Just a Boy: The True Story of a Stolen Childhood

This is the story of a boy called Richard. One October night in 1975, Richard, aged five, was alone in the house with his three sisters. It was 3am and their mother hadn't come home yet. He and his oldest sister pulled on their coats over their pyjamas and set off through the foggy streets hand in hand to find her. But at dawn they returned home alone. Within a few hours the police arrived and took the children away. They gave them mugs of hot chocolate and then said, 'you won't be seeing your mother again.' She was the first victim of the serial killer who to become known as the 'Yorkshire Ripper' and from that moment on Richard and his sisters' childhoods were destroyed. Passed from one violent home to another, subject to physical and mental abuse, the children were forgotten by all except the press. As the killer claimed one victim after the other, and the salacious magazines and headlines multiplied, Richard and his sisters were never able to grieve or recover from the agonising tragedy of their mother's murder. Whilst Richard tried to handle the terror and shame of his violent and deprived upbringing, his sister struggled to deal with memories of the serious sexual abuse she had suffered. Without love or support, they floundered through their teens from drink to drugs to crime. Until one day in the late Nineties when Richard McCann, having reached suicidal rock bottom, decided that no one was going to rescue their lives but him. That no one could solve the past and only he could remedy the future. It was the beginning of an inspirational transformation that saw Richard rebuild his life. Now he is able to tell the story of how the forgotten children of violence suffer, and how they can heal. This is a heartbreaking, up-lifting story of survival and hope.