anjie or me, or hanging with her arms around Anjie’s neck. She was my princess and I adored her.
It always melted my heart when I spotted Danny and Becky peeping through the curtains at their mother’s house, waiting for my car to pull up outside on a Friday evening. The minute they saw us turning onto their street, Danny would fling open the front door, and, as soon as she could walk, Becky had a habit of rushing out to greet us. This might have been cute but it scared me silly, as I had to pull over quickly and jump out of the car to make sure she didn’t run straight into traffic.
As happy as the kids were to see me, Tanya was always less so. Communication between us as parents reached an all-time low after Anjie and Nathan came into my life. I tried to keep my cool and let things wash over me, but handovers remained incredibly tense, difficult times.
Becky and Danny would be very quiet when they first arrived at our place on Friday evenings. It was as if it took them a few hours to warm up and start enjoying themselves. I just assumed the pair of them were taking some time to get used to the new family unit, but Anjie had her doubts.
‘Have you noticed how Becky has starting sitting on the sofa all the time in just one spot?’ she said to me after we put them to bed one evening. ‘It comes across like she’s scared to move, like she’s been told off for it. I had to plead with her just to come and play on the floor with me and Danny.’
‘She’ll come around,’ I reassured her, but in the back of my mind I knew she had a point. Some weekends, the kids would be timid and jumpy, as if the slightest thing unnerved them. Once, when I went to pick them up, Danny was hiding underneath Tanya’s kitchen table.
I tried to talk to Tanya about their behaviour but, to be honest, communication between us was too difficult. She just shrugged when I brought it up.
‘Maybe they don’t like being there with you and your new family,’ she suggested. I knew it wasn’t that because once they relaxed – usually by Saturday morning – they were giggling and laughing and having a great time.
Tanya and I often clashed over the state of the old clothes the kids were wearing when they came to us. Anjie and I went out and bought them new outfits, but the following week they would come back in the old clothes again. Once or twice, Becky didn’t even have any shoes on when she got into my car, and I couldn’t find a suitable pair for her in Tanya’s house. Every time I raised the issue with Tanya, she threatened to call the police to remove me from her home. Despite the fact that I was paying child maintenance every month, Anjie and I were having to buy the kids loads of essentials every time we saw them. In the end, we kept the clothes we bought for them at our house, so at least they always had something nice to wear when they were with us.
On Sunday nights, when we got into the car for me to drive them both home, Becky would cry her eyes out the whole way, and cling to me like a limpet as I carried her out of the car and up the front path.
‘Come on, sweetheart, it’s OK,’ I’d say as I tried to reassure her. ‘You’re going to see Mummy now and you’ll come back to Daddy’s house next weekend.’
No matter what I said, it was absolutely heartbreaking for me to leave her that upset. Danny never cried, but he would sigh and drag his feet.
I used to drive home to Anjie feeling terrible and trying desperately to understand what was going on. ‘I know they like spending time with us and we have lots of fun together, but it’s not just that. It’s as if they don’t want to go home,’ I said to her in bed one night. ‘Becky just didn’t want me to leave. Something’s wrong, Anjie.’
I didn’t want to seem like an ex complaining, but eventually I was so worried I phoned social services.
‘We’ll look into it,’ I was told, but as far as I could tell nothing happened. I called again and again, but I might as well have been hitting my head against a brick wall for all the good it did.
Then, in September 2001, when Becky was three and Danny was five, everything changed. I opened the door to a man who introduced himself as Dave and said he was a social worker. I invited him in and he wasted no time in telling us why he was paying us a visit.
‘I have an update about your children, Daniel and Rebecca,’ he said, and Anjie shot me a concerned glance. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, Mr Galsworthy, but the pair of them have been taken into care.’
I stared at him in shock, and my stomach tightened into a knot.
‘Are the children OK?’ Anjie asked him. She sounded panicked. ‘Has something happened to them?’
‘The children are fine,’ Dave answered. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. They are both fit and healthy, but we weren’t sure they were being properly cared for at home with their mother so we deemed it necessary to step in. They’ll be staying with a foster family until we decide what to do.’
I was horrified to think of children of mine being in care, being looked after by strangers. What had been happening to them at home?
‘I want my kids to come and live here with me,’ I said, and Dave nodded.
‘I imagine you do, Mr Galsworthy, but it’s now a case of reviewing their care and deciding on the best possible outcome. You’ll have the opportunity to apply for custody, and you’ll still have your regular access to them on weekends. It’s important that Daniel and Rebecca maintain that routine and still see a lot of you. Their mother, Miss Watts, will also have supervised access to them.’
I was relieved that they could still come and stay with Anjie and me at weekends. At least they would have an ounce of normality throughout the whole thing. I could tell that Anjie was thinking the same thing, as her shoulders relaxed a little.
‘So why can’t they come to us straight away?’ I asked. ‘We have enough room to have them here during the week, and they are always properly taken care of when they’re with us. Why can’t you just arrange for them to live here?’
‘It’s a little more complicated than that, I’m afraid,’ he answered. ‘There will be a few court hearings about their care, and you’ll be considered for custody. I imagine their mother, Miss Watts, will be applying too. Until a decision is made, Daniel and Rebecca will need to stay with a foster family during the week.’ It seemed part of the problem was that I hadn’t been named as Becky’s father on her birth certificate.
‘So what you’re telling me is, I now have to fight to get my kids?’ I asked him. I could feel a wave of anger wash over me but I tried not to show it.
Dave nodded again. ‘I’m afraid so.’
As soon as he left, Anjie and I looked at each other, still reeling from the news.
‘I suppose we should just be grateful that they’re safe,’ Anjie said, and I smiled. She could always look on the positive side of things. I knew they would be treated properly in foster care, but that they would inevitably be confused and scared by all the changes in their young lives. I was desperate to have them living permanently with me.
When I saw the kids the following Friday, they rushed into my arms.
‘Are you OK?’ I asked Danny. ‘Is it nice where you are staying?’
He just nodded and didn’t want to talk about it. I explained that I wanted them to come and live with us, but that mummy wanted them as well and the social workers were going to decide what was the best thing. Becky clung to me like her life depended on it. Although she hadn’t started talking yet, I knew she understood most of what was being said around her. ‘We’ll still see each other every weekend while they’re deciding,’ I reassured them. ‘Just like before.’
For the next three months, Anjie and I lived and breathed the fight to get my children out of care. It was the first thing I thought about as soon as I woke up in the morning, and the last thing that passed through my mind before I fell asleep – if I managed to get any sleep at all. The number of sleepless nights I had worrying about the fate of Danny and Becky was unreal.
We saw Dave, the social worker, a few times after that, and I grew to really like him. He talked us through the whole process and kept us up to date with what we had to do to apply for custody. A brilliant family solicitor called Greg Moss, one of the best in Bristol, agreed to take on the case on behalf of the children, and it was good to know he was on our side.
We got dressed up and went to several family court hearings, only to discover that they were going to be adjourned to another date. It was irritating, as I had to book a whole day off work every time. Eventually, I had used up all of my holiday allowance for the year just to be able to attend a string of meetings that lasted five minutes each.
The hearings were nerve-racking for Anjie and me. We both knew we were more than capable of taking care of Danny and Becky full-time, but we had to prove that to the family court. We were put under the spotlight as they queried everything about us. They wanted to know why Nathan lived with his nan during the week, and Anjie had to explain tearfully that it was a decision she had made in the past when she was involved in a troubled relationship and it had seemed best for him to have stability. After Anjie and I got together, we all decided it was best for him to stay at the same school, which meant staying with his nan. Then they asked Anjie to take a parenting class, and she did so well in it that she was later approached by Bristol City Council, who asked her if she wanted a job teaching the classes! We had a good laugh about that.