"Can you imagine what it's like going to bed not knowing if you're going to wake up and still have two daughters?"
Jane Cannon spoke these "horribly prophetic" words in a meeting with a council less than 48 hours before her daughter Sam Gould killed herself. Tragically, Sam's twin sister Chris would also take her life just a few months later.
As reviews take place to examine what happened, Jane and her husband Ian Gould are left questioning what more could have been done to save their daughters. Sam Gould died in September 2018 and her twin sister Chris died a few months later
Growing up in Sawbridgeworth, Hertfordshire, they were "normal, healthy, happy children", Jane says. However, Ian and Jane say there were early signs in their childhood that things "weren't right". This included Sam pulling out her eyelashes, eyebrows and hair. The girls received the lowest scores their school had ever seen in psychometric testing. At the age of 14, in May 2016, Chris made an attempt to take her own life.
The following month, Chris disclosed she and Sam had been sexually abused from the age of five into their teenage years, and named their alleged abuser.
Jane says the revelation left them in "total shock". "I don't want you to misconstrue the word misbelieve, because at no point did we ever not believe them, but that's what your brain tells you - 'this can't be true'. "We've tried our hardest to protect our girls; how can this have been happening and us not know about it?"
In one sense, this moment provided them with an opportunity. "We thought 'that's it, that's the answer we've been searching for', why two girls who had everything going for them are falling apart."
Hampshire Police investigated the case but, at a time when the girls were struggling with their mental health, they did not wish to give video evidence, which Ian says was the only option offered to them.
Officers closed the case in late 2016, having never interviewed the alleged abuser.
In his 62-page findings, Coroner Nicholas Moss said Chris's suicide did not mean she was failed by the professionals or her "devoted parents".
"Rather, it demonstrates the pervasive and traumatic harm caused by the alleged abuse, horribly amplified, in Chris's case, by the suicide of her sister," he said.
His words are echoed by Ian and Jane. "Every single professional that dealt with the girls said the same - their death was caused by their illness and their illness was caused by the sexual abuse," says Jane.
After the girls died, and following further police work, the alleged abuser was sent a letter alerting him to the fact an accusation had been made. The Crown Prosecution Service said there was insufficient evidence to charge. The coroner raised concerns that there had been "no follow-up" to Sam and Chris while they were still alive, to keep open the option of providing an account at a later stage, to be used as evidence.
