‘That man’s evil, he’s a beast, he’s a paedophile. In fact jail’s too good for him,’ says Tracy Brown. ‘I feel bitter towards him because he’ll never realise what he’s done.’
Tracy and her twin sister Rachel Steadwood, now 38 and from Edinburgh, were just six years old when their childhood came to an abrupt end.
Unbeknown to each other, both had been attacked and brutally raped by a man they considered to be family, the husband of their Aunt Mary, John McCallum.
Appallingly, the abuse continued for more than a decade, only ending when Mary divorced her husband.
It took another 20 years before the twins plucked up the courage to go to the police and last September, the pair were finally given the justice they craved when McCallum was sentenced to 10 years in prison for his crimes.
Despite the verdict, however, the pair say they will never get over what happened to them and will never forgive their ‘monster’ uncle.
The girls’ ordeal began in the summer of 1978, while they were staying with their much-loved Aunt Mary, then 16, who was married to a 19-year-old traveller named John McCallum.
For the twins, the carefree summers spent travelling were the highlight of their year, with both remembering golden days spent roaming the countryside around Loanhead in Midlothian.
‘Aunty Mary was like a second mum,’ remembers Tracy. ‘Even now I love her to bits. She was always there, we used to like school holidays, constantly we used to go with her.’
‘We went all over the place,’ adds Rachel. ‘We’d stay in caravans, trailers, as you would class them. It was totally exciting.’
But the idyll was about to turn into a nightmare as McCallum, previously thought of as a ‘nice man’ by the twins, turned his peverted attentions to first Tracy and then Rachel.
‘After raping me, he opened the door and acted as normal,’ remembers Tracey of the first time her uncle attacked her.
Tracy, who, like her sister, was repeatedly abused between the ages of six and 13, adds: ‘I remember him turning round and saying that there could be blood there as well. And I remember that I cried myself to sleep that night.
‘I thought I must have done something wrong. I must have done something for him to have done that because you just don’t do that to people.
‘It took me a long time to realise I never done nothing wrong. It wasn’t me, it was him. He was in the wrong.’
Read more of the twin’s harrowing tale at Daily Mail Online
