Cathy Wilson Interview

Cathy Wilson's debut novel Escape From Evil is a frank and very personal story of her troubled childhood and relationship with Peter Tobin.

I caught up with her to talk about penning her first book, the relationship that she escaped from and what lies ahead for her.

- Your novel Escape From Evil has just been released so can you tell me a little bit about it?

Well it is my autobiography and it covers the first eight years of my life, which were very traumatic because my mother was unfortunately a heroin addict; she had me very young so I was in and out of care quite a lot.

And then it movies forward, she died when I was eight years old, it moves forward to when I was sixteen, I was a feisty but vulnerable sixteen year old, when I met Peter Tobin and the four years that I had with him.

He was at the time a very abusive husband and when I had the confidence to leave him four years later I thought that was that - but obviously in 2006 there were these revelations that he had killed people and it has gone on from there really.  

- So how did the novel come about is it something that you had been planning to write or did someone come to you with the idea?

When I was twenty five, or mid twenties, I wanted to write a book… I think that everyone has a story in them… I wanted to write a book about my early life because it so traumatic but I had come out the other side - I perhaps shouldn’t have been as mentally stable as I was. But I wanted to put that into writing and I had tried to start several times but it has never got anywhere.

Then come forward into 2006 and we find out all about him (Tobin), 2007 I had a complete breakdown because I had a very traumatic year; my grandmother was dying, I had to leave a long relationship, I had to buy a house, Peter Tobin was all over the papers and the paparazzi were all over the doors and it was just too much for me - the police questioning was quite intensive. 

But by the time I got to 2008 I just thought to myself ‘I have gone through quite a lot here and I’m ok’ and I just thought that if I can put into writing all that has happened in my life if it can just inspire one of two people to think that no matter how difficult their life is they can get out of it and there’s a better life around the corner.

When I left Peter I was in Scotland, 650 miles away from home, with no money, no car keys; he use to keep me locked in the house with no financial means, and I escaped from that - I got on a coach and came down to London.

And I thought I was 19 years, a single parent and was very nervous and scared if I can get away from that situation then someone else can as well - and I’m hoping that that will come through in the book.

- You have just touched on my next question obviously it's a very personal story so what was it that made you want to tell it? And how difficult was it writing this book?

If just one personal can leave a situation by realising that there are people that will help you at all times then that is great. For me it was a very cathartic thing to do, I know that that is an overused word, I’m forty one if God gives me the blessing to live to eighty two then I am at the half way point in my life - so I have got to take a black marker pen and draw it across number forty one, I have had the children, I have had the husband, I have hade everything and now I have drawn a line under it.

There are no more questions that can be asked because I can refer to the book, because it is so honest and truthful and it covers every single thing that I have done; even up to December of last year, I can just refer someone to the book now and say ’don’t ask me any more questions just read it.’ And I won’t have to talk about it until the end of last year.

- On your relationship with Peter you called him a knight in shining armour so the relationship at the beginning must have been really good?

It was quite good. I was sixteen and I was very vulnerable and feisty and thought I knew everything that was going on in the world - at sixteen of course you now everything - and I met this bloke and I know that he was older than me he didn’t seen it because I had been living with my grandfather who was fifty years older then me, so being twenty years older was neither here nor there really.

When I met him he had these exotic tales about how he had fought for the country, he had shrapnel wounds to his wrist, and then he went to work on an oil rig so he just had these worldly and mature stories and I got sucked into all of that. It was

I was at a point in my life where I had moved home, I had left my family home if you like, and I had got my first flat but it wasn’t the dream flat that I thought that it was going to be; there were problems with neighbours and everything wasn’t really in the right place, and he just offered me the whole package and I fell for it.

- And how did that relationship turn over the years? How old was your song during all of this and what sort of impact did that have on him?

I moved in with him very quickly in the October 1986 and by the march I had already conceived out child. The first few months everything was fine except for a couple of little incidents where I hadn’t cooked dinner properly and he had thrown the dinner plate at me and sworn at me - but he apologised immediately.

But he had started to manipulate me, which I hadn’t even realised until I look back on it now, but he had stared to mentally manipulate me; for example I was a slim feisty sixteen year old wearing very short skirts and high heels and I would be putting on an outfit to go out and he would say ‘I have bought you this and it would look much nicer’ - and of course it was a skirt tat went down to the floor a or a pair of shoes with no heel.

And because I had wanted please him and because I had no other person to ask about it I thought well that’s a lovely think he has bought me this nice skirt and these lovely shoes and I want to make him happy because I want to be a great girlfriend, and later wife, so I would go along with it.

But after about six months I was the most dowdy person with no makeup and no hair colour - and that started straight away.

- And you had your son so what kind of impact has this had on him?

Oh he is absolutely fine. Basically the last time that he saw his father was 1993 when he was about four or five. When his father was convicted of the sexual assaults against the two girls in Havant he was given fourteen years and I told Daniel that he was going to jail for a drugs related offence, because I am not going to tell a child it was worse than that, and that we were not going to see him again.

I then worked tirelessly to give him males and female roles and to make sure that he didn’t miss out on anything - he has been to Silverstone truck racing - we have everything, all of the boy things as well as girls stuff.

This man has never come up in our conversations at all and in fact in 2006 when my aunt phoned and said I needed to turn the television on and there was an article on how the police were searing for him after the suspected murder of Angelika Kluck I screamed and Daniel came into the lounge and asked what was going on?

I pointed at the screen and he said ‘Who is it?’ So he didn’t even recognise this man at all. So although he sees this as being a sad and horrific story it is a news story to him rather than thinking ‘that’s my dad’ that’s not in him at all to think that.

- What eventually gave you the strength to get away? And how hard was it a decision to leave?

I was hard. We had moved to Scotland, the abuse levels had gone up a notch because I was 650 miles away from anyone that I knew. I was becoming a prisoner in the house and I was allowed one five minute phone call to my grandparents a week and he would sit next to me to make sure I didn’t say anything untoward to them.

I tried everything but he very cleverly made me feel like I was a bad wife and everything he was doing because I wasn’t good enough - and I believed that; my self esteem was through the floor.

And I said this to one of my girlfriends it’s not just the physical abuse but it’s the mental abuse that has such a devastating effect - all my confidence and everything just went and I felt that I was completely at fault. 

After about three months of being there he had was becoming more and more abusive and I said ‘I think we should get a divorce’ he grabbed Daniel, took him to the top of the staircase and dangled him over the staircase and said ’if you ever try and leave me I will kill your son and then I will come and f***ing kill you’

And I was like ’ok we are not going to get a divorce then’ if my son is being dangled over my head - then he just handed Daniel and walked off as if nothing had ever happened; so he really was psychotic.

Over the next three months he didn’t let me out of sight I couldn’t go to the book of the car, I couldn’t go into the garden in case I  talked to neighbours over the fence and if he went out I was put under lock and key - he would take all the car keys and bank books with him.

This went on for three months, bear in mind that I was nineteen and was in a foreign country as far as I was concerned, then one day he went to a car auction and forgot to lock the door. 

He said that he was going to be an hour and a half and I just though ‘ I have to do this because if I don’t do this now I have no life’ so I grabbed a bag of clothes and go to the coach station at Glasgow and booked a coach for 9pm.

I had to sit and wait for this coach for an hour and a half and that was, absolutely no word of a lie, the worst hour and a half that I have ever gone through because I thought, I knew nothing about what he was capable of course, but I knew his anger towards me would be so severe because I had defied him and, without a doubt, he would have killed me.

And whenever I have re-laid that story of being in the bus station to my friends over the years and I said that I was convinced that he was going to kill me they would say ’don’t be so stupid that’s an exaggeration’ and I said ’not it’s not I just felt that that is what would have happened to me’ and that was without the knowledge that we have now. 

- You eventually learnt the truth about Peter one morning when you switched on the TV - how much did what he had done come as a shock to you?

I was shocked because he was meant to be in prison still. He had been given a fourteen year sentence for the sexual assault of two young girls in 1994 and after about seven or eight years he had obviously been on good behaviour and they let him out on remand - he was meant to sign the sex offenders register every week but he signed it once and then went on the run for six weeks.

At the time I had police monitoring my house and CID officers are at the school because they thought that he was going to come after Daniel and I - so it was a very intense period.

But they found him in Brighton and they put him back in prison; as far as I was concerned he had had the opportunity to be a good person and he hadn’t and gone on the run so I thought he would serve the rest of his fourteen year sentence - that made logical sense to me.

But that’s not what happened. He should have been in prison until 2008 but they let him out in 2005 and no one notified me to let me know that he was out - I have moved every six months to make sure that he could never find Daniel and myself; I really felt that I would come because I had denied him a picture of Daniel while he was in prison.

So 2005 he has been let out of prison and no one has told me, which they should of done because I was walking around the streets without a care in the world not knowing that he could have just been around the corner. He signed the sex offenders register just the one and then again went on the run - so far a year had had been completely under the radar and I don’t understand what happens… who monitors these people that go under the radar?

And when his picture came up on the screen it had a name underneath, his current alias, Pat McLaughlin so I saw this picture of this man that I obviously recognised, I hadn’t seen his face in twelve years so that was a bit of a shock, but I thought ’no it can’t be him because the name is wrong and he is still in prison.’

Then it all comes out that it is him and that he has been released a year early - Angelika Kluk, I can’t do anything about the other two; I can’t do anything about anyone, but Angelika Kluk should still be alive because he should have been in prison until 2008.

- You dedicate the book to your mother, grandparents and friends so how big a role did they play during this difficult time?

It’s mainly my friends because I don’t have any other family, my mother has died and my grandmother died in 2006; that god she doesn’t know any of this, and my grandfather died ten year ago - so I have no other family except my son, and that is not the conversation that I want to sit down and have with him.

So I turned to my friends and they have been very understanding as they put up with my for six months crying and howling and I now has this disbelief that I am still here because it’s now become very apparent that his crimes are so severe that I should probably not be here now.

But they got bored of listening to me and they paid for me to go to a nut fairy - I have a weekly nut fairy now and that has helped (laughs).  And I met Stuart in November 2008 and he is fantastic he is a very kind and laidback and easy guy.

- So many women up and down the country will be in similar relationships that you found yourself in so what advice would you give to them?

Oh just that there is always someone there to help you. I was nineteen years old, 650 miles away from home, I didn’t have a very strong relationship with my grandparents and I had £25 and I got out of that all one my own.

I went to a councillor and they were able to house me immediately, find me some help; they put me in contact with people who deal with domestic abuse - so there are people out there you just have to have a bit of confidence. There is a better life around the corner and that is really what I wanted to say. 

- Finally what's next for you? Are you planning to continue writing?

Yes I am I have just started a series of children’s books called Tangle’s Tails, and Tangle is a hedgehog, and he has little friends such as stunty the squirrel.

They are basically going to have adventures, but the adventures are going to be quite light because it was between four to seven years old, but there will be a moral - I have picked out some of the social problems have at the moment; young people don’t speak to old people and there is no respect.

They are being done now the artist has the sketches as we speak and hopefully by the end of the year I will be talking to you about something that is a bit more positive.

Escape From Evil is out now.

FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw

I caught up with her to talk about penning her first book, the relationship that she escaped from and what lies ahead for her.

- Your novel Escape From Evil has just been released so can you tell me a little bit about it?

Well it is my autobiography and it covers the first eight years of my life, which were very traumatic because my mother was unfortunately a heroin addict; she had me very young so I was in and out of care quite a lot.

And then it movies forward, she died when I was eight years old, it moves forward to when I was sixteen, I was a feisty but vulnerable sixteen year old, when I met Peter Tobin and the four years that I had with him.

He was at the time a very abusive husband and when I had the confidence to leave him four years later I thought that was that - but obviously in 2006 there were these revelations that he had killed people and it has gone on from there really.  

- So how did the novel come about is it something that you had been planning to write or did someone come to you with the idea?

When I was twenty five, or mid twenties, I wanted to write a book… I think that everyone has a story in them… I wanted to write a book about my early life because it so traumatic but I had come out the other side - I perhaps shouldn’t have been as mentally stable as I was. But I wanted to put that into writing and I had tried to start several times but it has never got anywhere.

Then come forward into 2006 and we find out all about him (Tobin), 2007 I had a complete breakdown because I had a very traumatic year; my grandmother was dying, I had to leave a long relationship, I had to buy a house, Peter Tobin was all over the papers and the paparazzi were all over the doors and it was just too much for me - the police questioning was quite intensive. 

But by the time I got to 2008 I just thought to myself ‘I have gone through quite a lot here and I’m ok’ and I just thought that if I can put into writing all that has happened in my life if it can just inspire one of two people to think that no matter how difficult their life is they can get out of it and there’s a better life around the corner.

When I left Peter I was in Scotland, 650 miles away from home, with no money, no car keys; he use to keep me locked in the house with no financial means, and I escaped from that - I got on a coach and came down to London.

And I thought I was 19 years, a single parent and was very nervous and scared if I can get away from that situation then someone else can as well - and I’m hoping that that will come through in the book.

- You have just touched on my next question obviously it's a very personal story so what was it that made you want to tell it? And how difficult was it writing this book?

If just one personal can leave a situation by realising that there are people that will help you at all times then that is great. For me it was a very cathartic thing to do, I know that that is an overused word, I’m forty one if God gives me the blessing to live to eighty two then I am at the half way point in my life - so I have got to take a black marker pen and draw it across number forty one, I have had the children, I have had the husband, I have hade everything and now I have drawn a line under it.

There are no more questions that can be asked because I can refer to the book, because it is so honest and truthful and it covers every single thing that I have done; even up to December of last year, I can just refer someone to the book now and say ’don’t ask me any more questions just read it.’ And I won’t have to talk about it until the end of last year.

- On your relationship with Peter you called him a knight in shining armour so the relationship at the beginning must have been really good?

It was quite good. I was sixteen and I was very vulnerable and feisty and thought I knew everything that was going on in the world - at sixteen of course you now everything - and I met this bloke and I know that he was older than me he didn’t seen it because I had been living with my grandfather who was fifty years older then me, so being twenty years older was neither here nor there really.

When I met him he had these exotic tales about how he had fought for the country, he had shrapnel wounds to his wrist, and then he went to work on an oil rig so he just had these worldly and mature stories and I got sucked into all of that. It was

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