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R4 interview with woman raped by her father

60 replies

RoyalCorgi · 19/04/2023 19:27

Did anyone hear PM today? Evan Davies interviewed a woman who had been repeatedly raped by her father from the ages of 11 to 21. She gave birth to her father's child. This was in the 1990s. (The interview was ahead of a documentary about children who were the result of rape.)

It was one of the most horrific things I've ever heard. I don't know what age the woman was when she gave birth, but none of the health professionals asked her who the father was or if she'd been raped. Her father actually attended the birth.

Her father was a special police constable and a member of the Salvation Army, and therefore regarded as a pillar in the community. When she first reported the rapes to the police, they refused to believe her and threatened to charge her with wasting police time. They also seem to have told her that if she had committed incest, she was guilty of a crime.

The rest of her family refused to believe her story and said that she had "seduced" her father.

She was eventually able to prove through a DNA test that her father was the father of the baby. He was sent to gaol for - wait for it - three years.

I often feel despairing about the way women are treated, particularly in the criminal justice system, but this made me feel absolutely without hope. When a child can be raped, repeatedly, with impunity, when women are blamed for their own abuse, when even a man guilty of one of the worst crimes imaginable (raping his own daughter for 10 years) gets only three years in prison, then is there any chance things will ever change? This is 2023, not 1823, and yet abusive men are completely free to assault women and girls with no consequences, or next to no, consequences.

OP posts:
Ramblingnamechanger · 19/04/2023 20:12

There were also items today about this on Woman’s hour and TV early evening news.

Ramblingnamechanger · 19/04/2023 20:12

When I started work as a social worker in the 70s I was very naive. Now I think that many of the babies adopted were the result of rape by male family members, but this wasn’t spoken about and the “fathers” were never named.

Melroses · 19/04/2023 19:57

https://twitter.com/MJHerbert/status/1648231892049711104

I read this thread on twitter this morning. Things don't change :(

After the death of her husband, Richard, Emmeliene Pankhurst took a job as a Registrar of Births and Deaths, acting as such from 8th November 1898 to 25th February 1907. Her daughter Christabel acted as her deputy from 4th November 1903 to 5th September 1906.

The registrations took place at the family home on Nelson Street, Manchester, the public attending at advertised hours. Emmeline says of her job:
"It was touching to observe how glad the women were to have a woman registrar to go to. They used to tell me their stories, dreadful

stories some of them, and all of them pathetic with that patient and uncomplaining pathos of poverty. Even after my experience on the Board of Guardians, I was shocked to be reminded over and over again of the little respect there was in the world for women and children. I have

had little girls of thirteen come to my office to register the births of their babies, illegitimate, of course. In many of these cases I found that the child's own father or some near male relative was responsible for her state. " My Own Story, p. 32.

https://twitter.com/MJHerbert/status/1648231892049711104

Shelefttheweb · 19/04/2023 19:55

Aurignacian · 19/04/2023 19:48

Relevant?

That poor woman, it’s appalling

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Absolutely, it is. He is a misogynistic hypocrit. It is part of a culture where women and girls are not fully human but are just service people for men. Express horror at what this women endured but insist that she should not be safeguarded or granted access to rape counselling services that won’t retraumatise her for the benefit of men. To tell other eleven year olds that they can’t have personal boundaries and are bigots if they don’t want to shower with men. Or call her a birthing person as she has her rapists child.

Aurignacian · 19/04/2023 19:48

This reply has been deleted

We've removed this post as it's not in the spirit of the debate.

Relevant?

That poor woman, it’s appalling

happydappy2 · 19/04/2023 19:47

3 years for raping yr daughter is horrific, is this vile man still alive?

parietal · 19/04/2023 19:44

I heard this one top - horrific story and also a major failure to recognize the trauma of the girl born from the incest (who was the person featured in the interview) who had numerous struggles

3peassuit · 19/04/2023 19:33

I heard this with a mixture of shock of anger. Her family accused of seducing her father when she was 11 years old. She was let down by everyone.

Shelefttheweb · 19/04/2023 19:32

This reply has been deleted

We've removed this post as it's not in the spirit of the debate.

Whaeanui · 19/04/2023 19:29

I did not hear this but it sounds absolutely horrific. That poor woman. I totally understand your despair at the sentence, it’s very disheartening.