Published: 2013 November 17 18:38:05 (8726 Views)

Chris Defreitas will never forget the night police knocked on his door to tell him that one of his triplet daughters had been critically injured in an accident.

He rushed to hospital, arriving just as she was being wheeled into the operating theatre.

Medics told him her chances of survival were grim and advised him to kiss her goodbye.

But the nightmare was to get even worse.

His terrible anguish turned to utter horror when he learned that the person responsible for his youngest daughter Louise's "accident" was one of her own triplet sisters.

Thankfully Louise pulled through, but she was so badly injured she is now a wheelchair-bound paraplegic.

Last week eldest triplet Gillian was jailed for eight-and-a-half years for pushing Louise out of a window 25ft above the ground.

Now Chris and the girls' step-mum of 20 years, Catherine, have taken the heart-breaking decision to banish Gillian from their lives for ever.

Leafing through a family album this week, Chris gives a faint smile as he looks at pictures of his adorable, cherub-faced identical triplets as little children.

Snaps taken through the years show them as mischievous toddlers, giggling schoolgirls and pretty teenagers – always pictured side by side.

Chris imagined that whatever life threw at them, Gillian, Louise and third sister Kerry – all now 25 – would stand united.

He cannot believe how the family has been destroyed and says the decision to turn his back on Gillian has torn him apart.

"There will always be a hole in our family where Gillian should be," he says.

"To me, she will always be my little girl with the crooked smile, but we've had to wash our hands of her."

Cathy says: "What Gillian did was evil. If she knocked on our door tomorrow, I would slam it shut."

The couple had the harrowing experience of watching the horror unfold on CCTV during Gillian's trial for GBH at Liverpool Crown Court.



The footage showed her hitting and pushing Louise in the corridor of the homeless hostel they were living in.

What happened over the next seven minutes went unrecorded, but further film was shown of Louise's terrible fall.

In court, a letter from Gillian was read out in which she claimed the thought of hurting her sister "destroys me every second of every day." But the judge described her words as "self-serving".

Chris' voice is full of pain when he admits he doesn't believe his daughter is in any way remorseful.

He says: "Gillian wrote to Louise before the court case saying she was sorry but she just didn't look bothered in court. I really don't think she cares and that's hard to take.

"She wrote about a row she and Louise had had two years earlier. It was almost as if she was trying to justify what she had done.

"Of course I'll worry about Gillian for ever, and I hope she gets back on track – but she will have to do it without me and Cathy. We will have nothing to do with her."

Chris tells how he had to fight for custody of the girls through the courts after their real mother left when they were just two.

He met Cathy two years later and together they brought them up.

The sisters had always had a volatile relationship and on the day Louise moved in, tensions bubbled over.

Louise remembers nothing of the attack, saying: "One minute I was in the living room watching Crimewatch. The next I remember being in my bedroom, then I was waking up in hospital."

When she came round from her coma, Louise realised straight away she was paralysed.

"I had no feeling in my legs," she says. "When the doctors told me, it wasn't a surprise. I didn't break down. You have to cope with what life throws at you."

But she adds: "I have no feeling from the waist down so need help with every single thing I do. I will need a catheter for the rest of my life and have to have my bowels emptied for me. I've lost my dignity as well as my independence.

"I will never forgive Gillian, but I won't let her destroy me. I'm planning to train as a football coach, working with disabled people."

Chris says: "When the girls were little I dreamed of so much for them. Instead, one is in prison while another is in a wheelchair."



Source - Mirror

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