Audiobooks by Ann Cusack

Christina O'Connor is the main prosecution witness from the Huddersfield Grooming scandal. In 2017, 11 men were convicted of a staggering 43 offences against her, including 22 counts of rape. In this memoir, Christina will describe how, from being a happy child with a loving family, she fell into the clutches of a grooming gang whose abuse of children earned them a total of 221 years in prison. Christina's helpless parents tried desperately to save their 13 year old daughter as she began playing truant, and was lured into sexual activities with complete strangers, in exchange for pizza, vodka and cannabis. After five years of almost daily rape, Christina committed robberies under duress from the grooming gang and was jailed. She made a complaint to police about the abuse, but no action was taken. She sees the prison term as her salvation; from this moment she turned her life around. Two years after her release, her police statement was found at the back of a filing cabinet, and Operation Tendersea, the investigation into the grooming gang was launched. This is the first time Christina has spoken out. She has waived her right to anonymity and wants the world to hear her voice

Ann Cusack, Christina O'connor (Author), Laura Brydon (Narrator)

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Abandoned

“It was like going through a door which had been locked all my life. I had walked past it every single day, afraid to even rattle the handle. Now I was smashing the locks, I was wrenching it from the hinges, and I was marching through. Here I am!' A woman whose mother twice tried to kill her as a child has won a ground-breaking battle in the supreme courts for the right to claim compensation. Monica Allan's legal victory set a precedent and has opened the floodgates for others to claim in her wake. Thanks to her 12-year legal fight, other victims now have hope. Other victims now have a voice. In her memoir, Monica, 54, tells the story of her childhood, when her mother, Betty Mount, forced her head under running bathroom taps and tried to strangle her. She had previously tried to kill Monica as a baby. Monica was taken into foster care, where her new parents ran a brutal regime. To the outside world, the family was devoutly religious and respectable, but behind closed doors, Monica was physically and sexually abused. Failed by a second mother figure, she moved into her own home aged 18 and went on to have four children. Monica loved her children but battled constantly with the demons from her past. She carried her dark secrets around with her for 40 years until in 2010, haunted by her trauma, she finally decided to seek justice. She was told she could not seek compensation because of the ‘same roof' rule, meaning victims who lived with their attackers up to 1979 were ineligible for pay-outs. For the past 12 years Monica has been fighting her case through the Supreme Courts and was recently awarded compensation from CICA in respect of the sexual abuse she suffered in foster care. She is awaiting a second settlement for the attacks by her mother.

Ann Cusack, Joe Cusack, Monica Allan (Author), Sarah Barron (Narrator)

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A Mother's Job: From Benefits Street to the Houses of Parliament: One Woman's Fight For Her Tragic D

“I am just an ordinary mum, yet I would go to the ends of the earth to get justice for my daughter. If I can change the way people are treated, then Jodey will not have died in vain. I now feel that this was her destiny; to change the lives of millions of others.“ While Jodey Whiting was stuck in hospital battling pneumonia over Christmas, a letter dropped on her doormat from the Department of Work and Pensions, asking her to attend an assessment. It was a letter she never saw. Despite suffering from major health problems and needing daily care, the powers-that-be callously halted benefit payments for the mum-of-nine. While waiting for her appeal, and with no money coming in, Jodey killed herself, aged just 42. Another DWP letter pronouncing her ‘fit to work' was sent to her home three days after her tragic death. A Mother's Jobis the story of how Jodey's mum Joy Dove, 67, took on the system – and won justice for her daughter. A former cleaner and shop-worker, she is intimidated by nothing and nobody. Joy reveals how she struggled to raise her family, as a single mother, living on the now notorious: ‘Benefits Street' estate in Stockton-on-Tees. Of how Jodey, her middle daughter, developed problems including curvature of the spine, a brain cyst, and bipolar and personality disorders and how, as her health deteriorated, Joy became her unofficial carer, visiting several times a day. Jodey left farewell notes following her suicide, warning that her youngest son, Cory, a twin, was particularly vulnerable. Tragically, her premonition was realised when, unable to cope with his grief, he died from a drug overdose, aged 19, in May 2020. Joy felt that the DWP had stolen two members from her family. An inquiry after Jodey's death found the DWP had failed to follow its own safeguarding practice. It issued an apology and compensation. The case was discussed in Parliament where the Prime Minister labelled it ‘appalling.' Joy launched ‘Justice For Jodey' which aims to hold the DWP to account and to prevent other tragedies. She met other grieving families and her campaign saw her take centre stage at the Labour Party conference and argue her case in the High Court.

Ann Cusack, Joe Cusack, Joy Dove (Author), Melanie Crawley (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Asylum

For 46 years, Carol Minto has quietly gone about her life, carrying with her the most extraordinary and heartbreaking secrets. Born into poverty and with mostly absent parents, Carol helped to raise her nine siblings. But when she was just 11 years old, her older brother began to sexually abuse her. After four years, Carol managed to escape - and ran away from home. Picked up by social services they place her at Aston Hall in Derby; a psychiatric hospital now infamous for the ghoulish 'truth serum' experiments it carried out on children. Over three years, Carol was stripped, sedated, assaulted and raped by Kenneth Milner, the doctor in charge. Eventually she is released back into the community, aged 18, and has a daughter. But the baby is taken away for adoption and Carol's trauma intensifies. In 2010 Carol finally plucked up the courage to speak out about the abuse she suffered - and received justice, at last. In The Asylum, Carol tells the full story of how she overcame unimaginable suffering, to find the happiness and solace she has today as a mother and grandmother.

Ann Cusack, Carol Minto, Joe Cusack (Author), Carol Minto, Fiona Mcneill (Narrator)

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Silent Sisters: A True Story

For over 20 years, Joanne Lee's mother kept the remains of three newborn babies hidden in her wardrobe. For the first time since exposing her mother's crimes, Joanne breaks her silence over her family's horrific ordeal. Growing up, Joanne suffered at the hands of a violent boyfriend and controlling relatives, as her mother lapsed into a downward spiral following the break-up of her marriage. But the consequences of her mother's lifestyle turned out to be worse than Joanne could ever have imagined. She already knew about the baby buried in a shallow makeshift grave next to the family plot. But when Joanne came across a red plastic bin in her mother's wardrobe in 2009, she realised that the family home held an even more sinister secret. In Silent Sisters, Joanne will tell her story, detailing her struggle to understand her mother, to piece together the truth and give the four babies the proper burial they deserve.

Ann Cusack, Joanne Lee, Joe Cusack (Author), Joe Cusack, Melanie Crawley (Narrator)

Audiobook