Broken

'I was born and broken in Birkenhead. I was unwanted, beaten, sold, swapped, photographed, filmed, left for dead, corrupted, blamed, betrayed and ignored. But I was also born with a fire inside me. I call it my Phoenix Fire. I am no victim - that word only describes what happened to me. Nor am I a survivor because that implies I am over it. I am a Phoenix - a work in progress. This is my story.'

Shy wasn't meant to survive her childhood. Her mother beat her so severely that Shy was deaf by her first day in school. Her stepsister thought nothing of pouring boiling water over her in punishment for the crime of wetting the bed. And virtually every day, from the age of four, Shy was raped by her stepfather, Stan. When she was ten she was attacked so viciously by the gang of dockworkers Stan had sold her to that she was left for dead in a field, her skull fractured. Shocking as it sounds, this was virtually normal life for Shy.

Today, Shy is the internationally respected chief advocate for Phoenix Survivors, the campaining group she founded to fight for justice for vicitms of child sexual abuse.