My Rotherham grooming gang rapist was offered access to our son from jail… it felt like his rights were put before mine
SHE was viciously raped and beaten hundreds of times, forced to have an abortion and used 'like a sex doll' from the age of just 14.
Grooming gang victim Sammy Woodhouse gave birth to her rapist's baby - yet even when her abuser was behind bars her ordeal wasn't over.
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The 39-year-old mum, targeted in Rotherham, South Yorks, had a child at 15 following sexual and physical abuse by gang ringleader Arshid Hussain.
She said she had to face a further 'nightmare' when she was told the convicted paedophile could apply for parental rights over her son, despite serving a 35-year prison sentence.
After being repeatedly abused from the age of 14, Sammy has tirelessly campaigned for victims.
She welcomes the newly announced national inquiry but called Sir Keir Starmer 'vile' for initially opposing it, then finally making a humiliating U-turn last week as he travelled to the G7 conference in Canada.
Sammy told The Sun on Sunday: 'I support a national inquiry as long as it will bring real change. They're saying it could take three years, but I'd wait a lifetime if it's effective.
'As well as holding people to account — including those in positions of power at the council, police and social services — I'm hoping it will address the issue of children born to perpetrators.
'Almost laughable'
'I haven't seen anything yet about abusers losing parental rights to children conceived as a result of rape, and that is something I have been campaigning for since 2018.
'Surely it's just common sense that they should be stripped of having access to their kids born as a result of grooming?'
She said of her own son, born as a result of rape: 'Rotherham Council invited his father to apply for parental rights over my child without informing me, even though it was proven in court that he was a danger to myself and other children.
'It was another nightmare I had to live through. He'd had no involvement with my son, was in prison for the abuse I suffered, and wasn't even on the birth certificate.
'But I was told that the council had reached out to him — he hadn't even requested access himself — because human rights laws meant he had a right to family life.
'It's almost laughable. What about my rights, my son's rights?'
Sammy's campaign to change the law has been backed by politicians including Rotherham MP Sarah Champion and former shadow policing minister Louise Haigh.
Ms Champion said ministers could sign off new guidance making it clear that any rapist, abuser, or anyone who is a risk to a child does not have the right to comment on their future, adding: 'They could do that today but they don't.
'They sort of shove it out to councils to make their interpretations.'
As it stands, the law allows a father to apply through courts for access or visitation rights to his children. That means he could have a say over his child's education, healthcare and where they can live.
The victim and their children would have to attend court and could be cross-examined — having to relive the trauma all over again.
A law introduced last year means perpetrators will automatically have parental responsibility stripped, but it applies only to those who have raped a victim aged under 13. It also applies only when someone has abused their own child or stepchild.
CHANGE TO LAW IS VITAL
By Natalie Fleet, Labour MP, Bolsover
ONE in four of us has been raped or sexually assaulted, yet barely anyone is speaking about it.
My rape was statutory rape, I was 15 and he was an older man.
I have my birth certificate, my daughters, and a DNA test that proves it. Most women don't have that kind of proof a rape has been committed.
That's why I'm using my platform to speak out about rape, despite me wishing it wasn't my story to tell.
We estimate there are ten births per day from rape in the UK, yet there is no advice on the NHS website to tell you where to get help, no charity to support you, very few laws to protect you.
I'm fighting for a change to the law. As it stands, a man can rape a woman, cause a pregnancy and have rights over the child he does not deserve.
I'm tabling an amendment to the Victim and Courts Bill that means where a child is born as a result of rape, the father does not get parental responsibility.
It's shocking children are the only proceed of crime a criminal can have lifelong access to. I'm determined to change that.
Sammy, who has written a book about her ordeal, Just A Child, bravely waived her right to lifetime anonymity to expose the Rotherham grooming scandal.
But she became pregnant at 15 in 1999, so the law would not apply to her.
She said: 'I don't see how the Government can carry out a national inquiry and fail to address this huge issue. It hasn't just affected me and my son — so many victims of grooming gangs have suffered the same.
'It has happened all over the country, not just Rotherham.
'Children are being removed, being given to rapists and murderers, for their families to have access. I call it child trafficking through the system.
'Rape victims are also having to go to support centres to share access and see the men that raped them.
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'Women and children are being put at direct risk. It's just wrong, plain and simple.'
Arshid 'Mad Ash' Hussain, who is ten years older than Sammy, was jailed in 2016 for 23 offences including rape and assault on victims as young as 11.
He is not named on Sammy's son's birth certificate and has never had parental responsibility for him under its legal definition.
But he was listed as a respondent in court proceedings instigated by Rotherham Council in 2017.
Officials told him he could seek visits from his son and promised to keep him informed of all future proceedings.
At a family court hearing, Sammy was told — with no prior warning — that Hussain could attend and seek legal representation.
He chose not to, but would have been entitled to request visitation rights, or for his son to be given into the custody of his relatives.
I just felt like a dead body on a slab in a morgue.
Sammy Woodhouse
Sammy said: 'Thankfully he never wanted any part in his son's life so never applied. But the point is, he should never have been given the option. I felt like his rights were put before mine or my son's.'
In a statement at the time, Rotherham Council said: 'At no stage has it been the intention of the council to put any child at risk, or to allow any convicted child sexual exploitation offender to have care of any child.'
It sought clarification from the Ministry of Justice as to how legal directions relating to Family Court proceedings should be applied.
An MoJ statement said: 'Local authorities can apply to courts to request permission not to notify parents without parental responsibility about care proceedings, and courts should consider the potential harm to the child and mother when making this decision.
'This is obviously a very distressing incident and the relevant departments and local authority will work urgently to understand and address the failings in this case.'
Victims' Commissioner Baroness Newlove said it was a 'perverse situation', adding: 'A victim of the worst sexual violence faced the prospect of continuing to be abused by her perpetrator, this time via the family courts.'
Sammy's 2018 campaign calling for the amendment of the 1989 Children Act to 'ban any male with a child conceived by rape from applying for access/rights' attracted nearly half a million signatures.
'Absolute monster'
She is also campaigning for grooming gang victims to have their criminal convictions quashed when they were coerced into crimes by their abusers.
And she wants those in positions of power who turned a blind eye to the gangs to be held to account.
She said: 'They should face criminal convictions. It's the only way to stop it happening in the future.
'At the very least, they should be stripped of their pensions.'
Sammy has also campaigned — successfully — for children born from rape to be legally recognised as victims, so they can access any support they may need.
She felt passionate about the issue after witnessing at first hand how hard it was for her son to come to learn that his father was a rapist.
The new law was introduced in 2023, making England and Wales among the first nations in the world to officially confer victim status to children born of rape.
Sammy was subjected to horrendous abuse from the age of 14, including rape, assaults and coercion, with threats to kill her family at the hands of Hussain.
She has previously said: 'I was pretty much his sex doll. He was an absolute monster.
'I just felt like a dead body on a slab in a morgue.'
In 2013, after years of abuse, she approached The Times anonymously with her claims.
The resulting coverage led to the 2014 Jay Inquiry, which exposed the Rotherham gang and led to the discovery of more than 1,400 abuse victims in the town between 1997 and 2013.
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