I cut dad out after brutal attack on my twin before he died… he has sent creepy notes for years – I fear he’ll find me

ABI Early held her breath and opened the card – the strong smell of aftershave filling the room and making her feel sick. Twice a year, like clockwork, Gavin Gibbs would send a card and a present for his daughter’s birthday and at Christmas, and it became a nightmarish reminder of what he’d done to her tragic twin brother. Abi Early received cards and presents from her dad every year after he was jailed Credit: David McHugh Gavin Gibbs was locked up over the death of baby son Charlie Credit: David McHugh Thug Gibbs was jailed for a vicious attack on three-month-old Charlie, described by a judge as an “appalling act of violence”, before the little tot died. Gibbs, a paramedic, had initially been charged with murder, his son having sustained catastrophic injuries, including to his brain over a number of weeks – but he only served 11 months in prison for GBH. He was found not guilty of murder. Abi, now 18, never knew her dad – who she and her mum Jo Early refuse to name, instead calling him Voldemort after Harry Potter’s archvillain – but by law he retained parental responsibility for her, which would include rights to access and control over certain aspects of her life. Jo took her ex-husband Gibbs to family court on his release from prison and he ultimately agreed to give up his legal rights in exchange for a list of demands, including entitling him to Abi’s school and medical reports, photos, and being notified if she planned to go abroad. As part of the agreement, in place up to her turning 16, it was also agreed he could send her cards and presents on her birthday and at Christmas. Abi spoke exclusively to The Sun as part of a joint campaign with her mum Jo to get the law changed to restrict automatic parental responsibility in such cases. She said: “If I had it my way, I would have chosen never to have had any contact with him – direct or indirect. “I don’t want anything to do with him.” Abi and her mum Jo are campaigning for Charlie’s Law Credit: David McHugh Jo with her twin babies Charlie and Abi before tragedy struck Credit: David McHugh Abi recalls initially having conflicted feelings about her dad and why he wasn’t around, feeling jealous of her school pals who had both parents at home. But from around the age of 10 or 11, she’d begun to realise the horrible truth. “Before that, I had barely any understanding of it,” she said. “I knew my brother was no longer here and my dad was a bad man. That was it.” Abi can’t pinpoint the age she first opened a card from her dad, admitting: “I’ve blocked most of it out because I’m traumatised by it.” But she recalls: “One of the cards said something along the lines of, because it was Christmas time, ‘hope you’ve been a good girl and Santa gives you lots of presents’.” As a younger child, Gibbs would also send her presents like Teddy bears, but she can’t remember that. “I just remember there was always a voucher with the card,” she said. “I’ve never spent them, out of spite. I just don’t want his money.” But the most haunting part for Abi is smelling her dad’s aftershave in the cards. Jo with Gibbs in hospital before giving birth Credit: David McHugh Abi and Jo live in fear that Gibbs will find them Credit: David McHugh “It’s really nasty and I’ll never forget the smell of that aftershave. It actually haunts me,” she said. “I’d always hold my breath. I’d get a little whiff and I was like, no, I just couldn’t do it.” As she grew up, birthdays and Christmases became a cruel waiting game for when her dad’s cards arrived. “I’d be like, I know what’s coming in the next few days,” she said. “I didn’t want to deal with them, but I’d open them anyway because it’s natural curiosity.” Then, things took a darker turn. The family court agreement prevented Gibbs making direct contact with Abi outside of the cards until she was 16. But on her 16th birthday on July 23, 2024, Abi received a text from an unknown number and on opening it her heart skipped a beat. “We’re still kind of confused as to how he got my number,” she said. Baby Charlie died at just three months Credit: David McHugh Jo holds a photo of her tragic baby son Credit: David McHugh Jo had left where they’d lived in Kent and moved across the country when Abi was very young, and Gibbs has never known exactly where. But receiving that text made it seem like the distance between them was closing in. “The fact that he thought it was acceptable to message me blew my mind,” said Abi. “At the bottom of the message it said, ‘if you choose to block me, it will be your choice’. “So, I think he knew that doing it was wrong. I think he was just trying it on a little bit. I still have the message. It’s very long.” She explained: “It was mostly him talking about how he wishes this situation could change and things like that. It’s all about him.” Abi ultimately responded and told him never to contact her again. “I’ve never had a ‘sorry’ from him,” she said. “It’s all narcissism.” Charlie and Abi in hospital soon after they were born Credit: David McHugh Jo and Abi are very careful not to give out their address Credit: David McHugh But the message brought to the fore Abi and Jo’s biggest fear, now that she’s an adult. “I worry that he’s going to find out where I live and knock on my door,” said Abi. “All the time.” The cards and presents from Gibbs were always sent via his parents and collected by Jo to pass to her daughter. “He’s never known my address,” said Abi who believes he went through his late mum’s phone for her number. “Growing up, if I was having a sleepover with a friend, I’d always be cautious about giving my address in case they’d leak it and he would find out where I lived,” she explained. “And I still have that worry. I’m always going to have that worry.” Since Abi’s 18th birthday last month, she and Jo have begun a campaign to change the law, with the teenager admitting she is now Charlie’s “voice”. “A lot of my friends have grown up with siblings and I haven’t, and I should have,” she said. “And it is hard for me to think about what he would have been like as a person. “So, I just generally tend to not think about it.” Jo and Gibbs welcomed Charlie and Abi on July 23, 2008 and couldn’t be happier with their growing family. They’d met while both working for the London Ambulance Service and been together for seven years, with Jo, a control room operative, describing Gibbs as the “life and soul of the party”. But Gibbs had a rage inside him that Jo never saw coming and it would tear the family apart. “I had to accept that he had this whole other side to him,”Jo, 54, told The Sun. On his release from prison after just 11 months, she added: “I don’t think we got any justice at all.” On October 23 2008, when the twins were three months old, baby Abi was admitted to Queen Mary’s Hospital, Sidcup, with bronchiolitis. Jo had gone with her, while Gibbs stayed at home with Charlie. That night, as she drifted off to sleep next to Abi, she was told by a nurse there was a call for her – it was an ambulance crew mate of Gibbs’ telling her little Charlie was downstairs in A&E and he’d stopped breathing. He was quickly transferred to Kings College hospital in Camberwell, South London, and over the next few hours the mum faced a barrage of questions. She said: “I was thinking, why are they being so horrible?” X-rays and other tests would show Charlie had not only suffered a fatal brain injury, but also a severely broken left arm and a series of older fractures, including to a rib, ankle and his skull. Jo explained: “They said, ‘what’s happened to him?’ I said ‘what are you talking about? No one has dropped him, I would know.’ “I just thought it was a medical problem and everyone had got it horribly wrong.” Charlie was kept on life support for two days before being declared brain dead. Jo and Gibbs then went to his bedside and as he passed away, the dad leant over his son to say “please forgive me”. But still the doting mum could not bring herself to believe her partner would do anything to harm their kids. “I had no inclination as to what he’d done,” she said. Gibbs was arrested but wasn’t charged for almost 13 months, and then applied for bail that allowed him out of custody on remand while he awaited a trial for murder. Soon after, having had a meeting with his solicitor, on December 1 2009 Gibbs finally opened up to Jo. “He said ‘I’ve got something to tell you’,” she explained. “‘Two weeks before Charlie died, he fell off the sofa and it caused a fracture.’” Jo was gobsmacked. He’d claimed before he’d known nothing about their son’s injuries. “I looked at him and just felt myself go really cold,” she said. “That was the moment of realisation that I’d got it completely wrong and everyone else was right.” She continued: “I just thought, I need to leave this house right now and never come back. And that’s what I did. I never spoke to him again after that.” She admitted: “There’s a shame you have as a mother. “Injuries in babies aren’t always obvious… but you blame yourself because you think I should have known. Other mums I’ve spoken to have said the same.” In 2010, Gibbs was put on trial at the Old Bailey but jurors acquitted him of murder. Instead, he was convicted of grievous bodily harm for an incident 17 days prior to the baby’s death, where he’d deliberately twisted and broke his arm, and sentenced to three years in prison. However, Gibbs launched a successful legal appeal and his sentence was reduced to two years, and he went on to serve just 11 months in custody. Psychologists had advised Jo to drip feed the information about Gibbs and Charlie to Abi as she grew up. She explained that the experts told her “don’t sugar coat it”. “Don’t lie because she’ll find out – it’s a trust thing. Just give her little bits at a time and the story grows with her,” Jo explained. “It’s difficult telling a child the reality of what’s happened when you know it’s going to have an impact on them. “But we can’t escape from it. It’s a life sentence for us.” She continued: “We can’t even say his name without feeling sick – it’s really hard. “We call him Voldemort – from Harry Potter.” As part of their Charlie’s Law campaign, Jo and Abi are now calling for parents who murder or cause serious harm to their children to automatically lose parental responsibility in the Courts and Tribunals Bill currently going through parliament or in a separate act. Click here to see their petition.