WATCHING the father of her child holding her baby son for the very first time, Mandy was filled with a sickening feeling of disgust.
Whilst it should have been a tender moment for the new parents, Mandy feared she would never be able to bond with her first born Tim*.
A member of the Salvation Army, to outsiders Keith Meadows was an upstanding citizen[/caption]
That’s because Keith Meadows, the man who was lovingly cooing over the baby in his arms, was in fact Mandy’s dad and now her son’s father too.
Mandy Yousaf, now 57, says: “I watched my dad take Tim and hold him, I heard him call him son.
“It made me sick to my stomach, I just couldn’t bond with him at all.
“Again my father had robbed me of something that was mine.”
A member of the Salvation Army, to outsiders Keith Meadows was an upstanding citizen – but the real man who Mandy knew was pure evil.
Keith had subjected his daughter to a decade of abuse which began when she was 11 and resulted in Mandy’s pregnancy at 20.
Waiving her right to anonymity to speak as part of Life Stories, Fabulous’ new YouTube series which documents the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, she says: “I was always a daddy’s girl growing up.
“He was of the opinion that wherever he went I ought to be too but my sisters were never there.
“I never wanted to be the ‘daddy’s girl’, it was something he forced on me.”
Mandy’s childhood memories have been blighted by the abuse she suffered at the hands of a man who should’ve been her protector.
Recalling the horrific evening when it first began, she recalls: “It was Sunday night and I was having a bath before school the next day, I always had a bath on Sunday nights.
“We didn’t have a lock on the door and my dad just walked in.
“He told me that I had got him wet by splashing around and I remember being really confused, I hadn’t been splashing, I was just sitting there.
I used to have some curtains with flowers on and I would lie there counting them while he was abusing me
Mandy Yousaf
“He took his clothes off and then he got in the bath with me and he began to touch me and then himself.”
Young and impressionable, Mandy convinced herself this was a normal situation.
“I was really young and I had no idea what was happening, I just thought this must be what dads did,” she says.
“He didn’t say a word to me and after he had finished he got out of the bath and got dressed and went to his volunteer job at the Salvation army.
Sickeningly, Mandy’s father would force her to watch porn with him from a young age[/caption]
At the age of 20 Mandy became pregnant with Meadows’ child[/caption]
“I didn’t understand what had happened, there was all of this stuff on the top of the water in the bath.
“I just tried to forget about it.”
This was only the beginning of Meadows’ sick campaign of abuse, a monster who took every opportunity to rape his daughter.
“My mum worked nights as a cleaner which meant he had free rein over me,” Mandy says.
“It gradually became more and more frequent until it was happening every other night and it continued that way until I left at the age of 23.
“It was made worse by the fact that I had to share a bedroom with him.
“Instead of sharing with my sisters I had to share with him so it was easy for him to get away with it and do what he did to me.
“When my mum was at home she had to go to bed early because she was on strong sleeping tablets.
“As soon as she was upstairs in bed he would make me watch hardcore pornographic films with him.
I had my two younger sisters to think about, I thought that if he was doing it to me then at least he was leaving them alone
Mandy Yousaf
“He would sit me on his knee while he abused me.”
The eldest of three girls, carer Mandy grew up with her parents in Halifax, West Yorkshire, where Meadows was a pillar of the community.
He was head caretaker of a girl’s school – he was on the PTA – as well as working as a special constable in the police.
“To the outside world my father was friendly, confident, he would chat to anybody and everybody liked him.
“He always said ‘I don’t hate anybody because hate isn’t a very nice word and God wouldn’t forgive me.”
For years, Mandy kept quiet about what was happening behind closed doors, scared that if she was spared from Meadows’ abuse, he would turn to her younger sisters to get his sordid kicks.
I remember having real life magazines and on the cover would be headlines saying ‘my dad’s a paedophile’…He would see them and tell me, ‘I’m not one of them, I love you’
Mandy Yousaf
“The more brazen he got the more he realised I wouldn’t tell, I was too scared,” she says.
“I had my two younger sisters to think about, I thought that if he was doing it to me then at least he was leaving them alone.
“I used to have some curtains with flowers on and I would lie there counting them while he was abusing me.
“I remember there were 625 flowers. I also had a patterned carpet and I would run my finger over that and by the time I had done that he would usually be done.”
It was when Mandy reached secondary school that she realised just how wrong her father’s actions were.
“I began to understand this wasn’t normal behaviour for a dad,” she says.
“It was what boyfriends do and I realised it was very very wrong.”
Bizarrely, Meadows tried to reassure his daughter that their relationship was totally normal – wife like – and even romantic.
Two and a half years later Mandy became pregnant again[/caption]
“I remember having real life magazines and on the cover would be headlines saying ‘my dad’s a paedophile’,” she says.
“He would see them and tell me, ‘I’m not one of them, I love you.’
“In his eyes, this was a relationship. I was his girlfriend and he wanted to run away with me.”
As Mandy got older, Meadows upped his control making it impossible for her to escape.
“He controlled every aspect of my life,” she says.
“I wasn’t allowed to go out, I wasn’t allowed to wear makeup. Everything I did needed his approval.
“I got a job in the fish & chip shop when I was 16 and would make excuses that I was working but I would go and see friends or meet up with my secret boyfriend at the time.
“But he would follow me and find out where I was.”
When I took Tim home, I just left my parents to raise him, I couldn’t do it
Mandy Yousaf
When Mandy was 19 she found the courage to confide in a friend.
Social services were called but she was too frightened to go through with the complaint and withdrew it.
Astonishingly, she was cautioned for wasting police time.
A year later she fell pregnant with Tim and now secretly dating, she thought her boyfriend was the baby’s dad.
That was until Tim was born and Meadows held him for the first time.
She says: “I didn’t question it until I gave birth and I could tell the moment that my son was born that my boyfriend wasn’t the dad. He didn’t look anything like him.
“My dad took him and held him – it made me sick.
“Again he’d taken something that was mine away from me. I couldn’t bond with him at all.”
‘I wouldn’t let that monster touch him’
Mandy and Tim spent a month in hospital where he was treated for a condition called recessive syndrome – a result of the incest.
Symptoms include muscle weakness, breathing difficulties and heart problems.
But unaware that Meadows was the baby’s biological father – as well as his grandfather – Mandy was discharged back into the house she shared with Meadows.
“When I took Tim home, I just left my parents to raise him, I couldn’t do it,” Mandy explains.
And as Mandy recovered from childbirth, her dad’s abuse restarted.
“It took him just a month after I gave birth for him to start the abuse again,” she bravely explains.
“My dad would tell me that he couldn’t wait until my son could call him ‘daddy.’
“Luckily he never spoke while we were living with him.”
By the time Tim was two-and-a half years old, Mandy was pregnant again.
“This time I decided I wasn’t going to tell anybody,” she says.
“I planned to just leave him somewhere safe for another family to find him.
“But my mum found out and there was no question over whether I was having the baby or not.
“This time my mum came to the birth too, so I was able to be the first one to hold my son Owen*.
“I wouldn’t let that monster touch him, so this time, the baby was mine.”
Tim’s genetic problems meant Mandy was assigned a social worker called Carol and when he was a toddler, she and Meadows attended a meeting about Tim’s progress.
Watching her toddler behind a glass screen lying next to her father, Mandy snapped and confessed to Carol about the years of abuse.
Mandy explains: “Tim was on a blue mat with my dad who was rolling him about, Tim was just in his nappy.
Dad touched his skin and that was it. I told Carol who Tim’s real dad was.”
Police were called and DNA tests taken but Tim was allowed to stay with Meadows and Mandy’s mum, who has since passed away, until the results came through which later confirmed he was the father.
How to report a sexual assault
- Contact a doctor or practice nurse at your GP surgery.
- Contact a voluntary organisation, such as Rape Crisis, Women’s Aid, Victim Support, The Survivors Trust or Male Survivors Partnership.
- Call the 24-hour freephone National Domestic Abuse Helpline, run by Refuge, on 0808 2000 247.
- Speak to the rape and sexual abuse support line run by Rape Crisis England and Wales – you can call the helpline on 0808 500 2222 or use the online chat (both are free and are open 24 hours a day, every day of the year).
Meanwhile, his brother Owen was put into temporary foster care and it would be months before Mandy got either of her children back.
In September 1991, Meadows, then 47, pleaded guilty to incest at Leeds Crown Court and was jailed for three years.
But within 18 months, after serving part of his sentence, he was released.
“I hate that word [incest], because I was 11 years old, I wasn’t in a relationship with anybody,” says Mandy.
“He was back to the Salvation Army, back to my mum, back to my sisters, back to his family.
“And they took him back, to them I was the one who was telling lies, I was the guilty one.”
Taking control back
After her dad faced justice, Mandy focused on building the family she never had.
Marrying Peter Yousaf, her childhood sweetheart, in 2012, the couple went on to have eight more children together, with Peter adopting her two eldest children.
“Having children with someone you love is totally different,” Mandy admits.
“You have this rush of love without fear that someone is going to hurt them like they hurt you.
“My eldest doesn’t have the capacity to understand where he came from, but I told Owen at the age of 13 – he took it brilliantly.
“He has struggled a lot more with it in recent years but I hope they both know how loved and wanted they are.”
After years of having her voice taken away from her, Mandy took back control when she wrote her memoir Please Save Me, telling the story of how she finally found love after years of abuse.
She says it has been the key to moving forward.
“Speaking out now has given me the voice I never had and I am so much stronger,” she says.
“He’s always had the power now I have it back.
“If I ever saw my father again I wouldn’t speak to him even to say I hate him.
“I wouldn’t waste my breath.”
*Names have been changed
Please Save Me: One woman’s battle for love and hope after horrific abuse by her father by Mandy Yousaf with Linda Watson Brown is published by John Blake, an imprint of Bonnier Books UK
If you are affected by any of the issues raised in this article, please call the Samaritans for free on 116123.
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