My son was born after I was raped by leader of Rotherham grooming gang – it led to an impossible conversation
WHEN Sammy Woodhouse fell pregnant with her son, at 15, the circumstances couldn’t have been worse.
Sammy, now 37, was the victim of the notorious Rotherham child grooming gang and the father of her baby was violent ringleader Arshid “Mad Ash” Hussain, then 25.
But none of that marred the intense love she felt when her baby was born.
She told The Sun: “When my son was born, I just loved him straight away.
“I didn’t care how he was born, who his dad was and I didn’t even recognise I’d been abused anyway.
“But when he got to about 12 years old and I started to come to terms with the fact that I was abused, I was panicking about what do I tell my son?
“He’s now going to find out that his mum’s been abused, he’s going to find that his dad was the person that committed it.”
‘How do I tell my son?’
Sammy was one of eighteen girls who called rapist Hussain her boyfriend – not realising the extent of the abuse she had been through.
In 2016, Hussain was jailed for 35 years for 23 offences against nine girls, after Sammy took her story to a national newspaper. Also jailed were 18 other members of the gang, including two of his brothers.
A subsequent report found 1,400 children had been abused by gangs in the city between 1997 and 2013, while police and social services turned a blind eye.
Now a campaigner against child abuse, Sammy believes children of rape survivors are not being given enough support, and says she had no idea how to approach the subject with her own child.
She added: “I didn’t know what to tell him. How do I tell him?
“He had no-one to talk to. We weren’t in contact with anyone that has been through this.
“He and I just felt very alone in things. And I remember him saying to me, ‘We’re the only family going through this’.
“I said, ‘Well, actually, we’re not but we’re the ones that are public, you’ve got no idea how many people will have a similar story to us’.”
Sammy has filmed a new BBC News and BBC 100 Women documentary Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape, and met other women who have had children through abuse and their children born.
She said: “Obviously, it has been emotional, I’m not gonna lie.”
‘Worried I’m like rapist dad’
In the film, she meets Neil, whose mother was raped by a stranger in a park and later found out she was pregnant. Neil, who uses the pronoun they/them, was put into care as a baby.
They said: “The worst thing is feeling like you’re alone.
“You’re questioning everything about yourself. ‘Do I look like a rapist?’.
“Looking in the mirror it was almost like I could see the man who raped my mother looking back at me.”
When Neil eventually met their birth mother, she confirmed they looked nothing like the man who raped her.
Neil added: “That really changed things for me.
“The man who did that to my birth mother is just nothing to me.
“I can’t be clear enough about this, about how angry I was at him.”
Raped by dad
Sammy is also introduced to Mandy who was abused by her father, resulting in the birth of her oldest child, who was born with a genetic disability.
She eventually ran away from home and started a new life.
She said she has faced abuse and criticism for being raped by a member of her own family.
Mandy said: “When they’d find out they’d say ‘you’re disgusting. You had an affair with your dad – that’s horrible. How could you do that?’
“I didn’t. I was 11 – maybe younger. The first recollection I had I was 11.”
Sammy has kept in contact with the pair and hopes they will one day speak to her son.
Sammy said: “Because I’ve been able to meet Neil and Mandy, it’s kind of helped me view things more from my son’s point of view.
“It’s opened up feelings and things. But for me, you know, I love my son and I always will, I always have.
“I just hope that he can find some peace through this.”
Kids need support
The documentary comes after a landmark court case prompted the Government to announce that children of rape will be treated as victims of crime.
The new rule is named Daisy’s law, after a woman who was conceived when her birth mother was raped at the age of 13 by 29 year old Carvel Bennett, in 1975.
She persuaded her mother to prosecute over four decades later and was told she could not be counted as a victim herself. He was finally jailed for 11 years in 2021.
Mum-of-two Sammy, who was left traumatised in 2017 when Rotherham council offered Hussain parental access to her son, has been meeting Home Secretary Suella Braverman to urge her to go further with the upcoming Victim’s Bill.
She said: “It’s not enough.”
She added: “I’ve got my legal rights. I can walk into any statutory service throughout the country and I can get that support.
“People understand it to a degree so for me, I’ve had that support there.
“But when it came to leading my son through this issue, nobody knew what to do.”
She’s now asking for social services to have training in how to deal with the children of sexual abuse, including helping them navigate learning about their birth parents, mental health support as well as being eligible for financial compensation.
Watch Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape on BBC iPlayer now