Rotherham sex abuse victim recalls moment she told her son that she was raped by gang ringleader
Rotherham child abuse victim Sammy Woodhouse recalls the moment she told her son she became pregnant by him after being raped by the leader of the Asian grooming gang
A sexual abuse survivor who gave birth to her child after being raped by the leader of a pack gang in Rotherham has spoken of the extremely difficult conversation she had with her son.
Sammy Woodhouse, 37, became pregnant aged 15 after being raped by violent leader Arshid Hussain, who was 25 at the time.
She was one of 18 girls who called Hussain her boyfriend, unaware of the extent of the abuse she had experienced.
In 2016, he was sentenced to 35 years in prison for 23 offenses against nine girls after Sammy took her story to the newspapers. 18 other members of the gang were also jailed, including two of his brothers.
When she discussed the moment when her son was about 12 years old and she started to accept that she had been abused, she said she had no idea how to approach the subject with him.
Rotherham grooming gang survivor Sammy Woodhouse, 37, said she had no idea how to approach the subject with her son
Sammy, pictured at age 15, was sexually assaulted as a teenager by leader Arshid ‘Ash’ Hussain
‘I didn’t know what to tell him. How do I tell him? He had no one to talk to. We had no contact with anyone who has experienced this,” she said The sun.
“He and I just felt very alone in things. And I remember him saying to me, “We are the only family going through this”.
“I said, ‘Well, actually we’re not, but we’re the ones who are public, you have no idea how many people will have a similar story to us.'”
Sammy has now released a new documentary with the BBC called Out of the Shadows: Born from Rape in which she speaks to other mothers in her position and to children born of rape.
A man named Neil said he can barely look at himself in the mirror because he is terrified of the attacker’s face looking back at their mother.
Eva wants her father to pay for what he did and Mandy says she feels like her son was “begotten by a monster.”
Sammy has previously spoken about how her abuser treated her like a “corpse on a slab in a morgue” and isolated her from her family at age 14.
She bravely renounced her anonymity as a rape victim to expose the pedophile gang
Her abuser Hussain (top left) pictured alongside the other historical abusers
Sammy shared how as a teenager she was ‘completely out of her mind’ and had no idea how ‘dangerous’ Hussain would be
Discussing her past with her child, she said she remembers him saying to me, “We are the only family going through this”
She said that not only was she a victim of horrendous abuse, including rape and assault, but she was even coerced with threats to kill her family at the hands of Hussain.
“I was pretty much his sex doll; he was an absolute monster. I felt like a corpse on a slab in a morgue,” said Sammy.
She added: ‘I grew up in Rotherham, about two and a half miles from the town centre. I think I was an average, everyday girl.’
Discussing her abuser, she said, “What he did was actually very smart. He worked out the dynamics in my family, he knew my dad was stricter and my mom was more of a best friend. So what he did started turning me against my father more than my mother.
“I was completely out of my rhythm. I didn’t see that it was dangerous and wrong. I thought I was a teenager having a little fun, how bad can it get.’
Sammy escaped her abuser when he was sent to prison in 2001 for a violent crime, but was instrumental in exposing the gang after anonymously approaching The Times with her allegations, leading to the Jay investigation.