Anthony Bird sat alone in a shabby side room in Altcourse prison, his gaze firmly fixed upon the television screen in front of him – unblinking, unmoved and unfeeling.
Around five miles away in Liverpool Crown Court, Anjella Dauncey was surrounded by around a dozen friends and family members as she unsparingly set out in detail the devastating and lifelong effects that her grandad's years of sexual abuse had inflicted upon her. His day of reckoning had been more than two decades in the making.
She had been a child of only six or seven at the time. Now Anjella is in her mid-30s with children of her own and aspirations of becoming a nurse, and stood in the witness box of courtroom 31 with her mission for justice for that little girl finally fulfilled.
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On the face of it, the Anthony Bird of the mid-1990s would have appeared to the outside world as a respectable man. Approaching retirement age, he had a long career in the armed forces behind him, having served for more than 20 years between 1961 and 1984 and come from a family with a distinguished military background.
He had a holiday home in Cyprus and often worked away in Angola in security for a diamond mining firm. Growing up in Garswood, a small village on the fringe of St Helens, Anjella – as with any small child – looked up to her grandfather as a "loving and trustworthy figure", as a carer and a protector.
But it was around this time that Bird started to abuse his position to rape and sexually assault his own son's daughter in the "most vile and despicable" manner. His most sickening of crimes would persist for years, until the age of 13, when she began to make the transition from a girl to a young woman.
Anjella would frequently visit and stay over at her nan and grandad's house, although he would often not be present due to his employment abroad. When Bird was there however, he would almost always subject her to some form of abuse.
At first, he turned kissing and cuddling into a sick game. Anjella knew no better at this young age and had no reason to suspect that his behaviour was abnormal.
But things would progress far further. Bedtime stories developed to them being in bed together in a state of undress, then instructing her to perform sex acts upon him and Bird doing likewise to her.
He would perversely reward her with money, clothes and cigarettes in exchange for her silence. Many of the details of his offences, both those he was alleged to have committed and those he was ultimately convicted of, are as alarming as they are bleak.
Anjella would later tell the police of one occasion when she was around 10, when Bird "summonsed her upstairs" to show her pictures of naked girls whom she estimated were aged between six and 14. These images had seemingly been taken over in Angola, and he reportedly told her that he "wanted to do some photos like these, of you" before taking out a camera and directing her to pose sexually for him then raping her on film.
She she in her evidence that he then took out a military-style knife and "threatened to cut her throat if she ever told anyone", inflicting a superficial cut to her arm "as a warning" then resuming having sex with her. Jurors were unable to reach verdicts on a count of rape which Bird was charged with in relation to the incident described above.
It was around two years after the abuse came to a stop that Anjella's mum happened to stumble across her diaries, and in so doing learned of what she had been subjected to at his hands. By now it was the spring of 2003, with her thoughts and feelings from the time being harrowingly documented in journals which would become an important feature of the court case 20 years later.
The police became involved only on a "limited and completely informal" level in the early noughties, while matters with social services ceased as Anjella felt "too distressed" to pursue her complaint. But there would be repercussions for her.
She was "shipped off" to go and live with her father in the south west of England, away from her siblings, in order to "protect the family name and the reputation of the army", given their long association with the forces. Anjella was a teenager who was left alone, isolated, yearning to be with her family and feeling "shamed for telling the truth".
Bird's dark secret would remain buried for another 15 years or more. By some coincidence, around the time that the finger was first pointed at him, he and his wife upped sticks and emigrated to France without having even sold their house first.
This was despite him having previously shown "clear antipathy" towards his new home country, where he would live for the next decade. His dislike of the French as a nationality was said to have been such that it was regarded as a "running joke in the family."
Then, in 2019, Anjella decided that it was time. She could no longer bear the thought that any other child could be placed at risk of harm by Bird.
As is sadly so often the case, particularly in sexual abuse investigations, the wheels of justice turned painstakingly slowly. It would be a further four years from the date she reported her grandad to the police that he would finally face a jury in the summer of 2023.
And the hardest part was yet to come. Bird was willing to throw everything he could at his by now estranged grandchild in a desperate bid to retain his liberty.
She was labelled a "liar", a "fantasist" and even described as "tapped in the head". But the evidence laid out by prosecutor Ben Jones was compelling, while Anjella's account contained the sort of graphic details that no one could invent and which no one who had ever experienced could ever fully block out.
Bird, latterly of Claydons Place in Longwick, Buckinghamshire, was found guilty of six counts of indecent assault – including two which would be charged as rape if committed today – and two of gross indecency with a child. The jury could not reach verdicts on four charges of rape, with the prosecution ultimately deciding not to seek a retrial.
Upon conviction, the now 79-year-old was remanded into custody ahead of his sentencing. He turned to his wife in the public gallery as he was being led to the cells and said: "I'll see you soon sweetheart."
Whether his words were designed to comfort his partner or himself is anyone's guess, as is whether he will ever feel the warm embrace of a loved one again. Already an old man in ailing health, he will be at least 90 before he becomes eligible for release.
If and when he is freed, he will be required to sign the sex offenders' register for what little remains of his life. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Bird continues to maintain his innocence.
Complainants of sexual offences are automatically granted lifelong anonymity by law in the UK. However, Anjella has volunteered to waive her right to this protection as she hopes to "give people the courage to come forward".
She told the ECHO: "It was just a sense of vindication – it was such a relief. I just remember shaking the whole time.
"The guilty verdicts just kept coming and I couldn't stop shaking. I was in tears."
Bird, appearing via video link to HMP Altcourse for his sentencing just over a month later, did not show one flicker of emotion as Anjella read a stark statement from the stand describing the extent to which his abuse left her with both physical and mental scars. This encompassed depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, being "riddled" with anxiety and "plagued with nightmares", years spent in therapy, self-harm and flashbacks which left her "paralysed in fear and cowering in the street".
Perhaps most heartbreakingly, she spoke of being unable to read bedtime stories to her children due to the triggering effect of events decades prior. Instead, understanding friends volunteer to read to them books over FaceTime.
Anjella was separated from them and her husband for four weeks during the trial, being held half the country away from their home in Oxfordshire. It was an added strain at what was already a time of heightened emotions.
But she could always feel safe in the knowledge that there would be a reunion with her partner and kids. The same cannot be said with other members of her family.
One sad ripple effect of familial abuse which often goes unnoted is that it can be the cause of schisms and rows. Regrettably, that has been the case for Anjella, with some of her relatives remaining supportive of Bird.
Jailing him for 16 years last week, Judge Neil Flewitt KC said: "She looked up to you as someone she could love and trust, someone she could expect to love and care for her. You used that to take advantage of her.
"She describes being shipped off away from her family, away from her parents and siblings, to protect your family name and the army's reputation. There are some people in your family who should hang their heads in shame at their actions to protect your reputation rather than offer the support she so clearly needed.
"I recognise the immense courage it took for her to come forward with these allegations and the strength required to withstand the rigours of the trial process, forced upon her because you were unwilling to acknowledge your wrongdoing. I have looked in vain for any indication of remorse.
"On the contrary, you have demonstrated complete contempt for your victim and a total failure to understand or accept the harm you have done to her. You groomed her and abused the trust of those who left her in your care.
"You have, in the years since you committed these offences, lived a fulfilling life while your victim has lived with the trauma caused by your offending. I recognise that you may not survive this sentence, but that is a consequence of your offending and the impact it has had on your victim."
But this is not Anthony Bird's story. It is Anjella Dauncey's story, the story of how she survived his abuse and flourished in spite of it.
Three days after the sentencing she began studying for a university degree in adult nursing, a long held dream which can finally be realised. She added: "For him, 16 years is a life sentence.
"He's an old man. When he does inevitably come out in nearly 11 years, he isn't going to be able to hurt anybody.
"I'm concentrating on moving on and building a life, a new chapter. I always say a new chapter, because a lot of the evidence came from diaries that I wrote from 2000 to 2004.
"For me, it is actually the end of the chapter with those diaries. They can go back in the box where they were in 2019 and I can move on.
"I've started an adult nursing course at university. I've started this new journey.
"It's always what I wanted to do ever since I was a kid. All of this halted that from coming to fruition.
"Now it's over I can give that little six-year-old girl back her dream again, 30 years later."
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