Sammy Woodhouse is an English activist against child sexual abuse. She was a victim of the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal, which she helped expose by giving an anonymous interview to Andrew Norfolk of The Times. Woodhouse has actively supported pardoning child sexual abuse victims for crimes they were coerced into committing.
Childhood and abuse
Sammy Woodhouse grew up with her two older sisters in Rotherham. Her family had a caravan in Cleethorpes. Woodhouse competed with her dance team until it was disbanded. When she was 14 years old, Woodhouse was groomed by 24-year-old child-grooming gang leader Arshid Hussain, who had been married and had two children. They started having sex a month after they met. Hussain subsequently raped, assaulted, and beat Woodhouse on a daily basis. According to her, Hussain would threaten her with a gun and threaten to kill her family. Woodhouse said that Hussain colluded with some police officers and that she was charged with crimes she and Hussein committed jointly. For example, when she turned 15, Hussain forced her to rob a post office. The police raided Hussain's house a few days later, while he and Woodhouse were in bed. Hussain was not arrested, but Woodhouse was charged with possessing a baton. A few months later, Hussain made Woodhouse fight a girl, and Woodhouse was convicted of assault. Woodhouse became pregnant twice when she was 15 years old; Hussain pressured her to have an abortion the first time. Woodhouse's mother died several days after Hussain was injured badly in a gang incident. She missed much of her education and had a criminal record, so began working as a model, stripper and lap dancer. After another abusive relationship, Woodhouse moved back to live with Hussain, who was in a wheelchair, with her second son. However, his family wanted to take her older son, so she fled again. Woodhouse kept being abused for years, including an assault by Hussain in public, which was dismissed by the police, and her flat was set on fire. Her family members had to move because they were also continuously threatened and terrorized. When she understood in 2012 that she had been groomed, Woodhouse developed depression, suicidal thoughts, and an eating disorder. Woodhouse anonymously approached The Times in 2013, leading to the Jay inquiry, which played a crucial part in exposing the scale and nature of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham. The report by social worker Alexis Jay found that more than 1400 children were victims of child sexual abuse in Rotherham between 1997 and 2013. Woodhouse has said that she was shocked when she learned the number of victims. Hussain was convicted of multiple crimes, including serial rape and abduction of multiple girls, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison. In March 2017, Woodhouse revealed her name on a BBC programme. In mid-2017, Woodhouse was one of hundreds of child sexual abuse victims who were initially denied compensation by the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Woodhouse's son became involved in crime and drugs, and she attempted to place him in care. According to Woodhouse, Rotherham City Council invited Hussain to meet their son despite his conviction for rape.
Activism
Woodhouse conducts speaking events at schools and elsewhere, explaining to teenagers, the police and social workers how to recognise that someone is being groomed. Woodhouse wrote a book, Just a Child: Britain's Biggest Child Abuse Scandal Exposed, which was released in April 2018. In November 2018, over the first three days, more than three hundred thousand people signed a petition by Woodhouse and Labour MP Louise Haigh, which called for the amendment of the Children Act 1989 to "ban any male with a child conceived by rape from applying for access/rights".
