She was 17 when she got help from a young couple at the Jehovah's Witness meetings and got away from Eunice Spry.
Trigger Warning: Physical and mental child abuse, Violence
Abuse, whether verbal, mental or physical leaves the person enduring it entirely broken. Its effects are so damaging that the victim lives those traumatizing moments for a long time, many never recover from it at all. The tragic death of Victoria Spry is one such example.
Victoria, a children's campaigner lived a tough life for 17 years as she and her siblings suffered abuse at the hands of her foster mother, reported The Daily Mail. In January this year, she had a breakdown after which she had just been released from a mental health clinic. But on October 2, at the age of 35, she was found dead at a property in Cheltenham. The police confirmed that the death is not suspicious.
Eunice Spry, now 76, tortured Victoria and her siblings in the worst way possible. She was labeled as "Britain's most sadistic mother." She not only locked them in a room naked for weeks, she rubbed their faces with sandpaper and made them suffer in many ways.
They were regularly beaten up by Eunice who sometimes held their heads under the water. After suffering 17 years of hell, Victoria finally slipped through Eunice's fingers when she got permission to accompany her younger brother to Jehovah's Witness meetings in Tewkesbury when he was 17 years old.
There’s a time for tweeting daft things for laughs but this isn’t one. It’s serious. A piece of absolute scum. If there is any kind of afterlife with rewards I sincerely hope it finds Victoria Spry. https://t.co/9jMoTFXGGK
— Jehovah God (@OriginalJehovah) October 1, 2020
She met a young couple there and told them everything that she and her siblings had been going through. She broke down completely. Right before Christmas in 2004, the young couple helped her get out of the house. Although it took her three weeks to muster up her courage, she finally told the police her traumatizing story.
Alloma Gilbert, her foster sister was another victim of their foster mother's torture. She revealed that she had spoken to Victoria three weeks before the incident. "She tried very hard to do what she could for the sake of other children," she said and continued, "But I honestly don't think she knew what a normal life was. She tried so hard to fight her way out of it but she succumbed. It is very sad."
Her neighbors also revealed that she had been living happily with her boyfriend who was very supportive and their labrador dog until January before she had her breakdown.
One of her last posts portrayed the stress she was undergoing. She penned, "Struggling like mad but just about coping. I'm so sorry I've let you down and not always replied back to posts. I think the world of so many of you. Xxx"
After all that she suffered, Victoria chose to become a consultant with social services in Gloucestershire because she wanted to help child protection services through her own experiences, reported The Sun.
Her foster brother Christopher, paying her tribute, said that she wanted to be remembered for her good work that she did for the children in need and not as a victim of Eunice's abuse.
Talking to BBC he said, "The work she was doing with the Gloucestershire Safeguarding Board and social services was because she wanted ours to be the last 'horror case' for Gloucestershire. I think her legacy will be the work she was doing to help the next wave of social workers to spot cases like ours earlier on."
She said, "My past helped me enormously. It is really nice to be going to the same office where I was let down as a little one, now as a young woman helping other children."
In 2015 she authored a book Tortured, detailing her horrific experiences.
Talking about the book she added, “I was offered the opportunity to write the book nine years ago when Eunice was found guilty but I turned that away because it was the worst time possible."
Even though she hesitated in the beginning, looking at her brother and sister open up about their own experiences gave her the push she needed. She described writing her book as a "liberating experience".
If you're wondering what happened to Eunice after Victoria reported her, in April 2007, she was convicted of 26 charges of child abuse against children in her foster care. Now, 76, she was sentenced to 14 years behind bars with an order to pay £80,000 ($103,632).
During the sentencing, the judge had told Eunice that it was the "worst case in his 40 years practicing law". The Gloucestershire County Council apologized after her conviction and admitted to their "shortcomings" in its care system. There were signs and signals everywhere about the children being tortured that could've saved the kids years back from Eunice, but they were ignored by various bodies involved in the system.
Victoria flew away from Eunice's reach 16 years ago but she still haunted her dreams and her reality every day through the memories she had embedded in her mind. Victoria tried hard but could never escape them.
References:
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-gloucestershire-54361976
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12818832/foster-daughter-britains-most-sadistic-mum-dead-35/
