June Dawson has come a long way from the rough East End background where she met, got pregnant by and eventually married charming, reckless Johnny Fuller. Now she lives in leafy Rainham, in a nice little cul-de-sac, with her ultra-respectable second husband and a lovely social life. Then her world collapses when daughter Debbie announces that she is pregnant by her low-life, drug addict boyfriend, Billy McDaid. June feels as though she is being physically sucked back into the world of villains and thugs she thought she had escaped for ever. But worse is to come. Much, much worse. The baby — doted on by his violent, feckless dad — grows into the child from hell: mean, sadistic and out of control. Suddenly the family is not just in crisis. It is in meltdown.