We have been let down by the justice system. [**Edited by MNHQ, thread may be triggering**]

[OpiesOldLady]

I need to get this out. Some of you will recognise the details, I posted previously under a different name, but tbh I'm sick of hiding now, and being ashamed.

My son was raped and sexually abused by my step son. He also abused my daughter. He was found guilty of two counts of rape and four counts of sexual abuse. We were led to believe that the judge would send him to crown court for sentencing and a custodial sentence would be imposed.

Today he was give a two year rehabilitation order and has been placed on the sex offenders register for five years. He has basically gotten away with a slap on the wrists.

I feel so incredibly let down. My babies had to give evidence against him, he put them through that... and yet he gets to go home tonight, free.

He will get counselling and all manner of professional help, whilst I am having to fight tooth and nail to access some proper support for my children. They are on a waiting list for intensive therapy, but that could take months. In the meantime, I have to watch as my son fades away before my eyes, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. And this is justice?

I want to appeal his sentence as I think it's far too lenient, but I don't know if i'll be allowed to, I'm waiting to hear back from the Attourney Generals office.

I am swinging between being so furious, devastated and wanting to kill him with my bare hands. How could he do this and just get away with it?

WHEN not why

How could I not have believed him and acted? They are my babies and I would kill for them. I'm sorry your DH's mum let him down. I hope he can now get the helps he needs to start to heal. And don't forget you too x

I wrote a long post this morning and the interweb seems to have eaten it.

Really just to say I would never wish to tell you how or what to feel, Opies, please don't read what I wrote previously as some kind of a 'critique' on how your dealing with the crap hand you've been dealt.
You feel what you do and you think what you think because that's what you need to do just now.

I wrote in detail about a now almost-30 year old man who I had professional dealings with some time ago and maybe it's a good thing that post was lost. To sum it up, he was able to really deal with the sexual abuse he suffered as an 8 year old almost 10 year after the abuse when he reached the age that his abuser (also a family member) had been when the assaults incl rape happened. It took him to be a teenager himself and to have a much younger sibling to kind of put himself in his abusers shoes and to be truly horrified at the idea that anybody could do at his/his abusers age to somebody of his siblings/his younger self's age what had happened to him.
Good grief, pardon the grammar.
The point I'm trying to make is that he had to have the maturity, the emotional and psychological tools, the life experience (including a first girl friend) of an older person to be able to fully process what had been done to him as a younger child.
As it happens he has chosen to not have any contact with that part of his extended family, he 'amputated them so they could not poison him' (his words, not mine). He is a nice, kind man with a family of his own and some status in life. I am sure he carries with him his previous trauma, but it has certainly NOT defined him.

I suppose I was trying to express that I felt that by seeking legal redress for the trauma inflicted on your DCs and the fall-out you are still dealing with (and will be dealing with in all likelihood for some time) and coming up against brick wall again and again you are sapping yourself of valuable energy, mentally and physically. And in some way you are granting your stepson continuing 'hold' over you IYKWIM.
He has wreaked havoc on your whole family and it is so unfair that he appears to have got off - I know I'd be doing what you are doing. The time may come were out of shere self-preservation you may have to stop. Not forgive, never forget, but stop.

Your love for your DCs shines out of every post you write and I strongly suspect that that will be your and their salvation.

shocked

Oh crikey, I just noticed your last post wrt to your STBXH - it is just horrific.
I am glad that somebody was able to maybe offer some hope wrt legal appeals.

Yes, horrific just about sums our lives up atm And yes, I totally get what you're saying. I guess at the moment I am consumed with the need for revenge, really. Because I can see DS hurting, and I want to make the person that hurt him hurt too. I think with time, that need might dissipate as we try to rebuild our lives. I hope that with therapy for us all we can move forward somehow.

Opies

oh my love :( EXDH Really? :( What an utter utter fucking bastard. I don't know if you posted about it before and it didn't sink in at the time with so much to take in re the kids or whether you kept that to yourself, but fucking hell, it's a wonder you're coping at all. I can understand more now why you feel so incredibly guilty and feel like you let your kids down. You didn't - you didn't know and you did all you could as soon as you did, but I understand better why you feel the way you do.

Jesus wept.
xxx

However Yes, MNers are indeed lovely :)

I am so pleased for you that you have been given some legal advice that gives you some hope to get this reviewed.

I just need to find the strength to do this from somewhere

We are all here. I know we can't be there and sometimes being here is fuck all use :( But if there is anything you think of that we can do to help, then please, please just say ok x

You will find the strength. You will look at DS (and DD) and what both of those bastards have done to your babies and you will find the energy to see that some kind of justice IS served as best you can. You will leave no stone unturned because your maternal instinct wont allow you to.

Did EXDH tell you about the S1C or did the police when you reported his son? Did he tell you what he did or have you been left not knowing?

How in gods name did he manage to keep that hidden from you, that's so scary isn't it, he's been able to keep it from you, have kids, be at your kids school etc

It's surely fucking hypocritical of him to now say he wants nothing to do with his son?!

It makes you wonder if he abused his son.

What a nightmare :(

Social services told me. He masturbated in front of a child and asked her to touch him. That was in 1997. Turns out that stepson mother has three schedule one offenders in her close family too. He swears that he hasn't hurt stepson or our children, and on questioning none of them have indicated that he has. Such hard questions to have to ask.

He didn't even have the decency to tell you before you had to hear it from someone else :( Bastard. (I presume this wasn't a case of him being barely 18 and her being almost, but not quite, 16? - even if it was, he should have told you). The kids mothers family too?! That boy didn't really stand a chance did he - if it wasn't your EX, it sounds likely he's been abused by one of her family :( What a fucking mess.

Do you have to let the children see him?

Nope. He was 19 and she just 4.

I'm afraid I can't think about stepson atm. If he has been abused then it makes this somehow worse, because he should know how awful it is.

I don't have to let the children see him, but they want to. They all miss him terribly. I don't force them to see him but equally if there comes a time when they don't want to, then that will be okay too. I'm trying to be led by them, and what they want.

How do they get away with it :( I hope he got more 'punishment' than his son has got (so far anyway). Bastard.

I don't expect you to think about stepson at all, well, not in any context other than trying to get some justice for what he has done. I just meant that given his background, it was highly likely he would offend. You would think that people who have been abused would be the least likely to abuse, sadly it's not the case.

The thing is, the kids want to see him now, but they don't know what he did, will they wish they hadn't had that option when they find out what he has done in the past? I'd worry that they would be angry about not being told so they could make an informed decision, but that's hard when they are so young. He knowingly put their safely at risk, he allowed this to happen. I think I'd be making a life that didn't include him in anyway.

Oh, OP, I remember your case/previous threads. I'm so sorry. Justice has not been done here, and that's awful for you. Just awful. I hope you can find help her, some peace. It must be devastating.

If he has been abused then it makes this somehow worse, because he should know how awful it is.

Please please do not think I am excusing anything, op...but if your stepson was abused, it won't always follow that he should have known how awful it was, because he may just think, if it happened to him, that it is normal.

A girl I know started having sex with strangers in alleys because her dad told her that him having sex with her was because he loved her & that's how you show love. He raped her so many times, she really did think sex = love. So as soon as she was out of his grasp (15) she started having sex with any guy who would. It gets 'normalised' in their minds.

Chipping - they do know what he did. I have had to explain it all to them, age appropriately, obviously, but they do know that daddy hurt a little girl a long time ago, and that he lied to Mammy and that's why he's not allowed to live with us anymore. He was given a years probation and ordered to go on a sex offenders course. A judge has ordered that he be assessed to see what level of danger he is to children now, and the outcome of that will determine if and to what extent he has contact with our children. It would be incredibly easy for me to say that I don't want them to see him. But that would be my own feelings and I don't think it would be in their best interests. As it is, he is not allowed any unsupervised contact with them and that's fine by me. Everything that happens in the contact room is both tape recorded and written down, and there are always two contact workers present, so I feel confident that they are at least safe when he sees them.

When a family friend was put on the "sex offenders list" notification requirements. I know exactly what you mean about the girlfriend thing. Four years on j look at him on social media and think "I wonder if she knows" and harbour dreams of messaging her

Opie I'm confused. Your ex h abused someone too?

Yes, he did. When he was 19. I did not find this out until the day that my DS disclosed the abuse by his DS.

Oh I see. Gosh, your world turned upside down

:(

I hope you get whatever outcome you are hoping for re the assessment of ExDH. I'd be hoping they decide he's enough risk to never, ever be allowed unsupervised contact because I wouldn't believe anything else. How long before they'll have come to a conclusion?

It's a lovely morning here, I hope it is where you are too. Everything just seems a little more do-able when the sun is shining.

How have DS and Fairy's DS been doing with the penal stuff?

Did you manage to sort the Xbox or play station out?

I want them to say that he will not be allowed unsupervised contact. I also, to cover my own arse, want them to say that the supervision has to come from someone other than myself. He fooled me once, I don't want to give him any opportunity to spin more lies to me, iyswim?

It's piddling down here, but that's ok. I have loads of washing to fold - my least favourite job - so I have to crack on with that.

Unfortunately we haven't heard from Fairy's DS - I'm sure they've been busy etc.

No, not sorted the xbox out yet, tbh it slipped my mind!

Surely they can't expect you to supervise him?? That would be bonkers and I'm damn sure you could refuse to. You would be well within your rights to never be in the same room as him. I know funding is tight and in lots of places it's difficult to get it, but I'd be pushing very hard for it to stay at the centre, otherwise you are forced to find someone willing to do it & trust someone else to do it, and trust I imagine, is understandably a bit thin on the ground right now.

I don't mind folding washing too much, you can sit down to do it . I need to do some housework, but really can't be bothered. I got a new cordless vax Hoover yesterday, so I should make sure that's working ok at least!

That's a shame about Fairy’s DS, but hopefully they're just a bit busy.

Yes, I can't say I'd like to have to supervise him. That'd all feel a little bit too much like playing happy families for my liking, you know? And we're very very far from ever being that again.

Today has been a tough day. I had a meeting with the school and DS is struggling very much. He's in year five now, and it's unlikely that he will have caught up to where he should be by the time he moves to high school

Also, this evening, DS said that he wished it had been him that died instead of his twin brother (who passed at birth). We rang ChildLine together, and although DS was too distressed to speak, he knows that they are there for him whenever he feels ready to speak to them.

Good news is that school are finally going to request a CAHMS assessment for him. Not for sexual abuse counselling, but to assess his mental health. Hopefully that won't take too long.

Opies, how very hard it must be for you to see your DS so distressed over and over again - I am so sorry, for him and for you and for you all.

I hope a MH assessment will bring some help and support - depression is a horrible illness and even more scary in children. BUT - it does pass. He will not feel like this forever; the challenge is to keep going and allowing time to pass. If he is depressed.

Aw crap, I know what I'm trying to say in my head.
You all need to hang in there and it will get better. Never back to 'before', but better. Honest.

It is heartbreaking to read how he was not able to speak to ChildLine - poor mite

It is horrendous. Utterly heartbreaking. Because I cannot make it better. I cannot fix this. I cannot make it so it didn't happen.