’Arshid Hussain, a serial rapist and the ringleader of a child-grooming gang, had no parental responsibility for the child but social workers contacted him in prison to give him the chance to stake a claim in the boy’s future.’— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 28, 2018
https://t.co/EUAmFlVf8m
News.com.au, Australia
written by The Sun staff
Thursday November 29, 2018
A victim of Rotherham’s child sex grooming gang has slammed a council for offering her rapist access to the son he conceived during his attacks.
Brave Sammy Woodhouse, 33, was just 15 when she gave birth to drug-dealer Arshid Hussain’s boy.
She fell pregnant to him after he repeatedly raped her and was later jailed for 35 years for abusing up to 50 young girls.
But Rotherham council bosses in the British town contacted Hussain, 43, in prison and offered him the chance to see his son behind bars.
Last night Sammy waved her anonymity, posting an emotional video on twitter.
She said: “This story is about myself, my son and the man that raped me and the fact Rotherham Council have offered him to apply for parental rights over my child”.
“This is happening all over the country and it needs to stop.
“Children are being removed, given to rapists, murderers, for their family to have access.
“Rape victims are also having to go to support centres to share access, to see the men that raped them.
“I’m now calling on the government to change the law to ensure rapists can’t gain access to children conceived through rape.
“I’m asking the public to join the campaign. People — women and children — are being put at direct risk.”
Sammy said she was revealing her identity with her son’s permission.
She was even warned that she might have to face the serial rapist again in court, having previously given evidence against him.
The brave mum added: “I was gobsmacked. The council knew what he did to me and to other vulnerable girls.
“They knew he was behind bars and a risk to my son, who wanted nothing to do with him, but they bent over backwards to include him in the case.
“I felt angry and scared for my son.”
Campaigners described the decision as “perverse” and said it amounted to an offer to “retraumatise” his victim.
The Ministry of Justice has launched its own probe.
Louise Haigh, the shadow police and crime minister, said that the council’s decision to offer the multiple rapist a role in the proceedings was “appallingly insensitive”.
She added: “They handed him an invitation to retraumatise his victim.
“No man who has fathered a child through abuse or rape should have the right to apply for custody or visitation rights in the family courts.”
Baroness Newlove, the victims’ commissioner for England and Wales, said: “This appears to be a case in which a victim of the worst sexual violence faced the prospect of continuing to be abused by her perpetrator, this time via the family courts.”
A family court judge heard the child’s case last year.
The council was seeking a care order with the support of his mum, who was unable to cope with the troubled boy’s complex needs and agreed that he would receive greater protection in a residential placement.
By law, a local authority making such an application is obliged to give notice of the proceedings to all “respondents” in the case.
These include anyone with “parental responsibility” for the child.
The local authority told Hussain in prison of his rights and promised to keep him informed of all future proceedings.
He was told he could attend hearings and would have been entitled to request visitation rights or for the boy to be placed in the custody of his relatives.
In the end, the rapist chose not to take any part in the court proceedings.
Rotherham council said it had a duty to comply with Family Court practice, including a requirement to notify “every person whom the applicant believes to be a parent without parental responsibility for the child”.
A Government spokesman said: “Existing court rules are very clear that applicants in care proceedings should only ever notify people who have parental responsibility for the child.”
This woman was a victim of a grooming gang when she was a child. Now her rapist who is serving a lengthy jail term has been granted parental rights & visitation with her son. A convicted child rapist being granted visitation with his victim’s child. UK is fucked. https://t.co/TNIMad62H6— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 27, 2018
“When I testified in court about things he did to me as a child & he was sentenced to 35yrs, I honestly thought I’d never have to deal with this man again...”— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 28, 2018
Now @RMBCPress are victimising @sammywoodhouse1 all over again & putting her son in jeopardy.pic.twitter.com/eE604pmkN7
That's the left in a nutshell.— George. B. (@georgebarnes311) November 28, 2018
Hussain doesn’t deserve visitation rights, he deserves an axe through the skull.— Sam (@sjam29) November 28, 2018
Surely we've hit peak insanity. I can think of nothing more ludicrously backwards and misplaced than this.— PelikanNutz (@PelikanNutz1) November 28, 2018
Revictimizing the victim AND her son. This is a twisted perversion of justice and an insidious means for the state to exert its control.— Mary Neigh ⏳ (@nashvl) November 28, 2018
Just WTF...— Nick Gardner (@npg195) November 28, 2018
...The same social workers who ignored it all while the grooming (gang rape) was going on in the first place perchance?
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