I have a fairly long story but one that social workers may hopefully think about when choosing adoptive parents for children in the future.

My parents were obviously messing up big time, so much so my siblings and I ended up in care in the early 1970's.

We were of mixed race and it was hard to find us homes. The children's home we were in was a wonderful place or what I can remember of it was but we wanted parents of our own desperately. At 5 years old along they came.

Initially they were perfect. I became someone's little princess, I got all the love I desired, I felt secure and happy but then it started to change.

It was in my 7th year it started.

The bath routine became prolonged, I was supposedly not washing properly, I needed to be scrubbed and guess who offered? Yes, my dad.

I was such a daddy's girl in those days. My mum had had a baby and all her attention was focused on him. I guess that's what the excuse for touching me was.

It started very slowly and I almost didn't notice, I wasn't to know, not really.

When I look back at family photos I can see where I did realise it wasn't right. I can still feel the misery of being the odd one out in those pictures.

I must have been 8, me in my first Holy Communion dress no longer pure as the driven snow. You can see me leaning away from my father's arm; the smile doesn't quite meet the eyes any more.

I think the worst thing of all was the fact that I was told every time it happened that I wasn't his real daughter but he loved me in a special way.

I started to keep a diary. I left it in places someone could read it, my behaviour changed, and I became disruptive.

But when my mother found my diary, it wasn't her that came to pick me up from school but my father. He warned me that if I said anything was true, the whole lot of us would go back into care. So I became the liar as well.

I put up with the abuse until I got to 13 then I rebelled.

In a fit of rage I screamed at him. I told him he couldn't love me and do this to me, that I wasn't his whore.

I remember how I threatened to kill us all. The police were called, no one asked why I had changed or what the problem was, I just asked to be placed back into care.

Thank God social services took me back. I had escaped but the relationship continued with my parents from the safety of a children's home and at 15 I was released.

Time passed and I was living on my own.

I'd visit the family home occasionally, see my siblings and slowly I became closer to my mother once more. The strangest thing about all this was that I seemed to place all those bad memories to the back of my mind.

I even gradually started a reasonable relationship again with my father, minus the sex this time round. But it can never just be a reasonable relationship between the two of us. I know that now.

As soon as my trust built up again, he tried again. I often wonder how such an educated pleasant individual on the surface can be such an animal.

I can still remember the day when he opened up to me or was he just gloating? I questioned him about his past relationships, he told me about his previous wife and his stepdaughter. I wasn't the first; she was a similar age when they started their "relationship".

I often question myself late at night, why didn't social services look into this man's background? They could have protected us, and they could have protected me.

They didn't and now I have to protect my own girls.

You see I love my mum so much but I don't think I could ever tell her or my husband the truth. I sincerely hope I never have to.

I arm my girls with knowledge. I watch them like a hawk, but I know that if this man really wants to he will find a way, after all it happened to me.

So my main advice to social workers is, when selecting decent parents for these kids, don't worry about the colour of skin.

When it comes to children they really don't care, they just want love but please, please check out past relationships thoroughly.

Many of us have never experienced a cuddle, or parental love. We may not know the difference, its up to you to protect us.

Don't make any more children face a past and a future like my own.