I knocked on her door shortly after David went to work and asked her if she wanted something to eat. She didn't answer but I could hear her crying. Her radio was playing pop music in the background. I decided against going into her room, but spoke to her for several minutes through the door. I can't remember exactly what I said, because I was angry myself, but I did urge her to show some sense in the morning and to apologize to her father at the first opportunity.
When I went to bed at ten-thirty there was no light under her door and the radio had been turned off. She certainly did not leave the house while I was downstairs, because I would have seen her. I am a light sleeper and I remember waking during the night. I believe the time was about twelve-fifteen.
I assume now that it may have been the front door closing, although I can't be sure.
When David returned from work this morning [Saturday] at seven-thirty I got up to make breakfast. We discussed Cill for about an hour in the kitchen before he asked me to call her down. We both agreed that confining her to the house and insisting she did chores was the best way forward. However, she was not in her room and her bed hadn't been slept in. A small rucksack is missing from her wardrobe along with her nightdress, two skirts and some T-shirts.
I immediately telephoned the parents of Louise Burton and three of her other friends [Rosie Xaine, Ginny Lawson, Katey Cropper] but none of them knows where she is. I decided to call the police after David set off in his car to see if he could find her. She has never run away before and we cannot think of anywhere she could go at twelve-fifteen in the morning. If she was with a friend, the parents would have alerted us. We are desperately worried that she's put herself in danger by hitching a lift with a stranger.
It has been made clear to me by Officers Prentice and Reed that runaways are treated differently from abductions. I understand that in most circumstances children who leave home after a row with their parents return within twenty-four hours.
WITNESS STATEMENT
Date: 6.02.70
Time: 1130
Officers interviewing: DC Williams and PC Prentice
Witness: David Trevelyan
Incident: Disappearance of Priscilla (Cill) Trevelyan on 5.30.70
Mr. David Trevelyan was invited for interview at Highdown Police Station. He presented himself voluntarily but was hostile to many of the questions that were put to him. The following statement was dictated and signed by Mr. Trevelyan.
I know nothing about my daughter's disappearance. You can call ours a love-hate relationship if you like, but it wouldn't be true. I have never hated Cill from the moment she was born. If I thought it would have done her any good, I'd have spoiled her rotten and given her everything she asked for. Instead, I put pressure on her to work because I know she is bright enough to do better than her parents. We had few problems with her until she reached puberty, but her difficult adolescence is putting a strain on the family.
I was upset when she didn't make it to grammar school. She has a good brain, but she was let down by her primary school. There's so much rubbish talked about the eleven-plus. It's supposed to be a test of IQ, but the more you practice the skills the better you are at them. Anyone can bump their level up by ten points when they know what's expected. Cill sat it blind and missed by a point, and you're not going to tell me that's fair. There's people I work with whose sons got through on lower scores. The system's rigged in favor of the middle classes.
I am strict because I want the best for her. The world's changing and women should have as good an education as men. I don't want her to be a packer at Brackham & Wright's or a lowly-paid hairdresser. I want her to find a decent job in London where she'll meet a good man who earns enough to buy his own house. My greatest fear has always been that some boy will take advantage and get her pregnant before she's sixteen.
It has caused a great number of arguments between us. My daughter developed early and thought she could look after herself. I have told her many times that she doesn't understand how vulnerable young girls are, and when the truanting began last term I felt I had no option but to take a sterner line. My wife and I have tried everything from delivering and collecting her from school ourselves to enforcing a curfew after six o'clock at night, but the only discipline that seems to work is physical punishment.
I object strongly to any suggestion that I take enjoyment from this. My relationship with my daughter has never strayed beyond a parental one with all my efforts geared to ensuring her future success. I recognize that my ambitions for her may exceed her own, but my hope has always been that she would never suffer my frustrations. If this has led me to be too severe on a child I love, then I am deeply sorry, but my intentions are good.
I was horrified to learn that Louise Burton made a statement on Saturday saying my daughter was gang raped at the beginning of May, and 'brought it on herself.' I understand that Louise blames my strictness for the fact that Cill was unable to tell my wife and me that it happened. We are deeply upset about this as we have long had concerns about Louise's truthfulness and fail to understand why this story of rape is believed when she could neither name the perpetrators nor identify the three suspects who were brought in for questioning. Nor do I understand why Louise failed to tell her own parents at the time. The Burtons take a relaxed view of their daughter's behavior and I cannot believe they were unaware of the rape if it happened. In summary, there is no evidence to support Louise's allegation and I am angry that it has been given credence when it reflects so badly on our daughter.
In reference to the argument I had with Cill on the afternoon of Friday, May 29, it was no different from the ones that had gone before. She and I are forceful people and there was a lot of shouting. My recollection is that she swore profusely and called me a 'Victorian parent,' 'Hitler,' 'Methuselah, ' and accused me of 'playing God.' She then turned on her mother and called her a 'telltale creep' and a 'sniveling bitch.' She also accused us of trying to live her life, and of caring more about what the other parents at school would say than we did about her.
I insisted on an explanation for the fight with Louise Burton. When she refused, I asked her if Louise's version was true-namely that she'd tried to persuade Louise to truant again. Cill began throwing things about the room and I felt I had no option but to give her three lashes of the belt. I then sent her to her room and instructed her mother to make sure she remained there. It was an unhappy experience for all of us, but I was confident that the outcome would be the same as usual: Cill would apologize in the morning and her behavior would improve in the short term. Our difficulty, as ever, was how to deal with her behavior in the long term, specifically the truanting.
I left for work at eight o'clock [Friday] and at that time Cill was in her bedroom. As a foreman in the engineering department at Brackham & Wright's, I oversee a night workforce of approximately fifty. Louise Burton's father, Robert, has similar responsibilities in the packing department. A female work colleague of mine, Deborah Handley, noticed that I was upset on arrival and asked me if something was wrong. Deborah has two daughters in their late teens and I've regularly asked her advice about Cill's behavior. During the shift I explained what had happened and told Deborah that Jean and I were at our wits' end. She suggested I talk to Robert Burton and find out what the fight was really about. I believe her words were, 'If Cill was too worked up to invent a
