Category: TV
Factual
Date: 18.05.2005
Printable version
FIONA BRUCE: Let's talk about Abigail to begin with.
How's she doing?
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MR WITCHALLS: Yeah, she's still a remarkable
character so I think I've had a crash course in spinal injury - and
you just can't tell anything for the first month, so it's a case of
wait and see really. But she's still got her smile which is very comforting
to see, yeah.
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FIONA BRUCE: I mean at the moment she's
paralysed from the neck down isn't she. Is that something for the future
now?
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MR WITCHALLS: You just can't tell at
this stage; obviously she's had quite a lot of clinical diagnosis done,
but it's mostly different opinions but nothing definitive. So, yeah,
just have to wait for the month. They say it will take about normally
about four weeks before you can get more of a feel based on her condition,
to get a feel for how she will improve.
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FIONA BRUCE: And at the moment she
can't speak, can she?
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MR WITCHALLS: At the moment she has
this tracheotomy in her throat. There are ways of being able to speak
with a valve, and I'll probably get all the medical jargon wrong, but
they can release her cuff back - and so for about half an hour a day
she's able to speak which is great, but she can only speak as she breathes
in so we have a bit of a laugh at how funny it sounds - but yeah.
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FIONA BRUCE: Well it's something you can have a laugh
about then.
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MR WITCHALLS: Yeah and, and she really looks forward
to being able to speak for, you know, half an hour.
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FIONA BRUCE: How are you coping?
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MR WITCHALLS: Well it's just based
on her condition three weeks ago, what I was told then. If I base it
on that then it's just, we just feel very lucky and very blessed because
she's fully present as herself, and that's just great to see and you
know and it's a great joy, you can see her face when she sees Joseph,
and Joseph's coping amazingly and I would say he's the real kind of
joy in, in the family I suppose, and obviously we, we want to try and
keep his life as stable and, and normal as possible for him, not to
upset him too much.
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FIONA BRUCE: And are you going to see her every day,
do you take Joseph in every day?
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MR WITCHALLS: We get Joseph in there every day, try
to balance it out with his, meals and naps and things and but yes he's
been able to see her every day so far.
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FIONA BRUCE: How did you hear about what had happened?
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MR WITCHALLS: I was at work and I got
a phone call from my mum. It was a friend of hers who first found Abigail,
and in fact Abigail communicated to her because she saw that Joseph
was quite upset obviously, and we're quite close to, to our house where
my mum lives in Barton, that she wanted Joseph to kind of not be upset
anymore, and so asked for her to come - I think before the ambulance
was called, actually - to make sure that he was comforted, yeah.
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FIONA BRUCE: And so you were told what by, by your friend?
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MR WITCHALLS: So I was told by my mum, she phoned and
she'd, luckily probably, she just said that Abigail had had an accident
and she was taken to Epsom Hospital, so I at the time obviously didn't
realise how serious it was so I just headed straight there.
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FIONA BRUCE: And there must have been times where you
thought she wasn't going to make it?
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MR WITCHALLS: Well, yeah you know,
when you know somebody as being so fit and active and you know really
enjoyed the outdoor life and trying to get everywhere kind of walking
and cycling as much as we could - yeah, it's obviously not something
I've had to think about. But that first evening on Wednesday the twentieth
- it was just very difficult for any doctors to come up with anything
definitive.
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What they knew was that she had a wound at the back
of her neck, but how serious it was they didn't know - but obviously
the opinions ranged from absolutely critical to 'Well she may well be
stable, not at the moment but, you know, quite soon.'
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And that's when they were deciding whether she needed
to have, or that she did need to have an MRI scan and I think that the
nearest place they could do that was at the Atkinson Morley in Saint
George's, so there was concern about moving her from Epsom because she
was still quite critical.
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But luckily - from what we can tell - the move went
okay. That was about probably six or seven hours after, after the attacks.
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FIONA BRUCE: I mean we've read things
in the paper, you know, about Abigail communicating through blinking
and this kind of thing - it's hard for anyone to imagine what that must
be like and, and the upheaval in your lives. How are you all coping
with that?
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MR WITCHALLS: I suppose like I said
it's very much day by day, it's trying to arrange who's going to be
with Abi when.
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Obviously with Joseph as well, we can only plan that
day by day really, but I think just seeing her with such a strong character
and that she's so happy that Joseph is safe and well.
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That gives us great comfort obviously, and you know
it's day by day and so you don't really have time to think about how
it used to be, I suppose. It's very much my expectation is that I'm
going to go in and I'll be able to talk to Abigail about my day and
how it's been going with her. And between trying to understand our son
- he has quite a basic vocabulary - and Abigail, who's trying to lip
read things, we're getting much better. The blinking - now I think we
must have got a lot better at lip reading because we haven't had to
do the blinking thing for a couple days.
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FIONA BRUCE: So that's good progress?
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MR WITCHALLS: I think it probably as a team yes, she's
been able to articulate it better and we've been able to pick it up
easier.
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FIONA BRUCE: What was your kind of routine like, your
life with Abi like before all this happened?
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MR WITCHALLS: Routine was a word we
always thought we'd wouldn't use to reflect our lives, you know both
being kind of quite young and ahead of our peers in getting married
and having children, but that is to say we did and so Abi would normally
do something with Joseph every day and I would either be at work or
I'd be working from home; and she'd go to different toddler groups in
the week and Wednesdays is Messy Monkeys, and I always used to look
forward to them coming home or me coming home because Joseph would normally
have created some masterpiece, which has littered our walls.
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In fact I haven't seen what he created that Wednesday.
I guess the Police have got it, but look forward to seeing it. But the
week before, it was some butterfly or something like that, but she'd
go every other week normally.
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FIONA BRUCE: And she was a very active person? You both
lived very active lives by the sounds of it before this happened?
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MR WITCHALLS: Yes we've got to have
active lives again you know, but we did, we often go walking, cycling,
and our holidays were normally based around outdoor activities, yes.
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FIONA BRUCE: What are your feelings towards the person
who did this to Abi?
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MR WITCHALLS: My personal feelings
are that I, we haven't, haven't really thought about it much, you know
life is just a lottery and this could have so easily happened as it
does to so many people through a car accident or through, you know,
some sort of illness.
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It's just that something which has happened to us -
but to be honest I haven't thought much about the attacker. Obviously,
you know, whoever did it needs help and it would absolutely tragic if
this was to happen again to somebody.
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So you know maybe the reason I'm here talking to you
is so that, you know, this, this person can be found and something can
be done to help them some way. I mean we haven't had any feelings of,
you know, kind of anger - it's just a case of, you know, helping out
this person really to.
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FIONA BRUCE: I mean some people will
find that remarkable - you know, you say you haven't got feelings of
anger towards this person who.
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MR WITCHALLS: Well, maybe it will come
- I don't know. But at the moment it's just a case of it's obviously
very sad, someone that, that's probably suffered in their lives and
we've just got to see what we can as a society do to help them.
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FIONA BRUCE: And Abi feels the same,
does she?
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MR WITCHALLS: Yes, I think so. We haven't
really spoken about the attack other than the Police interviews, but
she didn't seem to be too traumatised by it. I suppose, obviously, obviously
she has been thinking - you know, why, why did this happen? Why am I
suffering like this? But she certainly hasn't communicated to me, "Who
is this person that did this to me? 'Cos I really want to strangle their
neck, or whatever."
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FIONA BRUCE: I mean, she would be forgiven
for saying that in a lot of people's eyes, this person held a knife
to your son's throat, has had this terrible effect on your wife - and
yet you're talking about him in a very compassionate and very forgiving
way.
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MR WITCHALLS: Well yes, thank God that
our son's well. That was the reason her first word that she blinked
was "happy", because she was so relieved that he had come out of it
unscathed physically, yes.
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FIONA BRUCE: What would you say to people who will be
listening to you now and who might know something, or indeed the attacker
himself, but haven't come forward yet?
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MR WITCHALLS: Like I said, it will
be absolutely tragic if this person did this to somebody else, you know,
it would just be real tragedy, so it's a case of let's just make sure
that, you know, we can find him.
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FIONA BRUCE: It's a him - but it's
a man with distinctive earrings, we know that much.
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MR WITCHALLS: So make sure that we find him so that
we can give him the support that he needs.
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FIONA BRUCE: I mean people will find
it incredible that you're saying, "Let's find him so we can give
him the support he needs." You know he very nearly killed Abigail,
it's a miracle he didn't.
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MR WITCHALLS: Yes, absolutely.
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FIONA BRUCE: And he held a knife to Joseph's throat
but you want to give him support not punishment? Or a bit of both?
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MR WITCHALLS: No, I mean I certainly wouldn't want to
pass any judgement.
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FIONA BRUCE: I think it's remarkable
that you, for many people - in a good way, obviously - it is remarkable
that you can talk in such a forgiving and tolerant way about someone
who has done something so terrible to your family. I mean what, what,
how are you able to do that?
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MR WITCHALLS: Well I suppose that the
suffering that we're going through - yeah it is, it is really hard,
and I think maybe had Abigail died or were she to have suffered quite
severe brain damage, maybe I'd be spending a lot more time. Not having
her, because we work very much as a team - just to talk about our lives
and stuff - that would have been a massive loss to me.
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But, but Abi is still there, she's still present, and
that is just a tremendous relief and we feel very blessed and lucky
that she is, and yes we're going suffer obviously as, as a family.
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It may well be that she's going to be paralysed from
the neck down for life but, you know, people live wonderful lives paralysed
from the neck down. Our expectations have had to change drastically
in the last three weeks, but that's not to say that we're not still
going to live peaceful lives, with a family.
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FIONA BRUCE: Let me ask you two more
questions if I may - which is, I want to come back to what would you
say to people who might know something. You know, there's been so much
public attention, I think public sympathy, about this case and what's
happened to Abigail, and of course you know what Joseph has been through.
A lot of people want to know how Joseph's coping, if he's suffering
sort of nightmares or been damaged by this or is he doing okay?
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MR WITCHALLS: I'm no psychologist but
you know he's still making a fuss about the same old things and he's
still very much himself as I knew him a month ago. And he's sleeping
really well - he's eating as well as you can expect for a toddler, and
he's just, he seems to be an amazingly stable little boy even though
he's obviously had to shuffle around quite a bit between families and
I haven't been around every evening to put him to bed, or to be with
him. He's done, he's doing amazingly, yeah.
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FIONA BRUCE: What would you say to people who are listening
to you now who might know something, maybe even the attacker himself,
who haven't yet come forward with information?
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MR WITCHALLS: Well, no doubt the Police
will say, 'You know, don't approach him and call this number', and I
suppose I'd say the same thing, just so that this doesn't really happen
again through this guy.
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Just any slightest suspicion that they may have had,
it's important to just report that even if you think it's not going
to be useful or relevant. That's what I've been told by the Police,
you know any bit of information that you can think of - just, just tell
the right people and, and let them decide whether or not it's important.
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But Abi has quite a clear image in her, in her mind
of the attacker, and she has quite a clear image of the car he was driving
as well, so you know hopefully that will jog people's memories and enable
him to be, to be found and then we'll see.
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