Monica Allan, 56, an East Kilbride woman from Scotland, suffered from severe physical abuse by her own mother, Betty Mount. Mount tried to murder her while she was a child by strangulation, with a previous murder attempt that she later found out happened when she was just a baby.
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As said above, the second murder attempt came when Allan was just a child. Mount attempted to strangle her by forcing her head under running bathroom taps. Eventually, Mount was jailed after being charged with attempted murder in 1976.
"My mother took me to the bathroom to use the loo but instead she closed the door, switched on the bath taps, and dragged my head underneath the water," said Allan, according to Mail Online. "She was squeezing my neck and I was gasping for breath and choking on the water, I thought I was dying."
After her mother's convection, Allan was moved to foster care. Things appear as if they couldn't get any worse for her, but she was about to experience the worst time of her life. As a foster child, she endured physical abuse. "They were cruel to me. I wore second hand clothes and I had nothing of my own," said Allan. "My foster father doled out vicious beatings if I didn't finish my meals."
Allan was also sexually abused by a foster sibling, but she kept the secret, fearing retaliation. "By now, I had lost all sense of myself. I thought I didn't matter," she said. "I struggled with the idea that neither my real family or my foster family liked or loved me."
A Life Turned Around
Eventually, Allan escaped the hell she was in and moved out into her own house. Forty years later, she has a beautiful family, including four children. However, the demons of her past seemed to still haunt her. "For so long, I thought the abuse was normal. As a child, I thought I'd done something wrong and that was why people were being so mean to me."
That is why, in 2010, she decided to seek justice for all the abuse she suffered during her childhood. That is when she discovered her mother's first murder attempt when she was just a baby. "I tried to piece things together from my past and it was only when I got my social services records that I discovered my mother had tried to kill me twice," she said. "I'd had no idea about the attack as a baby, all those years."
However, things weren't going for Monica Allan at first. The infamous "same roof" rule blocked her from receiving compensation whatsoever. While the rule was amended in 1979, it didn't help Allan as her mother's crime happened before. However, she took the UK Government to the Supreme Court and won.
"It's only now, with the court victory, that I feel vindicated. I have a voice at last," Allan said. "The court decision means that hundreds, even thousands, of others can now come forward and claim. It's about more than money, it's about being believed."
Monica Allan was awarded compensation for her time in foster care and is still awaiting a settlement for her mother's abuse. Other victims similar to Allan will now be able to receive compensation thanks to her coming forward and fighting for justice.
