https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uks-youngest-parents-abused-girl-24411416?utm_source=mirror_newsletter&utm_campaign=daily_evening_newsletter2&utm_medium=emailUK's youngest parents abused girl who gave birth at 12 and boy who claimed to be dad at 13
Tressa Middleton was horrifically raped by her brother aged 11, while Alfie Patten has battled the bottle since claiming to have become a teenage dad
By Alex Bellotti News Features Writer
17:00, 28 JUN 2021
They were the poster children of 'Broken Britain' a tragically abused girl who became a mum at 12, and a boy who claimed he had fathered a child aged 13. And in the years since their infamous rise to fame, Tressa Middleton and Alfie Patten have struggled to rebuild their lives, battling drugs, booze and heartbreaking tragedies. Over the weekend, reports emerged that a young girl in Britain has given birth to a baby aged 11, with social services investigating the circumstances surrounding the pregnancy. The shocking birth is thought to make her the UK's youngest mum, a title previously held by tragic Tressa, who spiralled into heroin addiction after she was raped aged 11 by her eldest brother, Jason. Alfie, meanwhile, insisted he was Britain's youngest dad before a DNA test proved otherwise. Plunged into depression by the revelation, he was this year kicked out of his home after allegedly using it as a base for drug operations. Here, we reveal what became of the two young Brits who stunned the nation.
Paid £2 for sex by strangers and raped by brother
Growing up in a poor home in West Lothian, Scotland, Tressa watched her own mum, Tracey Tallons, struggle with drink and drug addiction. As a toddler, she cried her way through parties which stretched into the early hours. In her book, Tressa: The Twelve Year Old Mum, she recalled that while still a schoolgirl, seedy predators begged her for sexual favours in return for booze, cigarettes and small change with one pervert paying her £2 for sex. She said: “He did what he liked with me and, sometimes, I was so drunk I didn’t notice. Afterwards, he always gave me a couple of quid for it. It made me angry."
At home, there was no escape either. Tressa had a troubled relationship with her brother, Jason, whom she said could be "loving one minute and different the next". When she was just 11, he lured her to a derelict building site near their home and horrifically raped her. Traumatised by the attack, Tressa felt unable to tell her mother about the changes she was noticing in her body a few months later. She confided in a friend who bought her a pregnancy test which confirmed her worst fears her brother had impregnated her. “Soon after I began noticing changes in my body,” Tressa later told This Morning.
“I eventually did a pregnancy test and it came up I was pregnant. I was too scared to tell my mum, so I told my aunt and then ran away. Mum was furious but she calmed down eventually."
Tressa, who had spent a lot of time in care, dared not tell her mum that Jason was the father of her unborn child. Scared and alone, she claimed the baby was the result of a drunken liaison with a teenager and, after giving birth to a little girl in 2006, spent two years raising her alone keeping her dark secret to herself. Aged 14, she finally revealed the truth to a friend and Jason was arrested. But when she finally confessed the truth, she was denied contact with her child, which was taken into care. After a trial in 2009, Jason was jailed for four years after DNA tests proved he was her baby’s father.
Battled trauma and £400-a-day heroin habit
Over the the next three years, Tressa struggled to overcome the trauma of her ordeal. In and out of care homes, she fell into a spiral of drink and drug use to numb the pain using up to £400 of heroin a day at her lowest point. In 2011 she checked into rehab to kick the habit, and opened up on the true extent of her addiction. "I was injecting heroin nine or 10 times a day, at the same time as smoking it constantly," she told The Sun.
“I would take it to forget everything, and to blank out what Jason had done to me."
By now she had met her boyfriend, Darren Young, but Tressa admitted the pair had struggled with heroin addiction for six months. She finally decided to go to rehab after video footage emerged of her injecting drugs into her groin. “The hardest bit about coming off heroin is that you have to face up to things," she said.
“I can cope with the physical withdrawal symptoms but I find it hard to cope with my past now. I cry every single day for my daughter. I think I’m just starting to realise that I had my chances with her and I failed her.”
Miscarriage tragedy days before mum's death
By 2014, Tressa had got clean and was beginning to turn her life around. Now aged 19, she had fallen pregnant with Darren's child and was tentatively looking forward to starting a family. In a heartbreaking twist, however, she lost the baby after suffering a miscarriage only to be told days later that mum Tracey had died. Tracey, who battled heroin addiction herself, had stood by Tressa as she tried to overcome her addictions. When Tressa found out she was expecting again, her mum was delighted, certain that one day she would have another grandchild. But when the young woman began suffering cramping pains and bleeding, she went to the hospital and was told the gut-wrenching news. “We went to the doctors and they told me I’d lost my baby. I was devastated and I knew mum would be too," she told The Mirror.
"I arranged for her to come over for dinner so I could tell her in person.”
But three days later a relative phoned to break the news that Tracey had died. A post-mortem gave her cause of death as pneumonia. Family and friends gathered for Tracey’s funeral, where Tressa was forced to mourn alongside the brother who raped her.
New start with second baby girl
Despite the fresh torment, Tressa stayed strong with the help of Darren and underwent counselling. They continued to try for a baby, but after months without success she began to fear she was being "punished" for letting her firstborn be taken away. However, in October 2018 Tressa and Darren welcomed an 8lb 1oz baby girl after a gruelling 24-hour labour. Posing with little Arihanna and Darren, Tressa said she would never keep her eldest child a secret and hoped the two sisters could meet one day. Arihanna will always know she has a big sister," she told The Mirror.
"I talk to her about it now, even though she can’t understand. She’ll never be a secret. They are polar opposites Arihanna is smiley and contented, while my other daughter was vocal and feisty. But I just know they’d get on. I tell Arihanna if her sister was here they’d play games together. I really hope that one day they can meet. It would mean the world to me."
Baby-faced lad, 13, claimed he was dad
When 15-year-old Chantelle Stedman gave birth in 2009, Brits were stunned to find the dad was apparently a baby-faced lad who was barely a teenager. Four-foot tall Alfie Patten, 13, claimed he was the UK's youngest dad after going round his apparent girlfriend's house in Hailsham, East Sussex for a sleepover and losing his virginity. He was even pictured sitting in a hospital bed cradling baby Maisie. However, serious questions were raised about whether Alfie, who would have been just 12 when the child was conceived and who was shy and immature, could in fact be the child's father. Six young lads then came forward to claim that they had also slept with Chantelle at around the time she would have conceived. One in particular, football-mad Tyler Barker, then 15, claimed that he had unprotected sex with the young girl on a single occasion. Eventually, Alfie and Tyler's parents finally agreed that both boys should take a £300 DNA test to resolve the paternity issue and it emerged that Tyler was, in fact, the father.
'We were treated like something off Shameless'
Alfie's story sparked a media circus, with his mother, Nicola, bemoaning that the family were being "treated like something off the TV show Shameless". “Suddenly Alfie’s name was being thrown about in Parliament and on the 10 o’clock news. We were portrayed as a bad family from the wrong side of town," she told The Mirror. Hundreds of Facebook friend requests and messages clogged his inbox. He was even asked for his autograph at McDonald’s.”
She said Alfie's voice hadn't even broken when he told her of his impeding fatherhood - and that she had tried to be as supportive as she could despite her doubts about his story. “Alfie truly believed he was a dad," she added. "I asked him repeatedly if he was sure about this. Was he certain he had lost his virginity and could be the father of a child? But he assured me he was and said he was going to be a really good dad. Alfie had made himself believe he was a dad. Perhaps we should have forced the truth out sooner."
Smashed cars in drunken rampage
Despite his narrow escape from parenthood, Alfie fell into a troubling cycle of crime and alcohol addiction in the years following his rise to fame. Ten years after the scandal, he appeared in court after smashing up cars and property in a drunken rampage. Convicted of criminal damage at Lewes Crown Court, it emerged he had already racked up five convictions for 12 offences and was drinking heavily. Prosecuting, Hannah Hurley said officers intervened after Alfie kicked a van, damaged a Skoda and broke a fence while intoxicated. She said: "He was drunk, swearing and being aggressive. He was running up and down the road. He was seen arguing with vehicles and shouting at them."
The court heard Alfie, by now 23, was a jobless alcoholic who lived at home with his mum and had a history of criminal offences, including a 24-month suspended prison sentence. Defending, Ms Fatania said: "This is a young man who is aware of the concerns that are at play here. He wants to improve to become normal and seek peace rather than continue the destructive, chaotic behaviour that is deeply dangerous to his health."
Kicked out of home over 'drug operation'
Now aged 25, Alfie and his mum were kicked out of their home earlier this year for allegedly using it as the centre of a drug dealing operation. At a hearing in March, Brighton Magistrates Court was told they were being housed by their council after being booted out by their landlord. Police lodged a closure order in December last year due to nuisance behaviour and disorder at the three-bedroom house. District Judge Teresa Szagun said: "The premises were being used for drug dealing and there was the anti-social behaviour spilling out on to the street and affecting the neighbourhood. From what I can gather the landlord does not want the Pattens back. They still don't have anywhere else to live."
Louise Ravenscroft, prosecuting for Sussex Police, said there had been five raids on the house over five years and that the pair remained under investigation by Sussex Police. The court also heard that Patten has a caution for cocaine possession from 2016 and his mother had a similar caution from 2009. Speaking to The Sun years after learning he was't the father of baby Maisie, Alfie admitted he had been plunged into depression after being cut out of the child's life. I was devastated. It was too much to take in. I cried for days and barely left my room," he said.
“To make things worse I never saw Maisie again because Chantelle and her family moved away as soon as they found out I wasn’t the dad. I couldn’t face doing anything. I couldn’t go to school. I thought my world had ended.”
He said he spent his days on benefits watching TV and that he struggled with being spotted in the street, adding: “Everywhere I went I’d get recognised. People would stop me in the petrol station and say, ‘You’re that really young dad’. They still do.”
