IF there had been domestic violence in the house it is possible for Tia also to have been hit at times
Absolutely possible. Very often in violent households, the kids get hurt too. I said before that her home life must have been awful if she considered her Gran's a 'refuge'. Violence at home - or staying alone with a man who dated her mum, likes a drink or two and was convicted for crack cocaine. Those are the miserable choices she had.
By the way, the Whitgift Centre closes at 7pm, with a late night on Thursday till 9pm. By the time they'd have got there, it would have been closed.
The 'snuck off' comment in an earlier post made me think of what I'd posted when I thought they might have had an argument, and as punishment, SH had gagged her and put her in the loft. 'Snuck off' would make sense if she was put somewhere by him. If he'd gagged her too tightly, she could have stopped breathing.
Also, on the point of him talking about her clothes again. He said she was buying fliplops, she was adamant about buying fliplops - then he says 'but they weren't fliplops, they were those things with the strap'. How much detail did he ask for to know they weren't fliplops? For someone who 'isn't up on women's clothing' - he knows quite a lot, but he's 'vague' about what the item's called, making it seem that he doesn't pay much notice of women's clothes. I think he's deliberately vague to divert attention away from the fact he probably knows a lot more about female clothes than he pretends.
I'm puzzled as to why Tia buying flipflops should result in SH knowing that she was buying something 'with a strap' - did he ask her to describe in more detail what she was buying? And if so, why? Flipflops are fliplops, not a whole lot to talk about. I think he was very interested in what Tia wore.