A mother locks her two young daughters inside an alarmed bedroom so she can share a bed with her husband who is a convicted child abuser. And social services in the area have approved the plan...
Two young sisters are being locked inside an alarmed bedroom at night to protect them from their mother’s paedophile husband – and social workers say it’s fine.The authorities have astonishingly given the go-ahead to the monstrous plan the mum dreamed up so she can sleep with their vile stepfather.
The convicted abuser, once jailed for attacking a girl under 13, has now been allowed to move in with her and the children – also both under 13.
And among other ‘safety’ factors believed to have been taken into account in a shocking official report was that the paedophile would have to climb over the mum from his side of the bed to get to the girls – and would therefore wake her up.
County council officials who rubber-stamped the decision were also happy that the imprisoned children could use a baby monitor to call for their mother if they needed to be let out to go to the toilet.
They allowed the child abuser to move in only a few months after describing him as a “continuing risk” to the girls.
Details of the decision emerged after the children’s worried grandmother contacted the Sunday Mirror over her fears for their safety. She said: “The alarm and the other so-called precautions to stop my granddaughters being abused are a load of rubbish.
“Since learning my daughter’s new husband was a paedophile I’ve tried to express my concerns to social services.
“I’m appalled this man was allowed to move into the family home with my granddaughters. Other family members also feel their concerns are being ignored.
“It feels like my granddaughters are isolated and at risk. Social services don’t seem to want to listen to me.
“It’s heartbreaking, but I have to keep fighting this for the sake of the girls.
A source close to the troubling case said: “We can’t believe that this mother has been so stupid as to take up with this man.
“And how on earth is an alarm going to stop him if he decides he wants to abuse those children? Everyone involved in this atrocious situation should hang their heads in shame.”
The identity of the paedophile, his wife and the children, who live in Devon, are all known to the Sunday Mirror but cannot be revealed for legal reasons.
The children’s mother got together with the child abuser, a man in his 40s, less than five years ago.
She had split from the girls’ father who moved out and at first saw his children at weekends. But he then relocated with a new partner and does not now have regular access.
The mother told social workers she was fully aware of the paedophile’s past and that he had been a previous boyfriend in the Eighties. As a convicted child abuser he is subject to a Sexual Offences Prevention Order (SOPO) which bans him from having unsupervised contact with under-16s. He also has to sign the Sex Offenders Register.
But a year after they began dating, the mother applied to be an ‘approved person’ to provide supervision of contact between the paedophile and her children, a requirement of his SOPO.
That move was rubber-stamped by a body called the Devon Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub. It is made up of police, probation officers, social workers and other agencies.
The couple married the following year – with the mother sharing details of her and the paedophile’s growing relationship on her Facebook page. It tells how the couple enjoyed spending time with the girls, jaunts to the seaside and pub meals.
After their wedding the mum wrote online that they “had a fantastic day with the family”.
But later she had to call police to her home after a neighbour loudly called her partner “an animal”.
By the end of that year, a Devon County Council council children’s services review of the case found there remained a “continuing risk” that the paedophile would sexually abuse the vulnerable girls.
A few months later the council recommended the children should be placed with other relatives or put in care if the mother wanted her relationship to carry on .
Its report noted she had “instigated the relationship” with the paedophile. Yet still the children stayed with their mother.
Then last year she made a further request for her husband – understood to have been spending an increasing amount of time with the daughters – to “stay overnight occasionally” at her home.
Her request was turned down by the council as her new partner was still deemed a risk. But within months came the astonishing U-turn.
It is understood the mother bought and installed the lock and alarm in her two-bedroom home after seeking advice from a charity that helps people affected by underage sexual abuse – including the paedophiles themselves.
A team including a social worker and solicitors visited her property last autumn and were satisfied with the measures she had taken. Her solicitor and a lawyer for the girls’ father were also present.
A family source told us: “It was decided that because there was a baby monitor in their bedroom the children could wake their mother up who could open the door for them. And they thought the alarm on the door was adequate because it couldn’t be shut off after it had been set off.”
The source also claimed the mother told the social worker the paedophile could sleep on a side of the bed which meant he would wake his partner if he got up in the night because he would have to climb over her.
Late last year, the man was given the right to stay overnight at the family’s house following a lengthy appeal to the council.
Yesterday the Council confirmed a “professionals meeting” had taken place last autumn “to discuss any areas the local authority may have missed that would help to determine (the paedophile’s) return to the family home. The professionals were of the view there are enough protective factors in place for the children.”
A spokesman later added: “Numerous reviews by a variety of agencies have concluded that his partner, who wants him to be able to stay overnight, can adequately supervise him.
“A safety plan has to be in place and his partner has to supervise contact at all times. The police have been informed and the local authority is monitoring the situation very closely with regular visits to the family home.”
The mum and the paedophile have since been living together, according to sources. When approached by the Sunday Mirror yesterday, the paedophile denied he was a sex offender, adding: “What business have you got even if I was a paedophile?”
