HUSH - Book - Page 55
HUSH – Breaking the Silence | Victim Support Scotland
The Police took us to the morgue. On the way, we sat in
silence, I wasn't interested in small talk. You see it on the
telly all the time, people getting to go and touch their loved
one but it wasn't like that for us. They just took us in this
back door, it was so cloak and dagger when you think of it.
They herded us in this tiny little room and to this tiny little
TV screen. The three of us had to go shoulder to shoulder,
walk in, sit down, and look at the screen. They flipped up a
black and white picture of Dad's body on the table. A voice
came over the tannoy, “Is this Michael Mosey?” we just
looked at each other and put our heads down and said “Yes,
that's our Dad”. It was hush-hush and it was hurried. It felt
like we weren't supposed to be there. The door opened, and
these two o cers were like, “Right, okay. We'll take you
home now,” and that was it.
We were given the keys back for dad's house and
advised that it had not been cleaned. They said to get Dad's
insurance company to come in and do that. But they said
he wasn't covered for this kind of thing. We trusted the
authorities to do what was best for us. We thought this was
normal, that this is just what happens.
We went back into the house, and just stood there. We
are just looking round thinking, “Where do we start? How
do we even clean this?”. To begin with we didn't clean it for
days. We were more checking out the damage because we
were trying to understand what had happened.
‘...We weren’t treated as the
victim’s family, but rather
as witnesses.’
page 55
We had our hair up, shoe protectors on and were double
gloving it. We had masks as well, those surgical masks that
the woman at the hospital had given us, but that was really
just for the smell. I remember being on my knees trying to
clean the blood off of the white cooker, but it would just
smear and made it look worse. We put the radio on to distract us from what we were doing. Chasing Cars, the song
by Snow Patrol, was on all the time. It kept going on, and on,
just playing constantly on the radio. “If I lay here, if I just lay
here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?”
It took weeks and weeks to get the majority of the blood
away. We would clean, go home and then come back the
next day and the next. It felt like it was never-ending. I don't
remember seeing the Police very much after this – I think a
couple of times. They weren't victim oriented. They were
very police-oriented - all about the case and nothing about
us. We felt that the Police's view was “we know what happened and we've got a confession and a dying declaration,
so it's open and shut.” Because we were potential prosecution witnesses, we weren't entitled to any information whatsoever.
So, we weren't treated as the victim's family, but rather
as witnesses. They just give us a little green book and said,
“There's some useful information for you, a list of numbers.
If you need anything, it's in that book.” There was nothing in
the book about victims having to clean the crime scene,
and it became apparent that this was not normal. So, I went
down to London to speak to politicians at the Ministry of
Justice and the Houses of Parliament and showed them the
crime scene photos and said, “this should not happen”. I
tried my best to push for change, and close that “loophole”,
because I didn't want other people to go through what my
family went through.
At first, we were going to cremate Dad…take him up
to the Hebrides, to be with mum. The Police told us they
