Isla, 45

He was “Uncle Mike”, a friend of my dad’s. I think he began grooming my parents after my mum went to meet my dad at work when my older sister was a toddler. So he was a family friend from before my twin sister and I were born – he was always in our lives.

He had all sorts of hobbies; he claimed he was Soft Cell’s tour manager for a while and could get tickets to gigs and badges and T-shirts. He even gave us pocket money.

His ex-wife didn’t allow him to see his daughter, and he told my parents she was just being bitter and difficult. He played on that to make them feel sorry for him and let him into our lives. If you had to write the template of how to charm your way into people’s lives, Michael Murphy did it all, gaining their sympathy and showering them with time and gifts. My mum used to call him our favourite uncle.

The abuse mostly took place in our family home, with my parents downstairs. He was found guilty of abusing me from the age of seven, though I think it began before that.

He would read my sister and me a bedtime story, then put a blanket over my lap. That’s when he’d abuse me, sometimes sending my sister downstairs to get a drink. I was so little, I thought this was just what happened. My family liked this man. I thought I had to put up with it. I was terrified I would be taken away and put into care. I’ll never know why he picked on me. Maybe I was the quieter one.

He took pictures of both my sister and me with a Polaroid camera – me with no clothes on and my sister in her nightie. We were about seven or eight. Around this time, my older sister, Sarah, then 13, found the photos and confronted him. He told her we had been messing about with his camera. He had an answer for everything.

For a long time I thought he didn’t rape me, but now I believe he did, though he wasn’t charged with that. When I was nine, he took me and my sister to see the film Annie in London. Afterwards he took us to his flat in Covent Garden and showed us the Kama Sutra. I remember saying, “Two people can’t be joined together like that” and him saying, “Oh yes they can” and taking me to the bedroom. I don’t remember anything after that. But the first time I had consensual sex, memories of someone on top of me came flooding back, his breath in my ear, the sensation.

The abuse ended just before I hit puberty. But he’d still show up at family events such as barbecues – and act surprised when I stormed off. I thought I was going mad.

My parents didn’t notice anything amiss. Once he “joked”, in front of my dad, about he and I running off to Gretna Green, and I thought Dad knew, but of course he didn’t. In my teens I told Sarah about it, but I made her promise not to say anything. I didn’t want to hurt Mum and Dad.

It all came out when I was 17. Sarah ran into him at a bar where he was working. He put his arm around her and she lost it, saying, “I know what you did to my sister!” So he called my dad to get in there first, claiming Sarah had been rude to him for no reason. He is a master of manipulation.

When it all came out then, Dad was devastated – but I never talked to him about it until years later, when I was 25 and told him I was thinking of reporting it. Three days later he died unexpectedly. He had heart problems but the stress finished him off.

He was all the things you read about, a total charmer. I never suspected for a second he was grooming us. Why would you?

I don’t blame my parents. They were very protective, but they didn’t know the real danger was in our home.

In 2003, I finally told Sarah what had happened in detail – it was the first time I had told one person everything. She reported it to the police the next day; I think she felt guilty that she hadn’t said anything before, when she had found the Polaroids. I was mad at her: it was my secret, not hers, and I wasn’t ready to face the hell it was going to bring. At the time, the police couldn’t pursue it without my permission; now they can prosecute without the victim’s consent.

In 2009, after I became a mother myself, I became ill with chronic fatigue. I was suffering from the physical effects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Then, in 2012, when Jimmy Savile and Operation Yewtree hit the news, I kept thinking, do I report what happened to me?

I went to the police at the end of May 2015. They were amazing, totally understanding, and they believed me, which had been a big worry. Everything Sarah had told them had been kept on file and was used in evidence.

At the first trial, in July 2018, he was charged with 15 counts against five victims – offences that included sexual activity with a child, indecent assault, gross indecency and rape of a child under 13. He was found not guilty on three counts and it was a hung jury for the rest. I was so upset; I felt he had got away with it.

But there was a retrial in January 2019, and this time he was found guilty on every charge. I felt amazing, just incredible, six feet tall. It was wonderful glaring at him, knowing he was going to prison. I didn’t break eye contact – he was the one who looked away.

The judge called him a serial predatory paedophile. He just shrugged and shook his head. I believe he would still be abusing now. He’s in prison with killers, with terrorists. I hope he suffers; it will be a tiny taste of what I’ve felt all these years. He can own that shame now.

Helen, Isla’s mother

Never for one moment, not one single moment, did I think anything was wrong. I totally let her down – this is the person we invited into our home.

My husband ran a printing business and met Mike through work. I remember him turning up with an expensive coat and clothes for my older daughter, Sarah, who was a toddler. He had “fashion friends”. He was fun, he was generous and we liked him a lot.

Michael Murphy was jailed for 16 years. Photograph: Met police

So yes, he was all the things you read about, a total charmer. I simply never suspected for a second he was grooming us. Why would you?

The only person who ever said anything was my mother-in-law. When he took the twins to see the film Annie, I remember her saying, “Why does a man that age want to take two young girls up to town?” She was obviously a wiser person than I was. “Well, he doesn’t see his own daughter, that’s why,” I said. We felt sorry for him not seeing his own child.

When he offered to read the girls bedtime stories, we were happy because he was such fun and could make up stories. I thought they were up there having fun and that was all there was to it.

Looking back, there were signs. Sometimes he would arrive with his arms full of carnations but Isla would refuse to come down. I’d call out, “Mike’s here! Come down, don’t be so rude – he’s got some flowers for you. Come and say thank you.” My goodness, that eats at me now.

Today you would question why a child was behaving oddly. I thought I had spoiled her; she had been a premature, poorly baby and perhaps I had given her too much attention.

Isla kept it bottled up until she was 17. Mike had called my husband and said, “Sarah’s just been incredibly rude to me, I don’t know why.” Even that was conniving – he thought he was invincible. My husband asked Sarah, who said, “You had better ask Isla.”

I remember going up to her bedroom. When she told us, I was floored, devastated. It was like a bomb going off. Isla’s dad went ballistic – he was not in good health or he would have killed Mike. He rang him up and yelled, “You’re dead!” He phoned his workplace and told them what kind of man he was, and he rang everyone he knew who had kids to warn them.

The guilt never went away for him, that he had introduced Mike into the family. It didn’t do his health any good. He died in 1998, around the time Isla told him she wanted to report it. I wonder if the stress killed him. I’ve always felt that it was the guilt and anger of what happened that caused his heart problems.

All the things Isla has been through are down to that man. I’m so angry with him and so angry with myself. Now the trial is over, you would think we’d be on a high, but I think we’ve gone backwards. The guilt is horrendous.

Names have been changed.

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