Family violence: the son has sent behind a lattice mother who above it mocked

The story of Andrew Copley shocked many. A 38-year-old man wrote a statement to the police on his own mother. He accused a 66-year-old woman of cruel treatment of children, that is, with himself. The proceedings took a long time, four whole years. But in the end, Andrew Christine Copley's mother was imprisoned for three years. "I do not call this woman my mother. I just can not. I always called her simply by name, because my mother would never have done what she did to me. So only a real monster could act, "Andrew said. The man wrote a letter to himself - on behalf of an adult person the boy he used to be. This letter can not be read without tears. Andrew's happy childhood memories were preserved only about the days he spent with his grandparents. And he was happy when he ran away from home. But most of the time Andrew lived with Christine. He did not have a father - he left the family when the boy was very young.Photo:GettyImages“Christina never wanted me to be born. She said she would be happy if I died in childbirth. She wanted a girl, but the third boy was born – me,” Andrew writes. The boy was constantly beaten. He often hid at the far end of the garden and sat there for hours alone. But his mother would find him and beat him again. “I became immune to pain. I didn’t feel the blows anymore,” Andrew. After the beating, his mother would plunge her son into an ice bath so that the marks of the beatings would not be so noticeable. The gifts that Andrew received for Christmas and his birthday, his mother immediately took away and sold at garage sales. The boy had only one consolation – his beloved dog named Dylan. “Christina threatened to take Dylan out of town and abandon him in the forest if I didn’t tell her that I loved her,” Andrew recalls. The boy was always terribly thin: there was no food for him in the house. Christina bought herself chocolate and crisps, cooked lunch. But her son only got empty pots. Sometimes Andrew did not eat for several days in a row: "I begged classmates for scraps, ate hamster or dog food." Classmates laughed at the boy, and neighbors called him "the saddest boy in the world." But Andrew never told how his life was. He was afraid that it would only get worse. Although, where could it get worse? His mother put him outside naked all night, locked him in a closet, forced him to hold his hands over a flame - so that it was very painful, but almost no visible marks remained. Ten years passed like this. When he turned 14, the boy found himself a part-time job. Soon the day of his first salary arrived. "Christina demanded that I give her the money. I refused, and then she smashed a wine bottle on my head. Then I ran away from home. She chased me, but I still ran away – left for good, in what I was wearing,” Andrew said. The boy went to live with his father. He drank heavily, but it was still more pleasant to live with an alcoholic. But sometimes Andrew still returned to his mother’s house to visit his younger brother. He was afraid that Christina would now take it out on him. The boy grew up, but he never said goodbye to his childhood demons. A psychotherapist diagnosed him with post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Andrew is on antidepressants. Christina denied everything at the trial. But the judge sent her to prison – for turning her son’s life into hell. And Andrew is now trying to help other children who have found themselves in a similar situation. “I just had nowhere to go, no one to complain to. No one should have a childhood like that,” he says.