A NANNY from East Lancashire who fled an American "family from hell" after just three weeks today spoke of her sympathy for British teenager Louise Woodward.

Helen Nunnick said she backed the parents of the Chester 19-year-old in losing all faith in the American justice system and warned: "If you are thinking of going to the States as a nanny - DON'T."

Helen, just 20 when she quit her job at a Colne car dealer, to be an au pair, said: "A lot of the families are just looking for cheap child care and a lot of girls from here are keen to go to live in America.

"My advice is don't go. If you want to go to the States, go for a holiday."

Helen followed all the right advice before travelling to New York and spoke to her family on the phone several times.

But she soon dubbed them the "family from hell" after discovering the children, boys aged four and nine, hated her.

Worse still the parents ignored her, thought she was their skivvy, refused to put family phone calls through and deliberately hid letters sent by her friends and family.

Helen, now 23, of Knightsbridge Avenue, Colne, and a sales consultant for Vantage Colne, said: "When I saw Louise being brought into court shackled with handcuffs attached to a waistband I just felt so sorry for her.

"I think she has been made a scapegoat of and I think they were trying to make an example of her. I thought they would convict her because I believe the jury was stacked against her. In Britain the jury would have been of mixed age, race and sex and that is how it should have been for Louise. I hope she appeals and the case is retried. "She must feel as if everybody is against her and I know what it is like when the family gangs up on you."

Helen's employers dropped her off at their house in Brooklyn, New York, left her to carry her suitcases up to the third floor and abandoned her.

She said: "The house was filthy and they left me no food so I had to walk through Brooklyn on my own to get food and a white face is a shock there.

"I was streetwise but I still had drugs pushed on me and people followed me. Most of the time I wore my training shoes and ran everywhere.

"I decided to spring clean which is when I found a pile of letters addressed to me which they had hidden."

Helen tried a family discussion to sort things out but was then not allowed out at night and after three and a half weeks she panicked and decided she had to get back home.

She said: "I felt awful. I was heartbroken at having to leave because I hate letting people down but they were horrible, horrible people."

Once on the plane the captain said: "Would passenger . . ." Helen said: "I was terrified. I just thought they were going to come and drag me off the plane and force me to stay for the year."

She returned back to her parents Howard and Kathleen and fortunately was able to get her job back at Vantage.

Lawyers' battle to keep Louise from jail - Page 4

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