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ARNDALE, Scotland, May 15, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Tressa Middleton shocked the UK when she became Britain's youngest mom at age 12. But it turns out she hid her most shocking secret.

Middleton said she became pregnant after being raped by her 16-year-old brother. Yet she never thought about abortion and, in a new book, reveals that she longs more than anything to meet the baby girl to whom she gave life.

Middleton grew up in poverty in Broxburn, Scotland. The authorities separated her family when her mom became homeless, but in time, her mother regained custody of Tressa and her older brother, Jason. They moved to Arndale where, without appropriate parental oversight, she started down a dark path that would change her life forever.

“All my friends were older,” she said, so she began drinking and smoking by age eight. While she was inebriated, older men took advantage of her innocence.

She said one neighbor in particular would sometimes rape her while she was passed out, only revealing the molestation after she woke up. At other times, he offered her two British pounds (the equivalent of $3.54 U.S.) for sexual favors. Other people began demanding sex in exchange for alcohol and cigarettes, she said.

In 2005, the person who raped her was closer to home.

Her brother Jason took her to a building site, where they used to play on their bikes. “I trusted him,” she said. But instead, he raped her. “When I was 11 that was the time I fell pregnant,” she told the British television show This Morning.

After she learned she was pregnant – after she told a school friend about her abuse – Jason told her, “I really love you – as a girlfriend.”

“And I said, 'No, this can’t happen,'” she said.

Other than Jason and her friend, no one knew that her older brother had fathered her child. She kept the secret even after she gave birth.

Asked if she thought about aborting the child conceived in rape, she said, “I never thought about terminating. I didn’t believe in abortion, even at that age.”

Instead, she became the youngest mother in the UK at that time. The authorities forced her to place her baby girl in adoption, and her drinking got worse.

One night, in a drunken depression, she revealed the truth.

In 2009, a DNA test proved that Jason was the father, and he served four years in prison. He has since been released.

Tressa, meanwhile, continued to descend into drinking. She is now seeking treatment and telling her side of the story – including a plea to the daughter she has not seen since birth. “I hope she will forgive me for not telling people what actually happened when it happened and for drinking and going off the rails,” she said.

The 21-year-old begins her book by addressing her daughter directly.

“You are never far from my thoughts,” she writes in the dedication of her new book, Tressa: The 12-Year-Old Mum. “You are the last person I think of when I go to sleep and the first person I think of when I wake up in the morning.”

“You are the beating pulse of life. In the cupboard, I still keep your clothes from when you were a wee baby,” she said.

She hopes one day fate will bring the two young women together again.

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“For now,” Tressa writes to her girl, “I want you to know I love you and I always will.”