In the weeks before her death, Bates had suffered unimaginable torture. This is a decision they regret every single day. Her parents were apprehensive about going to the house and checking up on her as they were afraid that their interference could backfire and push their daughter even further away. However, Bates was never checked up on by either due to the fact that she was now a legal adult. When the phone calls back home became sporadic and the birthday and Christmas cards were signed by Smith and not Bates, her family became increasingly concerned for her well-being and contacted their doctor and the police. Kelly Anne Bates and her brothers during a vacation.Īs soon as she moved in with him, Bates was methodically ostracised from her family and friends. Bates continued to speak to her parents on the phone but they never saw her alive again. She left the family home for good on the 30 th of November, 1995, and moved into Smith’s two-bedroom semi-detached house in Furnival Road, Gorton. Then one day, Bates came home and told her parents that she had a new job and that she wouldn’t be able to see them as much. I couldn’t bear the worry, but I knew if I dragged her away from him, I could lose her,” said Margaret. “She came home and one side of her face was black. She stopped showering and would spend hours just curled up on the sofa in complete silence. However, after meeting Smith, she completely changed. She had future plans and she had ambitions. She dreamed of becoming a teacher and she attended college while working for a graphics firm. While growing up, Bates was a strong girl that loved playing sports. “When I first met him, the hairs went up on the back of my neck,” recalled her mother, Margaret. How could they not? Bates was just a teenage girl and Smith was a divorcee in his late 40s. They became concerned immediately after the first introduction. They had spoken to him on the phone but were completely oblivious to his age. Playing the perfect gentleman, he walked her home that night to “keep her safe.” 1 The grooming process was so secretive that Bates’ parents didn’t even meet Smith until two years later, when they were finally introduced to the much-older man. Kelly Anne Bates.īates had met Smith while she was babysitting for one of his friends. On 16 April, 1996, 17-year-old Kelly Anne Bates was drowned in a bath tub, after suffering four weeks of constant torture at the hands of her 48-year-old “partner,” James Patterson Smith, who had started grooming the Manchester schoolgirl when she was just 14-years-old.

Anna bates