Black Roses: The Killing of Sophie Lancaster

This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.

You know, I always used to call her my dark fairy,

because that's what she symbolised to me.

It were always my thing,

that that would be our symbol, would be the black rose.

That's what I saw her as.

I don't think people realise just what effect it has on you,

how it changes your whole life, actually.

You know, I look at things now and it's "before" and "after."

It was a horrible thing.

Not only do they take your daughter,

they take your life with them as well.

I was slow to get born

November's child

Wanted nothing more than to laze

In the sling of my mother's womb

To loaf and lounge

Where it was slow

Where it was warm.

So I sat tight

In a curled ball

Cocooned in love

Gloved

Adored

Hazy colours and watery sounds

Came drifting through

At odds from the start

I was sideways on

Unengaged

Lying in wait

Till my mother's birthday came about

Then I roused and turned

And shouldered out

Into the day

Out of the dark.

She was a good baby, really.

Although very mischievous.

She would, you know, climb out of her cot,

she'd open the reins on her pram, climb out of her pram,

but even at that age, she had quite a strong personality.

I remember once watching her with Adam, her brother,

who is 18 months older than her, and his friend,

and they were trying to get a wooden telephone off her.

They were a lot bigger than her, obviously,

but she didn't give it to them, you know?

She were proper tugging at it

and, um, yeah, she were a good baby, really.

November's child

Is watchful

Calm

The twilight month

Month of the short afternoons

The low sun

And the vampire moon

Were those Gothic days

Where I got it all from?

I kept mum

I bit my tongue

Why use ten words instead of one

When you can use none?

Why speak at all

When everyone else is babbling

Gabbling, rabbiting on?

Sophie did sit back and watch the world

and she continued with that,

you know, all through...all through her life, really,

and you would watch her

and she'd be watching people in a group and then...

I used to think she was watching to see

if she could be comfortable with people.

That's how I always interpreted it.

Whether it's about being comfortable,

whether it's about being frightened of new experiences,

um, I'm not sure.

To be sometimes remote

To be sometimes withdrawn

Was it such a crime

To be growing up at my own pace

In my own way

In my own sweet time?

They were saying then I had

What they called an enquiring mind

Learning quickly to empathise

Standing there by mother's side

Hearing the language of human rights

Hearing the rants

Of her leftie friends

Bolsheviks and Trotskyites.

I left school at 15 and I'd no qualifications

and working in, you know, local factories, really.

And I woke up one day and I thought, "I can't stand it any longer."

And after I'd done my A levels, I went to Manchester Uni,

so she was always surrounded,

at that early age,

by feminist, leftie, shall we say, people.

I applied for a volunteer post for the Youth Service,

so I used to work in a local youth club

and Sophie would come with me very often.

So, she was always brought up with an understanding, I think,

of the issues surrounding difference

and the different types of people and experiences.

So I ditched the comfort

Of pillows and sheets

And slept one night

In a cardboard box

In sympathy with the down-and-out

And bedded down in a linen drawer

Because sometimes you need

A place to hide

A hidey-hole

Somewhere to crawl.

Sophie, um, was a vegetarian from an early age.

We used to go to Bury Market every Saturday and, um,

I don't know whether you know Bury Market

but there's actually a meat market,

and our Sophie would make songs up

and sing them at the top of her voice, every week,

about how she hated this meat market and how it stank

and how it was wrong that they did this to the animals.

And she just didn't care.

And, actually, when I think about it,

you know she had a different diet

from the rest of us in our house, actually.

She would eat a lot of salad and...

Well, as you can tell from my weight, I like chips and cake.

Because that's one thing about our Soph,

my God, was she strong-willed?

You couldn't get her to do anything that she didn't want to do.

VERY strong views, VERY strong personality.

I didn't do sport

I didn't do meat

Don't ask me to wear that dress

I shan't

Why ask me to toe the line?

I can't

I was slight or small

But nobody's fool

No Barbie doll

No girlie girl

I was lean and sharp

Not an ounce of fat

On my thoughts or my limbs.

And she'd got beautiful, beautiful waist-length hair.

And she was always very proud of her hair.

And, you know, she had such...

She had really bad eyesight, bless,

so she always had really thick glasses on

and I think that had, um, an effect on her.

And I always wanted, if I've got to be honest,

a girlie girl, and our Sophie certainly were never that.

I'm just trying to...

to think about when Sophie started to become quite Gothy.

She'd probably be about 11 or 12.

She went to stay with her best mate, Suzanne,

and they stayed friends right up until, um, Sophie died.

And she'd been up to Suzanne's,

and I remember her, vividly, walking in

and she'd got a dog collar on.

One on her wrist.

I remember looking at her and smiling and thinking,

"Oh, here we go."

You know, I was really happy for that

because she needed that channel for her individuality to come out

and to show people who she was.

In my difficult teens

I WAS strange

I WAS odd

Aren't we all?

There was something different

Down at the core

Boybands, Pop-Tarts left me cold

Let's say that I marched

To the beat of a different drum

Sang another tune

Wandered at will

Through the market stalls

Humming protest songs

I wore studded dog leads on me wrists

And was pleased as punch

In the pit at the gig

To be singled out

By a shooting star of saliva

From Marilyn Manson's lips.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE ECHOES

But for all that stuff

In many ways

An old-fashioned soul

Quite at home in my own front room

On my own settee

I read, I wrote

I painted, I drew

Where it came from no-one knew

But it flowed

It flew.

She was like an old soul.

And, you know, you talk to people

after...after she'd died,

and all the rest of it,

and people would talk to me about her kindness.

She was always very kind, very caring towards people.

But the wisdom about issues...

She was always into green issues, she was quite political.

Her vegetarianism.

Sophie did have a lot of empathy for other people.

I was always, I've got to be honest,

when Sophie was...

Well, when we were getting ready for her to go to secondary school,

I was always really concerned for her,

because of Sophie's eccentricities, shall we say?

And, you know, I remember writing this letter saying,

you know, "She walks to her own beat

"and we want that to be looked after

"and brought out of her and nurtured..."

That's the word - we wanted her to be nurtured.

She settled in.

She was fine, to be honest,

because the one thing about our Sophie,

which was always a bit odd,

she actually liked the structure of things

and she liked being at school because she liked the learning.

She found, thankfully,

the more alternative young people within the school

and that seemed to settle her

and she was quite happy then to be who she was.

And it was nice to see her belonging to a group,

rather than being that outsider.

I met a boy

Robert

Rob

He was one of me

I was one of him

We were one and the same

I went towards him

And kissed his face

He was skin and bone

He was six foot tall

He was ghostly pale

He was poetry, art

He was quirky, cool

He was backcombed and pierced

He WAS perfectly weird

We walked through Manchester

Hand in hand

We were both in league

With the colour black

Not knowing exactly who we were

But both agreed on what we were not

We were joined at the hip

We were all black T-shirts

And snow-white flesh

We were silhouette

I slashed my jeans

And unpicked my seams

And smeared my lips

And ripped my fishnets

In honour of him

Sat at the mirror for hours on end

With banshee make-up

And hurricane hair

Till I looked like

I'd fallen out of a tree

Till I looked like

I'd clambered out of the grave

It was love

It was life.

I remember my first sight of Rob.

He had black hair, obviously,

and backcombed, so it were really wild,

and he had a brown mac on and some yellow plastic shoes

and, you know, his facial piercings,

and our Sophie was quite distinctive, too, in her dress.

She obviously wore a lot of black,

but she would very often sort of cut her clothes up

so they were always quite raggedy, really, and, you know,

I would never say anything to her,

ever, about her appearance because...

Well, actually, I was always quite proud of her

and I thought she looked lovely.

She was quite distinctive.

You would notice her if you saw her in the street.

But it was more than that with her,

it was more than the clothes,

it was more than the music.

I think what happened was, as she was growing up, you know,

she was a vegetarian,

she was a pacifist.

A child who was quite internal.

The clothes aspect of it and the make-up and the hair

just showed what she was as a person.

What people don't understand is that that is actually the truth.

It's not just, oh, somebody chooses to dress differently,

and for somebody like Sophie,

and for a lot of people, actually,

it's not even a life choice, really.

It just reflects who they are.

It was one small step

Across the street

But one giant leap into bedsit land

And very grown up to be moving in

To be given the keys

To lift the latch

To be playing house

To be lady and lord

Of our very own place

In our very own space

We WERE dreamers

Asleep

We were jobless, skint

Always juggling and having to stint

Not a penny to our name

Always struggling to make ends meet

To eke things out

Till the end of the week

To the passer-by

It was hardly the Ritz

Nowhere to shout or show off about

Just some old, cold first-floor flat

Below the moor

Above a shop

But to us

It was home

Palace and penthouse

Fortress and funhouse

Studio, library all rolled into one.

We could bolt the door And keep the world out or

Watch the world as it wandered past In all its glory, beautifully mad

All the nightshift workers And daylight shirkers

The mods and rockers And emos and moshers

And joggers and bikers And slackers and slickers

All the swimmers and sinkers And grafters and thinkers.

The fly-posters and bill-stickers The goths and the straights

And the groovers and ravers.

The movers and shakers

The butchers and bakers And candlestick makers.

All the pissheads and potheads And veggies and vegans

And coppers and preachers And posties and traders.

The night-hawks and The dawn-treaders

The speed-freaks And the metal-merchants

All the scrimpers and savers The beggars and trailblazers.

All the chancers and mystics And givers and takers

And skinheads and suedeheads And non-believers.

All the tattooed crusties All the crested Mohicans

All the folkies and rappers And ragamuffins and Rastas

And clubbers and dubbers And mixers and suited commuters

And duckers and divers

And salesmen and truckers And lollipop ladies

And beatniks and peaceniks And streetkids and skaters

And hitchers and drivers And runners and riders.

All the rat-racers All the money servants

All the dancers and DJs.

All the trippies and heavies And slackers and hippies

And hawkers and vendors And takers and lenders

And the dog-walkers And the dawdlers

All the late starters And early risers

All the human race In its crazy parade

I said: "let them all be."

I said: "live and let live."

I said: "breathe and let breathe."

SHE INHALES DEEPLY

Sophie and Rob, you know, they were really an old-fashioned couple.

They were proper old-fashioned.

They liked to do things as they saw as being proper.

And I know from when they were at my house,

Rob would sit on the couch and our Soph would sit with her legs over him,

and that's what they did.

And they did go out for a drink, they'd go to their mates' houses,

but they were never big party animals.

They liked being together.

And he would paint and our Soph would sit there and read.

You know, Sophie had...

Had issues when she were about 14, 15.

She didn't feel that she belonged and you could see that.

And she struggled at times.

You know, probably the 12 months before she died

she'd just about hit where she should be, who she was.

She was just coming through all that.

Once she met Rob she saw that...

..what she was and who she was

was actually really quite meaningful.

Summer

August

The people's month

Easy, effortless, endless days

Think of a park in its perfect form

The Victorian dream

The tick and tock of a tennis ball

Friday-night lovers Out for a stroll

Had we only known

That this was a place Where shadows waited

Where wolves ran wild

Where alcohol poisoned The watering hole.

They called in at the local garage because they'd no cigarettes.

And whilst they were at the garage they met up with somebody

who had met them previously in a pub.

And whilst they were stood talking

to these two young men, boys, whatever...

They were asking Sophie about her retainer in her ear,

and these two young boys said to

Sophie and Rob, you know, they were having a laugh,

and one of these young boys said, "Come and meet my friends."

So... Although I have to say, one of these boys didn't want to be

seen with Sophie and Rob because of their appearance, you know.

They were moshers and, "I don't want anything to do with you."

So, Sophie and Rob went to meet this group of young people,

and they were fascinated with their appearance.

You know, Sophie had on that night a massive big pair of shoes.

And bearing in mind she were only 5'1", 5'2".

And she did have her dreadlocks, retainers and she did have...

Funnily enough, I found them the other day...

15 piercings.

But she wasn't dressed outlandishly.

Whatever possessed us

Led us on

Figures materialised Out of the black

Till a group was a gang Was a mob was a pack

Late

Dark

The hours were small The minutes lost

It was there and then But it's here and now

Real, actual Won't go away

Keeps happening over and over again

In no time at all

An alarm bell chimes The barometer swings

The mercury climbs The hour-glass flips

The galaxy tilts

The needle swerves violently Into the red

In an atmosphere of menace and threat

In an aftershave of dope and booze

And testosterone and pent-up hate

Have we said the wrong word?

Have we made the wrong turn?

Have we strayed from our path?

Have we stepped on their patch?

Do they find offence At the studs in my lips

Or the rings in my ear?

Are they morally outraged By what we wear?

We are kindly creatures Peaceful souls

But something of our lives Aggravates theirs

Something in their lives Despises ours

The difference between us Is what they can't stand

And so the blows rain in

With that level of fury That needs to hurt

That depth of anger

That goes for the face That desires to maim

And when they've finished Knocking the stuffing out of my man

Kicking his skull For all they're worth

And I nurse his broken head On my knee

One turns on me

Oh, God

He comes back and he turns on me

A plague of fists or a swarm of feet

The boot coming in again and again.

How he hates my demeanour Hates my braids

How he hates my manner Hates my ways

Doesn't know me from Adam Not even my name

But detests every atom Of what I am

Nothing I scream for Will make it end

He will kick

And will kick

And will kick

And will kick

Till the living daylight Flies away.

And from what I can gather, five boys walked into the park.

Were only there a couple of minutes, and said, "Let's bang the moshers."

Five of them attacked Rob.

Got him on the floor and were kicking his head.

This is were it gets a bit murky, I've got to be honest,

because where is Sophie?

Nobody seems to see where she is. What's gone on there?

-We know because of...

-SHE SIGHS

I don't know.

Conversations with the police, with the five attackers,

this is what he said,

that Sophie were on her hands and knees, cradling Rob's head,

shouting at them,

and then Ryan Herbert is supposedly have said,

"Oh, God, she's a witness. I'll go back and do her."

I don't believe that.

I don't believe that in a million years.

How come - and I'll say this to my dying day -

how come five of them's attacked Rob?

You're telling me that one of them's attacked her?

He didn't do that on his own, that's ridiculous.

There were young people in the park that night that tried to help them.

They did give them first aid. They did call the ambulance service.

But bear in mind we've got three ambulance calls

and those calls took 17 minutes.

And you can hear - you can hear in the background of that 999 phone call,

you can hear the attack taking place.

You can also hear Rob coming round.

That attack did not take over 17 minutes on Rob.

Where were Sophie?

She's... She's lost somewhere along the line.

Which is the truth, and which isn't...

I don't know, I don't think we'll ever know, either.

On my hands and knees I crawl

Some way, then fall, then curl

This is pain beyond pain

I am seeing stars

I watch planets wheel

I watch heavens whirl

I hear sirens wail

And of all the people to have been attacked, for God's sake,

there's this little, gentle, kind girl, and Rob, God love him.

Our Adam turned up, and then the police turned up as well.

And they were telling me about where they'd been that night, and I couldn't,

and I can't to this day, get my head round

what on earth made them go in that park that night.

Questioning me about Sophie and their lifestyle.

Did they do drugs? What?! No, they did not. You know.

And I can understand what they were doing.

They've got to build a picture up of these two young people.

And then he says to me, "You know, she's at Fairfield."

Rob was at North Manchester, Sophie was in Fairfield.

"You can go and see her now.

"Her dad's with her. But I have to say to you that

"when the ambulance men picked them up, they couldn't tell

"which was the male and which was the female, because she's swollen."

I am dead but alive

Alive but dead

Ghosting somewhere in between

Cushioned and wrapped in Hospital pillows and hospital sheets

Blanketed under fluorescent light

A Medusa of drips and tubes and leads

And clotted braids And tangled beads

And jigsaw shapes of naked scalp

Where clumps of my hair Were kicked clean out

The police can't believe this necklace is mine -

Too ladylike, too feminine

And Mum can't see

That somewhere inside

This swollen, bloodshot

Abstract mess

Is my heart-shaped face And swan-like neck

Black roses that bloom On my arms and legs

Are the bitter bruises Of self-defence

I am traumatised

I am compromised

I am deeply distressed

I am sorely defaced.

We walked in, and you see this...girl,

who's got the tiniest of faces. Absolutely stunning face.

It was like a football.

It was absolutely massive, her whole head.

Her face, her head, everything.

And her dad was sat there holding her hand and, um...

I don't know who... I don't know who cried the most.

She'd two black eyes, and she'd marks

on her face that were trainer marks.

You could see them as clear as day.

Even the diamond shapes on both sides of her face.

She'd even got a little tiny star.

And that were from the laces on the trainers.

Now, you're telling me - how much force must they have used to do that?

Her ears... Her ears were big, black and puffy

and there were yellow marks...

Her neck.

God. Her neck.

You know, she had a lovely, long, very elegant neck, like a swan,

and I used to say that to her.

And her neck, God love her, it were black on both sides.

It were horrible, horrible, horrible.

At the back where'd they'd kicked her,

they'd yanked part of the skin off her head, and it looked like

they'd pulled her hair out,

and bearing in mind she had dreadlocks, you know...

She'd defence marks, on both her arms

where she'd obviously curled up in a ball.

She'd marks on her legs where, when they'd kicked her,

she'd moved across the floor.

But all the marks,

everything they did to her, were on her face.

That was, sort of, the Saturday.

Fully expected her to live.

Fully expected her to come round - probably, you know, within 24 hours.

That's what the nurses said - "This is what usually happens."

So me and Adam and Sophie's dad, John, went home that night

and er...got up early Sunday morning,

rang the hospital obviously,

and said "Right, I'm on my way. Do I need to bring anything?"

And she said, "Oh, yes, bring her some pyjamas

"and bring her some toiletries for when she comes round.

"We're going to take her off the machines later."

So I called in and I got her some new jimmys

and I got her a lovely new toiletry bag...

SHE SOBS

And I got her stuff.

And I thought, "She'll love that."

I took it to the hospital. There was only me there.

And I'm sorry, Mum

For making such a fuss

To be centre-stage

Sorry to twitch

Sorry to mumble and make no sense

Sorry to sweat

Sorry to vomit and arch my back

Sorry you have to see me like this

Purple and blue

Branded and stamped all around my head

With the logo and tread of a training shoe

I can't find my form

I can't breathe on my own

I can't move my mouth to say how I feel

I can't help my feet when they clench into claws

I can't help my legs and arms when they thrash

Can't help my eyes when they roll and track

Can anyone say if I'm coming back?

They, um...decided to try and take her off the machines

because she'd been in a coma for 24 hours

and...she was sick.

Vomited all over the place.

But it wasn't that that was interesting, it was her movements with her hands.

I knew, I thought, you know... "There's...something wrong."

Heart monitor going up and down, up and down.

And...she'd be sweating and they'd sponge her down,

and then they'd have to wrap her up

because she'd be ice-cold in this foil - it were just...

Her legs were going, she was having epileptic fits,

constant fits.

And the noise - oh...

The noise she were making were like...a cow, lowing,

I can't describe.

It were...loud, really loud,

like...oh, it were horrible.

And she were mumbling, actually, mumbling to herself,

"No, no...no...no."

Well, the nurses, you could see there were a bit of panic here,

"Oh, my God, put her back on."

So they put her back to the machines

and I'm sort of stood there,

thinking, "Oh, my God, what is going on?"

And they're saying to me, "Oh, no, she'll be fine,

"it's just not what we expected.

"She probably just needs another 24 hours.

"We'll try her again tomorrow."

But by this stage, I didn't want to be here.

I'm proper scared...scared by then,

I thought, "I don't want to be here."

So I left Sophie, and John stayed with her,

and I went up to North Manchester to go and see Rob.

So that's how it stood, then - we'd two of them in hospital,

both of them still on the machines.

So I went home that night

and, um...I think I lasted about a couple of hours,

I think, while I were at home - I thought, "I can't...

"I got to do something." You know - pacing about.

I thought, "I can't sit down, I can't watch TV.

"I can't do anything."

How distant I am

How far away

Am I not myself?

Am I still of this world?

I am critical

Grave

Beginning to fade

Weakening

Faint

Losing hold

Slipping below.

And then, funnily enough...yeah, I woke up, and I thought,

"I'm going to ring the hospital."

It'd be about four o'clock, I think.

And I rang, and as I rang, the doctor answered

and he said, "Oh, Mrs Lancaster, I were just going to ring you.

"I think you'd better come down.

"She's, uh...taken a turn for the worse, she's gravely ill."

So we all set off, and...

It was horrible, horrible -

there was blood all over the floor, she'd had a massive heart attack.

But they did say, "As soon she starts to rally a little bit,

"we're going to take her down and get her brain scan done

"because, you know, there's summat...not right."

So they took her down, and I came back on to the ward

as they were bringing her back up.

And the nurse, she were in floods of tears

and I knew then, you know, I thought, "Oh, God."

I knew then, you know, "That's it."

And what they said was that they'd done a brain scan

and...basically she'd no brain left.

It were just...dead.

They would turn the machines off on the Friday

and they would do the brain stem test.

Do I even know that my man survived

Whose handsome head I cradled and kissed

While they beat him with names and stoned him with kicks

Whose innocent face I tried to shield

Whose life I wrapped and held with my own?

Well, Rob, they tried to take him off again on the Monday.

And he came off and he was awake.

And he says he remembers, you know, um...seeing his mum and dad there.

Robert

Rob

Don't think me cold or impolite

If I don't respond when you say goodbye

If I lie here unmoved when they wheel you in

In stitches and pins for a final time

Body broken, spirit dimmed

Mother

Mum

Don't think me rude

If my eyes don't light up at my favourite things

At these new pyjamas

This toiletry bag

But I'm losing ground

Slipping back

When you loosen my clothes

Please don't be fooled by the hidden tattoos

And the studs and rings in intimate folds

And the woman's body I've secretly grown

Because under this skin

I'm your helpless daughter all over again

Your little dot

Your baby girl

As you did then, do again now

Mop my brow as you mopped my brow

Climb in my bed as you climbed in my bed

Lay at my side as you laid at my side

As you kissed my ear

As you wiped my mouth

As you soothed me to sleep

As you washed me down

As you bathed my breast

As you put me to rest

Night follows day

Day becomes night

I am sunken

Deep

Elsewhere

Vacant

Out of reach

They have scanned and searched for vital signs

But I'm hardly a pulse

Barely a breath

A thread

A trace

A past

A waste.

And, um...

Then on the Friday morning, they, um...took her off.

Was going to do the brain...stem things.

And then they take you into a room,

and they say, "I'm really sorry, Mrs Lancaster,

"but there's...nothing there.

"We're going to turn the machines off."

And they then screen, obviously, you know, the bed off

and take the machines off.

And, um...we stayed with her, obviously.

And, uh...it took her about 20 minutes to die.

And I lay down with her.

And I held her in my arms until she died.

It's a horrible, horrible thing.

She's just so little, this tiny thing.

Well, by then, I'd had enough.

I just wanted to come home, leave her, and just come home.

And, er...

Our Adam, bless him, came back and sat with her.

But I couldn't.

I just wanted to go home.

The line on the screen goes long and flat

Pull the curtains round

Call the angels down

Now let me go

Now carry me home

Now make this known.