Thread by @StarkNakedBrief

There's been a lot of insanely informative posts on the grooming/r*pe gang scandal

But don't think anyone has done a deep dive on the original whistleblowers who exposed the horrific, horrific abuse

So here are some of their stories and what they had to endure. Thread 🧵

1. Sammy Woodhouse

In 1999, Arshid Hussain, the 24-year-old leader of Rotherham’s Pakistani Muslim r*pe gang, started grooming and repeatedly r*ping Sammy, who was just 14-years-old.

Hussain first used gifts and attention to lure her into a relationship where he soon assaulted and beat her daily.

He often intimidated Sammy with threats of violence against her and her family when he didn’t get his way. At one point, he pointed a gun to her head.

Hussain repeatedly forced Sammy to commit crimes. During a police raid, when he evaded capture, he coerced her into robbing a post office.

Months later, he pressured her into fighting a girl, resulting in another conviction, this time for assault.

Sammy's family, desperate to protect her, applied to social services to have her taken into care, believing she would be safer. But social services ultimately let the abusive, paedophilic relationship continue.

The prolonged abuse caused Woodhouse severe psychological damage, resulting in depression, suicidal thoughts, and an eating disorder.

Adding yet more trauma, she gave birth to her son, conceived through rape.

Sammy kept being abused by Hussain for years.

In 2018, she told The Times:

“He had someone parked outside every day, he tried to set fire to my flat, my nan had to move. He attacked my baby in a shopping centre. I had to go into hiding”.

In 2013, under the pseudonym ‘Jessica,’ Sammy gave an anonymous interview to journalist Andrew Norfolk, sparking the Jay Inquiry.

The inquiry would reveal a shocking scale of abuse, identifying over 1,400 child victims in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013.

Later that year, despite the jailing of her abusers in 2016—17 yrs after her ordeal—the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority (CICA) denied Sammy compensation.

A CICA spokesman said, "I am not satisfied that your consent was falsely given as a result of being groomed."

Her lawyer, David Greenwood, swiftly refuted this, emphasising that it is "not legally possible" for a 14 or 15-year-old girl to consent to a relationship with an adult.

Reports imply she was eventually granted a maximum payout of £44,000.

A 2017 Freedom of Information request found that she was one of 700 child sex abuse victims that had been denied payouts from CICA.

Yet another government department that seemingly and quietly failed victims en masse.

Following a 2018 High Court ruling, authorities supposedly cleared Sammy’s record after she faced criminal charges for acts committed under duress.

However, in 2023, she discovered that elements of her criminal record remained.

That same year, she successfully opposed Rotherham Council’s attempt—the same council that brutally failed her as a child—to involve Arshid Hussain, her convicted raper, in her son’s life.

It was only in Nov 2020 when police finally conceded and upheld Sammy’s complaint that her raper was left free to target her and other girls in the town.

She lamented, however, “not one professional has ever been held to account and never will”.

Days ago, she disclosed that South Yorkshire Police contacted her, asking she delete online posts about the gangs and not report on “Rotherham professionals.”

If confirmed, it proves—despite everything, concrete proof of the cover-ups, etc.—the same problems persist.

If not for Sammy, one of the most damning reports we've seen to date might never have been published.

Her efforts exposed the incalculable extent of the police and social service's failure and how other government services continued to fail survivors for yrs and yrs afterward.

She now works as an investigative journalist, author, and campaigner.

You can find her @sammywoodhouse1

She sat down for an incredible, if not, terrifying interview with Liam Tuffs, which you can find on YouTube.

There's so much to her story.

Next up is Sarah Wilson.

Another survivor of Rotherham's depraved, sick, and perverted Pakistani Muslim rape gang.

Will have to do this in another thread but will link after this post.

Here it is.

Part two.