How Could You? Hall of Shame-UK-Teenage Foster daughter

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Leicester, UK, “a “foster dad” treated a teenage girl in his care like a “sex slave” and twice made her pregnant, a court heard.

The first abuse happened after he plied the 16-year-old with cannabis – and had sex with her while his sleeping wife was sedated on medication in the same bed.

There were multiple occasions of sex in their Leicester home and during trips to Bradgate Park and other rural places.

After her second child was born, and also taken away from her, she asked the defendant to leave her alone.

When he refused, in desperation she jumped from a second floor window and suffered broken bones.

The 58-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the victim’s identity, was jailed for six years and eight months, after admitting regularly supplying her with cannabis and three specimen counts of having sex with a child family member, aged between 16 and 18.

The victim, now in her mid-20s, attended Leicester Crown Court and sat behind a screen to hear the prosecution outline the case against her abuser, before reading out her tearful and emotional impact statement.

“He made me think I couldn’t survive on my own.

“I feel contaminated as if I’m damaged goods.

“At the time I was extremely vulnerable.

“He was supposed to care for me and help me with my problems, not make them worse.”

David Outterside, prosecuting, said: “The victim moved into the defendant’s house with the blessing of social services under a fostering agreement.”

It was a voluntary adult supervision agreement and he was paid £45 a week to care for her from 2005 and she called him “Dad.”

Mr Outterside said: “She felt finally safe; she wanted her own family and thought she’d finally found it.

“It was her dream come true.

“On her 16th birthday he set about spoiling her, buying CDs, make-up and taking her out in his car and she felt special.”

Several months later when his wife was sedated with drugs prescribed for a medical condition, he gave the victim cannabis and had unprotected sex “with his wife asleep next to him.”

Mr Outterside added: “She felt she couldn’t tell anyone and feared being homeless as she had nowhere else to go.

“She conceived a child that night.”

The next day he apologised but after a few months sexual activity continued.

“She felt scared of losing the defendant because he was the first person to show her love,” said the prosecutor.

The defendant told her if she told anyone he would be locked up and manipulated her by saying: “Without me you’d be nothing and you’ll end up killing yourself.”

She became a “housewife” figure in the family and pretended the pregnancy was the result of a one-night stand.

He would secretly touch her intimately while other family members watched television.

He once showed her a rope-noose he made in the garage, suggesting he would kill himself, to persuade her to perform a sex act upon him.

Mr Outterside said: “He made her feel, in her own words, like a sex slave.”

The defendant and his wife split up and the inappropriate relationship continued until after the girl was 18 and she had a second child – but was unhappy, dependent on him and trapped.

So desperate to escape, she leapt out of a second storey window – and still suffers pain from the injuries.

The defendant was made the subject of an in definite sexual harm prevention order and will have to enrol on a sex offender register for life.

Thomas Stanway, mitigating, said: “He did care for the complainant.

“He accepts by his pleas that any sexual relationship was inappropriate.

“He was at a low ebb himself.

“He wasn’t categorised formally as her foster parent; he was more of an adult supervisor.”

He said cannabis was regularly used by family members to aid sleep and she was not given the drug “with a predatory intent.”

Afterwards, officer in the case, Det Con Kate Cheney said: “It was a gross breach of trust and the victim has shown immense courage coming forward, with support, to make a complaint.”

Sentencing, Judge Simon Hammond said: “This is about as bad a case of sex with a child family member as you can get.

“She was forbidden fruit and he used her for his own sexual gratification.

“It was a wicked breach of trust by a man who was, in effect, a foster father.

“He groomed her and manipulated her by giving her cannabis and took advantage of her vulnerability.

“She says it’s ruined her childhood and destroyed her future, affected her education, career and prospects.

“The legacy of this sort of sexual abuse is devastating.

“He threatened to kill himself …using emotional blackmail.

“She didn’t leave because she didn’t want to be homeless – she just wanted to be loved.

“There was a disparity in age, the pregnancies were a result of unprotected sex and he put emotional pressure on her.

“The pre-sentence report says he has no insight into his offending and has displayed no remorse.

“He doesn’t seem to think he’s done anything wrong.”

In her victim impact statement, the complainant described feeling trapped.

She said: “I felt completely groomed; he made me completely depend on him as if I had no escape.

“I feel a real sense of anger about what happened as if he destroyed my future and took my teenage years away.

“I should have looked back with positivity, not disgust.

“In many years to come I’m going to have to explain to my children what happened and why I lost the care of them.

“I hope they won’t resent me and understand the situation I was in.

“I hope he gets punished for what he did to me.

“He needs to be stopped from hurting people like me – it will give me closure and help me to move on.””

‘Foster dad’ jailed for treating teen in his care as sex slave making her pregnant twice

[Leicester Mercury 6/10/16 by Suzy Gibson]

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