With her
dark hair neatly pinned back, glamorous sense of style and remarkably
unlined skin, Gabriella Gillespie, 50, looks every inch the professional
mother-of-five.
But
her immaculate looks conceal a dark secret, for unlike her neighbours
in the quiet Bristol suburb that she calls home, Gabriella is a former
child bride.
Now,
more than 20 years after escaping her violent rapist husband, she has
written a memoir in the hopes that telling her story will help prevent
other girls from going through the same trauma.
Back in Britain: Gabriella Gillespie (far left) with her children Taz, Justina, Adam, Sandy and Luke
Born
to a British mother and Yemeni father in Newport in Wales just over
half a century ago, Ms Gillespie's first years were idyllic.
One
of a brood of seven sisters, she was close to her siblings, in
particular her sister
Yasmin, and revelled in the love of her devoted
mother.
But
all that changed after her mother Mary was murdered by her father Ali
Abdulla Saleh Yafai when Gabriella was just six years old.
'Most
of the memories I have of my early childhood are good and happy but I
don't have many memories of my mum or my later childhood,' she says.
'I
think I blocked them out. That is something I've learnt to do
throughout my life - I’ve become very proficient at blocking out any
memories that hurt me.'
On
2nd September 1971, her father unexpectedly arrived to pick the girls
up from school, telling them their mother had gone to visit her family.
Early days: Gabriella (second right) aged 12 with her father (left), sisters and foster father Jim (right)
Idyllic: Gabriella on holiday with her foster family in Pembrokeshire before she was taken to Yemen
Three
days later and with Mary, then just 26, still nowhere to be found,
Yafai reported his wife missing - sparking a massive nationwide manhunt.
But
a year on from the disappearance, Gabriella's father was arrested and
charged with killing his wife and she and her sisters were put into
foster care.
Although Mary's body was never found, Yafai himself was sentenced to six years in prison for manslaughter.
Gabriella
and her sisters moved in with Jim and Thelma, a local couple with three
daughters of their own, and a period of normality ensued.
Heartbreakingly,
none of the sisters, barring Ablah, the eldest, could bring themselves
to believe that their father had really killed their mother, so when he
was released, all agreed to return to his care.
'My foster
family were good to us
and I have a few happy memories from my time in foster care,' says Gabriella.
'We
didn't want to go back and live with our dad because we were happy and settled in our foster
home.
'But I remember that at
the time there was an awful lot that I didn’t understand about what had
happened to mum, and I still adored my Dad and I missed him.'
Despite
their doubts and their foster father's battle to keep the girls, by the
time Gabriella was 12, she was back with her father in Newport. It
wouldn't be for long.
In
May 1977, Yafai decided to take the girls on a 'lovely holiday' to
Yemen, although without Ablah who refused to go and chose to stay behind
with their foster father, Jim.
'We all wanted to go to Yemen at the
time,' remembers Gabriella. 'We were promised that it was going to be this fantastic
holiday.
'Our father had told us so many lies about how beautiful Yemen
was and how we were going to have a brilliant time while we were there; a
family united again for the first time in years.'
Ableh's
decision proved to be a wise one, for within weeks of their arrival,
Yafai put his plan to marry off the girls into action.
First
to wed was Gabriella's sister Yasmin, then just 14, who was
forcibly taken by a man three times her age whom they had known, up to that moment, as 'Uncle
Nasser'.
A very Welsh childhood: Gabriella (right), who grew up in Newport in South Wales, had a British upbringing
Adored: Despite the death of her mother, Gabriella says she has good memories of her time in foster care
Gabriella and her sister Ismahan were taken to the Yemeni capital Sana'a by another 'uncle' named Mohammed.
For
a while, the two lived with their paternal grandparents in a village
near the city, learning Arabic and to wear the body-covering abaya - a
garment neither had donned before.
Their
sister Yasmin, rejected by her 'husband' after attempting to kill
herself with an overdose of painkillers, soon rejoined them. But the
respite was to be a brief one.
Six
months after they arrived in Sana'a, their father announced that
15-year-old Ismahan - or Issy as she was known - would marry a man of
60, who already had a wife and children older than she was.
Tragedy: Gabriella's sister Ismahan, 15, killed herself by jumping off a roof rather than marry
The impact was devastating. Despite her repeated refusals and desperate protests, their father insisted she would marry.
On
the day of her wedding, rather than marry the grandfather chosen for
her, Ismahan killed herself by throwing herself off the roof of her
fiance's apartment block.
Gabriella,
knowing that it wouldn't be long until her father chose a husband for
her, decided to strike out on her own, befriending a village boy named
Mana and encouraging him to approach her father.
'My first marriage was led by me because
I understood and had tried to accept at the time that I had absolutely
no other choice in the matter,' she remembers.
'I knew I would be sold because I had had
to watch my sisters get sold and one of my sisters commit suicide
because she was so frightened and appalled by her fate.
'So I tried to
desperately to come to terms with my situation by finding a boy I liked.
'My sister was sold to an old man who terrified her and I was so scared
of the same fate happening to me. So I chose a younger man and I asked
him to come and meet my father to ask if he could marry me.'
Aged
13, Gabriella became a bride for the first time. But just six weeks
after her wedding, her 18-year-old husband Mana died following two days
vomiting blood.
Gabriella
was returned to her father who swiftly announced that she would marry
again, this time to an 18-year-old son of a wealthy family named Ziad
Nasser.
'My father chose my second husband,' she says. 'I
only saw him the day the deal had been done. I didn't have an impression
of him, I didn't know him or want to be with him.'
But
it was too late and almost immediately after the wedding, Gabriella
found herself, aged 14, pregnant and living the life of a Yemeni
countrywoman in a small village near the capital.
'The
first few years of my marriage were OK,' she remembers. 'My husband
wasn't kind or unkind to me but he wasn't in Yemen much -
he worked away in Africa for years so I didn't see him much.
Changed: By the time of her second marriage, Gabriella was no longer a British schoolgirl but Yemeni wife
Abusive: Gabriella with her three oldest children, her father (left) and husband (right) in Bangui
'I was
living with his extended family and that was difficult. I was expected
to do everything a Yemeni girl would do.
'Cook for the whole family in a
clay oven. Feed animals by hand. Carry heavy loads on my head,
including buckets of water. Work long hours in the fields while
pregnant.
'It was extremely difficult adapting to a new
culture, especially after being brought up as a British girl and not even being able to speak Arabic when we went to Yemen.'
The marriage produced five children, Taz, now 34, Justina, 32, Adam, 29, Sandy, 28, and the youngest, Luke, 26.
But
while life in a Yemeni village was tough, things would become
unbearable after she and her children were sent to join Nasser in
Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic.
Now
convulsed by civil war, the Central African Republic was relatively
stable in the 1980s but ruled by a formidable military junta led by
General André Kolingba.
It was no place for a family and Nasser, then descending into drug addiction, wasn't much of a father or husband.
Terrified: Gabriella says her children were terrified of their father and just as scared of their violent grandfather
Better times: After her escape back to Britain aged 29, Gabriella lives in Bristol and has written a book
Harrowing: Gabriella's new book tells the story of her childhood and violent second marriage
'He became addicted to drugs and wasted
his father's money,' remembers Gabriella. He also became increasingly violent.
'He raped me and
beat me on numerous occasions - he felt it was his right to do so,' says his former wife.
'I almost died
many times due to the violence and the injuries I sustained.'
But
despite her husband's violent behaviour, Gabriella stayed put for 17
years until one day, he announced he had found someone to marry their
daughter Justina.
'My husband was talking about selling my
daughter into a marriage because he had gotten himself into trouble and
needed to pay off the money,' she says.
Fearful of what might happen, she fled back to Yemen. Her husband didn't follow.
'My husband was a selfish man and never
loved anyone but himself and money, so when I left he didn't care,' she explains.
'My children were all terrified of their father
and couldn't wait to leave.'
Her father, still living in Sana'a, was furious but had to take his daughter back after village elders intervened.
'My
father hated having me back home,' she says. 'But he couldn't say no
because of his pride.' With his plans to keep Gabriella away thwarted,
he vented his anger on his daughter and grandchildren.
Eventually, after an incident in which he beat her two year old son before attacking her with a shotgun, she was forced to flee.
'I
had to run or die,' she says. 'I waited until everyone was asleep and
took my kids and walked miles to the road where we hitchhiked to my
sister's house in the city.
'She
then helped me escape and go to the British Embassy.' Staff there,
horrified by her story, took the 29-year-old in, eventually repatriating
her to the UK along with her five children.
'I was
afraid my father would try to get me back,' she adds. 'My husband wasn't
interested in having me or his children back but I'd shamed my family by
running away and my father told me he would kill me - I knew he meant
it.'
Today,
although happily living in Bristol and with a new book about her
experience days away from publication, Gabriella says she is still
haunted by what happened more than 20 years after her escape.
'It will always be a part of who I was,
but I'm not that girl anymore,' she says. 'I know I'm a strong person and I hope I can
show other girls that no matter how long it takes, no matter how bad
things get, things can change if you stay strong.
'I needed
to start speaking out about what happened to us so that this never happens again.'
Gabriella's
memoir, A Father's Betrayal, £9.99, is published at the end of July by
Clink Street Publishing. She will also be appearing at the Too Young to
Wed exhibition, which is part of the Girl Summit 2014, tomorrow
DM
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