Showing titles in Child Abuse

Three siblings arrive at Maggie's door after being taken into care. Teachers of eight-year-old Bobby spotted bruises while he was getting changed for PE and his dad, Lee, and stepmother, Brianna, have been uncooperative and hostile to Social Services. While they investigate, Bobby, as well as Brianna's daughters, Melodie and Poppy, are all placed in Maggie's care. But as the children settle in, a thought won't let Maggie go. While Melodie and Poppy are clean, well-fed and immaculately dressed, Bobby is pale, severely underweight and crawling with lice.

Frances Reilly and her sisters were abandoned by their mother outside Nazareth House Convent - a Belfast orphanage run by nuns. Little did they know the unimaginable cruelty they'd endure within its walls. Frances suffered horrifically at the hands of the Sisters: brutally beaten, worked like a slave, abused and molested, the convent regime stripped her of everything - education, innocence and childhood. But the hope of rescue or escape never left her. Years later, Frances would face her demons in court, bringing to account those who so viciously stole her youth. 

"I'm in bed with my mother, in a Bangkok sex hotel. It is my 30th birthday, it is time for me to become a man, and I have grave worries about the kind of man I'm going to become." On an unlikely backpacking trip, Rhik and his mother find themselves speaking openly for the first time in years...

The next book in Louise Allen's Thrown Away Children series.

When police are called to a local supermarket late one evening, they find an angry shopkeeper and a silent young woman. It's the third time 24-year-old Zoe has been caught stealing in the past few days. Eyes filled with panic, Zoe has been hiding bread, milk, Calpol and nappies under her coat. As police officers break down the door of Zoe's flat they find seven-year-old Coco and two-year-old Lola, home alone, huddled on the floor in a freezing cold bedroom, crying out for their mummy.

Experienced foster carer, Rosie Lewis, takes on the heart-breaking case of Megan, a baby born with a drug addiction and a cleft palate. Addicted to drugs from birth because of her mother’s substance abuse during pregnancy, new-born Megan is taken into Rosie’s loving care. Rosie is supposed...

Twins David and Dennis Pischke's lives change forever when their father dies and a man damaged by the war arrives at their farm near the isolated town of Moosehorn, Manitoba. Boleslaw Domko quickly works his way into their lives and their mother's bed. Where Children Run opens with one of their earliest memories - the day Domko throws their infant stepsister against the wall. In this firsthand account, the twins recall years of neglect, starvation, and enslavement; horrific beatings and candlelit nights spent in the nearby St. Thomas Lutheran Church.

What possesses a mum to kidnap her own child? That's what Maggie asks herself when she's asked to foster 13-year-old Saskia, the subject of a bitter custody battle between her parents. When Saskia's mum Rosa fears the courts are going to favour her ex-husband, James, she takes matters into her own hands. With Rosa facing criminal charges, and Saskia refusing to live with her dad, her future looks uncertain. Will Maggie be able to step in and discover the bombshell that will tear this family apart?

This program is read by the author. A groundbreaking work of narrative nonfiction that investigates Munchausen by Proxy from the host and creator of the award-winning true crime podcast Nobody Should Believe Me. "I devoured this chilling yet critically important book in 48 hours, unable to...

After taking a few weeks off work, Casey is presented with a new foster child: 14-year-old Elise, whose Mum left her at just five years old. At first, she’s no trouble at all, that is until she falsely accuses another carer, Jan, of acting inappropriately towards her. It turns out this isn’t the first lie Elise has told—her previous carer was constantly following up allegations Elise had made of people bullying her, trying to have sex with her or hurting her physically. 

Maggie faces one of the most challenging cases of her career when a young, orphaned Syrian girl comes to live with her. Barely able to communicate without a shared language, Maggie must battle to reach the vulnerable refugee and help her to start to overcome the traumas she has endured. But there is more horror to come when Maggie starts to suspect that the young girl is being groomed by relatives back in Syria to return and join ISIS.

Experienced foster carer Rosie Lewis faces a battle to uncover the dark family secret that is tearing a family apart. Rosie is used to looking after children from difficult home situations, but she finds herself struggling when she agrees to take in Taylor and her younger brother, Reece, for a...

A pioneering physician reveals how childhood stress leads to lifelong health problems and what we can do to break the cycle. When a young boy walked into Dr Nadine Burke Harris's clinic he looked healthy for a preschooler. But he was seven, and hadn't grown a centimetre since a traumatic event...

Eight true crime stories of murder and mayhem. In my first audiobook as a true crime author I've started with a few of the stories that have haunted me for some time. Some of these stories are unbelievable in their brutality while others are astounding in the stupidity of the killers. This collection of stories are from all around the globe and have no common thread between them other than that they are both thought provoking and disturbing. The stories included in this anthology are dark and creepy and will leave you with a new understanding of just how fragile the human mind can be.

In the much-anticipated follow-up to Sunday Times bestseller Trapped, foster carer Rosie Lewis tells the heartbreaking true story of Zadie. When the young teenage girl, thrown out of her home by her strict Muslim family, is discovered hiding on the city streets by the police, it is clear that...

The year was 1975, and at age sixteen, young Keri was desperate to strike out on her own. However, as listeners of the first three volumes of this series will know, her childhood was hardly the loving, supportive, preparatory period it should have been.

In this powerful and “engrossing” memoir, identity theft expert Axton Betz-Hamilton tells the shocking story of how her family was destroyed by the actions of an anonymous criminal (The New York Times). When Axton Betz-Hamilton was 11 years old, her parents both had their identities stolen...

A homeless foster kid finds redemption in Iraq.

'Compelling, heartfelt and inspiring. I found this book so real. so honest. It has taught me about drive, ambition, persistence and love. And what it means to be really Irish! A triumphant story of achievement in a world made for men!' - Katriona O'Sullivan, author of Poor Jackie McCarthy...

Slave Girls, a new series by bestselling author Louise Allen, reveals a shocking modern-day scandal of County Lines–the single most dangerous form of systematic child abuse prevalent today.