Innocent 'Beast of Birkenhead' Peter Sullivan now in line for £1.3m payout but lawyers say miscarriage of justice changes 'don't go nearly far enough'
The current cap on compensation payments for people wrongly jailed for 10 years or more will rise by £300,000 to £1.3million, Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood confirmed today.
The ceiling on payments to those wrongly jailed for up to 10 years will also rise by 30 per cent to £650,000.
The increase is likely to mean that Peter Sullivan – whose conviction was quashed in May for a murder he did not commit – will now be due a higher pay-out.
In one of Britain's worst miscarriages of justice Mr Sullivan spent 38 years behind bars before judges overturned his conviction for the 1986 murder of 21-year-old florist Diane Sindall.
Erroneously dubbed the 'Beast of Birkenhead' after the brutal killing, Mr Sullivan had long protested his innocence.
The sheer length of his wrongful jail term means he is expected to be awarded a sum to the limit of the new cap.
In another high-profile case, Andrew Malkinson was wrongly jailed for rape for 17 years and finally freed two years ago.
Months after his release he had received no pay-out and described himself as 'broke' and 'living in a tent'.
In February it emerged Mr Malkinson had received a 'significant' six-figure interim pay-out – but his final application is yet to be resolved.
Solicitor Toby Wilton, who is representing Mr Malkinson in his compensation claim, said Ms Mahmood's announcement 'does not go nearly far enough'.
'The current maximum cap on compensation of £1million was introduced in 2008,' Mr Wilton said.
'Before that, compensation was not capped at all and applicants received compensation broadly in line with what they would receive in a court of law.
'The government should return to this system, removing the arbitrary cap which unfairly penalises those who like Andrew Malkinson have suffered the longest lasting and most serious miscarriages of justice.
'While this proposal is welcome, it does not go nearly far enough.'
He added: 'The Government and Parliament should think again.
'A 30 per cent increase in the cap, whilst welcome, does not come close to addressing this unfairness.
'Increased by RPI inflation, the measure the courts use to uprate compensation amounts, £1million in 2008 would be closer to £2million today.'
Announcing the changes, Ms Mahmood said: 'Fairness is the ideal that underpins our justice system.
'Where it has failed to meet that ideal, victims of devastating miscarriages of justice must be able to rebuild their lives.
'This uplift will ensure victims are compensated for the crimes they did not commit and the years they cannot get back.'
The exact amount of compensation is decided by an independent assessor.
Applications must be made within two years of being pardoned or having a conviction quashed as a result of a newly-discovered fact.
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Daily Mail
29 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Locals' fury over plans to build 20 luxury homes on old burial site after council 'hid' they had failed to exhume most of the bodies
Residents living in the shadow of a cemetery where developers want to build luxury homes over dead bodies have accused their council of 'taking them for fools' after it emerged a full exhumation did not take place as promised. Calls are mounting to block the council's plans to build 20 homes over 11 'sacred' gravestones, including one belonging to a baby, at Tunbridge Wells Cemetery in Benhall Mill Road. Some 15 paupers were buried between 1873-1928 and it was previously revealed how Tunbridge Wells Borough Council had moved to exhume all of the bodies in 2020 amid plans to build over the former burial site. But a Freedom of Information request, submitted by campaign group Friends of the Tunbridge Wells Cemetery, today reveals that only four of the 15 bodies were exhumed between September 28 and October 6 2020. The graves dug for full exhumation with permission from the Ministry of Justice were named as George Langridge, Maria Thomsett, George Cross and George Payne. It means that at least 11 others, including baby Frances Sarah Day, are still potentially buried underneath the ground at the depot where the council plans to build the 16 houses and four flats. The revelation has sparked accusations that the council has kept residents in the dark, with locals saying it is 'incredibly disrespectful' and 'immoral' to build over land where not all the bodies have been removed. Documents seen by MailOnline show the Ministry of Justice issued directions for the exhumation, which included the demand: 'You must remove all human remains from the area hatched on the attached plan prior to starting any development work.' Following the revelation that only four bodies had been exhumed, campaigner Justin Quinn told MailOnline: 'It's insulting to be told one thing by the local council only to find out via a Freedom of Information request that the facts are very different. 'Many of us in the local community are emboldened by the sense that regardless of the questionable moral and legal implications of the development, we don't like being taken for fools. The campaigners only submitted the FOI after those working on the exhumation told elderly neighbours they thought the remains were buried too deep to find. This allowed them to 'uncover the truth that there are still people buried in the ground where these houses are to be built', Mr Quinn added. 'Our hunch is they are trying to keep it as quiet as possible because they are aware it wouldn't be a popular if people knew what the situation was.' Athanasios Sermbezis, whose parents-in-law are buried together in the working part of the cemetery, is among those fighting to block development on the land which lies within the walls of the working cemetery but is now used as a maintenance depot. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 79-year-old said: 'My children were born and live in Tunbridge Wells. My grandchildren were born and live in Tunbridge Wells so obviously to us the cemetery is a very sacred place. The names of those still presumed to be in the cemetery Frances Sarah Day, 1873, (baby) Richard Geer, 1874 Dennis Geer, 1873 Rebecca West 1873 Joseph Austen, 1874 Charles Lee, 1874 Sarah Morley, 1877 William Henry Everest, 1879 Martha Wheeler, 1875 Maria Batting, 1875 Thomas Batting, 1918 Sarah Batting, 1928 'For them to try and hush us and do it so quickly without really providing the evidence that has been cleared. 'My concern is why they are trying to get planning permission and do this when there are people buried there. 'We think from a religious point of view, it is immoral to build something on the top of a burial, even if it is an old burial. It is not morally right to build something where there are dead bodies. 'People might say 'we don't care, we need houses'. Yes we need houses but not on top of dead people.' More than 30 Tunbridge Wells residents have also raised objections to the plans. One resident Tamara Galloway wrote: 'As someone with my grandparents, both my parents and my uncle buried in Tunbridge Wells Cemetery, I'm appalled by this application to build houses on part of this working cemetery. 'The investigations carried out recently did not find all the people buried here. Since these graves were unmarked, there may well be others buried here whose names were not recorded.' Campaigner Robin Parsons, a member of Friends of Tunbridge Wells Cemetery, said: 'I am horrified that you are proposing to build houses over the area in the Cemetery designated as the burial ground of paupers. We know that not all the bodies have been removed. 'What you are proposing is incredibly disrespectful. Would you be doing this if famous or influential people were buried there? 'If the Council wants to erect houses, it should not be at the expense of the cemetery which remains one of the most beautiful areas of Tunbridge Wells.' Another resident, Elaine Lawrence, wrote: 'I particularly can not believe you can build on any burial ground let alone consecrated ground! Please stop this madness! And think of the huge impact on relatives of those buried and instead of a sanctuary of peace it will become a place of noise dirt and lost habitat for wildlife.' Mr Sermbezis, who came from Greece to the UK in the early 1970s, said the land earmarked for development lies within the walls of the cemetery. He said: 'The Church of England in the 1800s would not accept dead people in their cemetery if they were catholic, poor, or if they committed suicide. 'So they created a small space in the corner of the cemetery to put people who did not conform with the church. 'The land was later donated to the council, who are custodians of it.' In total, 15 bodies were buried in the small patch of land, including one of a baby. Sketches show the plans to build homes on land where its feared there are still dead bodies buried In 2019, the then-Conservative council applied for permission to build 11 houses on the land in the cemetery. They were told they had to take precautions to exhume all of the bodies and bury them in the main cemetery. However, the now-Liberal Democrat-run council only found four of the 15 bodies. Mr Sermbezis added: 'Out of those four bodies, one of those was called George Cross, we didn't have his name in our records. 'Either they invented it or they found another body. 'But their excuse is that they found the bodies. We are saying if you only found four, you have to go back and find the other 11. 'I am Greek. In Greece they have just discovered Alexander the Great's father. And your talking about 1000 years ago they have been missing. Bones don't disappear that quickly.' The retired water engineer said that under the The Disused Burial Grounds (Amendment) Act 1981, all bodies must be removed from the ground before any new building can be erected. Campaigners also say this is 'sacred' and 'consecrated' land which cannot be built upon under planning laws. A memorial gravestone was erected which claimed to have the 'reinterred remains' of all 15 paupers. But with only four bodies exhumed, locals say it is designed to portray that 'it's all been dealt with'. The council's plan is to build 16 homes made up of 10 three-bed houses and six two-bed houses. While they also want to build a flat block of four homes, with two two-bed flats and two one-bed flats. Plans show they want to build 30 parking spaces, 20 of which will have electric vehicle charging points. A council source said the council were given a letter from the Diocese of Rochester, which previously had ecclesiastical responsibility for the cemetery, confirming the ground was not consecrated. A spokesperson for Tunbridge Wells Borough Council said: 'We can confirm that the bodies were exhumed by a specialist exhumation company, the detailed surveys and work took place during autumn 2020 once necessary permissions had been granted. 'The found remains were treated with dignity and reburied in a different part of the cemetery. 'A memorial was erected with the names of the deceased in the cemetery grounds and all the works were carried out in consultation with the Friends of the Cemetery.'
Daily Mail
42 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Lady Gabriella Windsor's ex reignites claims of racism within the Royal Family as he again insists her mother owned black sheep named Venus and Serena and even drags in the KING - ahead of his new book that will alarm the Palace
The former boyfriend of Lady Gabriella Windsor has doubled down on his claims of racism within the Royal Family in a new interview, as he prepares to publish a novel inspired by his relationship with the King's cousin. Speaking on the podcast Tell Me About Your Father, Aatish Taseer, who was born in the UK and raised in India, recalled how he sparked a media storm in 2018 when he wrote an explosive article for Vanity Fair in which he claimed to lay bare intimate details of their relationship. He admitted that he was 'extremely indiscreet' and said that in England there is 'really no crime you can commit greater than that' especially after remaining 'very, very cozy' with Princess Michael after splitting from her daughter. Taseer, who is now married to a man, even described the wife of the late Queen's cousin as 'a gay icon', with the podcast host retorting: 'If she wasn't so racist, she'd be really marketable.' He also repeated the claim that the late polo pal of King Charles, Kuldip Singh Dhillon was referred to as 'Sooty'. Mr Singh, who died in 2023, previously insisted he 'enjoyed' the nickname. Meanwhile, Taseer doubled down on one of his most sensational claims, that Gabriella's mother, Princess Michael, once owned two black sheep at her former Gloucestershire home, which she named Venus and Serena after the tennis-playing Williams sisters. The interview comes amid Taseer's plans to release a novel he claims was inspired by his time with the Royal Family called In Their Country, about an aspiring journalist from New Delhi named Aleramo Singh Brusetti who is dating a member of the British Royal Family named 'Rose' who was brought up at Kensington Palace by her parents 'Prince and Princess Albert'. Although it is a work of fiction, an extract published by Air Mail weaves in real names and comments about royals such as Princess Margaret and Princess Diana and places including Kensington Palace and the restaurant Maggie Jones. In further chapters of the as yet unpublished work, seen by the Mail, the main character refers to a sexual frisson with his girlfriend's brother and her needing a HIV test after he has sex with a man. While the book is a work of fiction, it also weaves in quotes attributed to Princess Michael of Kent in the 2018 Vanity Fair article. It also includes incidents that have been reported publicly such as her alleged remarks to a group of black diners in a New York restaurant to: 'Go back to the colonies'. Despite this, Taseer said that he remained close to Princess Michael after his relationship with Lady Gabriella ended. He told the podcast: 'After Ella and I broke up, it was one of those relationships that was purely romantic and it didn't have a kind of friendship component. But I I was very, very close to Ella's mother to Princess Michael and who I always think of as a kind of gay icon. 'I would see her from time to time after Ella and I broke up, she came to my first book launch and I would go and see her in England. 'Also, I think once I came out and was married to a one of those situations where it must have felt like a betrayal of our time together.' Elsewhere on the podcast, he discussed his claim regarding the names of Princess Michael's sheep. 'The English, it's wild like that because the upper classes are so, they live at such a tremendous remove from the country,' he said. 'They really don't even know that like, I mean, [King] Charles has a friend called Sooty. Yeah. Like just a close friend. 'So I think the Venus and Serena was just, it was just part of that, that kind of weird air of abstraction that exists around these people and how they're not even aware of how shocking or offensive that might be.' The daughter of Prince and Princess Michael of Kent, affectionately known as Ella, 44, lost her husband Thomas Kingston, 45, in devastating circumstances in February 2024 after he was found dead with a 'traumatic head wound' and a gun near his body in an outbuilding of his parents' Cotswolds home. 'Tom was an exceptional man who lit up the lives of all who knew him,' she said in a joint family statement at the time. 'His death has come as a great shock to the whole family.' In the subsequent months, Gabriella was supported by her royal relatives as she mourned her husband. She arrived for Royal Ascot side-by-side with Princess Anne and revealed how the 'kind' Princess of Wales invited her to advise on the Together at Christmas carol service at Westminster Abbey, where she was photographed with Carole and Michael Middleton. The personal tragedy no doubt put into context the media storm created by former boyfriend Taseer, a British journalist now based in the US, when he wrote an explosive article for Vanity Fair in 2018, where he claimed to lay bare intimate details of their relationship. 'For three surreal years, Ella and I hung about Kensington Palace; we swam naked in the Queen's pool at Buckingham Palace; we did MDMA in Windsor Castle; and we had scrapes with the British press,' he wrote. No further details of the alleged incidents were given. In the wide-reaching piece, Taseer also touched upon the issue of alleged racism within the Royal Family, drawing a link between the royals and Nazis, alleging: 'Royals and Nazis go together like blini and caviar'. Among the most sensational claims was that Gabriella's mother once owned two black sheep, which she named Venus and Serena after the tennis-playing Williams sisters. The timing of the article was significant: it was published weeks before the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, which was attended by the Kents and Serena Williams – a close friend of Meghan. Senior courtiers were said to have been left reeling by the article, which was published in the US magazine but available in the UK, although there was no official comment from Buckingham Palace. Once again, those closest to Gabriella were quick to rally. Members of her inner-circle insisted that the story was full of fabrications and nothing more than an attention-seeking ploy by an ex-boyfriend. A source close to the Royal Family said at the time: 'What he has done is appalling and unnecessarily cruel, especially when he has only ever been shown kindness by her family.' A friend added: 'Aatish is a novelist. He has an active imagination.' The couple were introduced by mutual friends in 2003 while Taseer was studying at Amherst College, Massachusetts, two hours from Brown University where Ella was studying comparative literature. Highly intelligent, Ella is also a graduate of Oxford University, where she obtained an MPhil degree in Social Anthropology from Linacre College. Their courtship was passionate and public – the couple were often spotted in clinches and made it on to Tatler's 'most invited' list two years running. At one point they were tipped to marry. Taseer travelled with the Kents – revealing how 'to fly with the royalty was to fly with Easyjet' – and spent time at the family's five-bedroom apartment at Kensington Palace, which left him cold. 'The warren of dark-brick apartments and offices that greeted me resembled something between a military hospital and an old people's home,' he wrote. 'All the famous inhabitants - Princess Margaret, Princess Diana - were dead, and those who remained, minor royals and palace secretaries, lived in their long cold shadow.' (This was years before the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived to 'liven it up', as he put it.) Princess Michael of Kent, known as 'Princess Pushy', was reportedly impressed by her daughter's beau, once describing him as 'one of the most handsome men I have ever met'. But Taseer's opinion of his would-be mother-in-law was rather more conflicted. Of her denials of racism, he wrote: 'I would have liked to believe her, but I had my and Nazis go together like blini and above a certain age in Britain is at least a tiny bit racist.' He added that he did, however, see a 'nice side' to Princess Michael, describing her as 'funny, intelligent and generous'. Queen Elizabeth II and Princess Michael of Kent watch the racing on Derby day at the Investec Derby Festival at Epsom Racecourse on June 7, 2014 Before the relationship fizzled out in 2006, the Kents reportedly travelled to Bombay to meet Taseer's mother. She arranged lavish dinners and fireworks for Princess Michael on her birthday. Taseer is now a writer-at-large for T, The New York Times Style Magazine, and is married to lawyer Ryan Davis, whom he wed in August 2015. He was stripped of his overseas citizenship of India status in 2019 after he wrote an article criticising the regime of the country's prime minister, Narendra Modi. Meanwhile, Princess Michael once allegedly told black diners to 'go back to the colonies' and claimed not to know her father was an SS officer. In 2004 she was branded a racist by a group in a New York restaurant after a row erupted over the noise she claimed they were making. The royal was accused of slamming her hand down on the group's table, telling them: 'You need to quiet down.' Restaurant boss Silvano Marchetto offered to move Princess Michael and her party to another room. Before switching tables the royal is alleged to have said 'you need to go back to the colonies'. The princess was reportedly challenged at the time and was said to have replied: 'I did not say "back to the colonies", I said you "should remember the colonies". Back in the days of the colonies there were rules that were very good.' She is alleged to have continued: 'You think about it. Just think about it.' One of the group, Wall Street banker Merv Matheson, said: 'She has a problem and that problem is racism. She needs help.' AJ Callaway was also caught up in the alleged row and was surprised to find out she was a member of the Royal family. 'I thought she was just a crazy woman. I still think she's a crazy woman,' he said at the time. A spokesman denied that the princess made the slur, which reportedly arose from a confrontation about the group making too much noise in the Da Silvano restaurant. In 2014 it was revealed her father, Baron Gunther von Reibnitz, was a high-ranking SS officer, which the Princess Michael claimed was shocking news to her. He joined the Nazi party in 1930 but would escape to Bavaria in 1945 when it was occupied by the Americans. Princess Michael was born Marie-Christine von Reibnitz during the final months of World War Two. Historian Philip Hall unearthed the baron's Nazi link at the Berlin Document Centre, where evidence showed he had joined the SS three years before Hitler became chancellor. He also found references to Baron Gunther von Reibnitz being recommended for an appointment by Herman Goering and he is believed to have fought on the Polish front. After the war's end, the baron split from his family. The children and their mother headed to Sydney, Australia, and he settled in Mozambique, where he ran a citrus farm. The Czech princess joined the British Royal Family when she married Prince Michael of Kent in Vienna in 1978 and would later claim her union with the Silesian was an arranged marriage. She famously accused the British of racism in the 1980s when she said in an interview: 'The English distrust foreigners. I will never become British even if I live here the rest of my life.' She was branded Princess Pushy until 2013, when she was described as Princess Cushy for whinging about the rent she paid to Kensington Palace. Before 2010 she was paying just £69 a week in peppercorn rent, but would go on to pay £120,000 a year to stay at the palace, which has ten main rooms. The new rent rate was imposed when the late Queen was forced to restructure her grace-and-favour residences to bring rents into line with present-day market values. She also courted controversy when she told Tatler magazine she knew 'the real story' about Princess Diana following her death in 1997.
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
'My world crumbled': The teenage girl who found out her dad was a child sex offender
Ava was heading home from Pizza Hut when she found out her dad had been arrested. Warning: This article includes references to indecent images of children and suicide that some readers may find distressing It had been "a really good evening" celebrating her brother's birthday. Ava (not her real name) was just 13, and her brother several years younger. Their parents had divorced a few years earlier and they were living with their mum. Suddenly Ava's mum, sitting in the front car seat next to her new boyfriend, got a phone call. "She answered the phone and it was the police," Ava remembers. "I think they realised that there were children in the back so they kept it very minimal, but I could hear them speaking." "I was so scared," she says, as she overheard about his arrest. "I was panicking loads because my dad actually used to do a lot of speeding and I was like: 'Oh no, he's been caught speeding, he's going to get in trouble.'" But Ava wasn't told what had really happened until many weeks later, even though things changed immediately. "We found out that we weren't going to be able to see our dad for, well we didn't know how long for - but we weren't allowed to see him, or even speak to him. I couldn't text him or anything. I was just wondering what was going on, I didn't know. I didn't understand." Ava's dad, John, had been arrested for looking at indecent images of children online. We hear this first-hand from John (not his real name), who we interviewed separately from Ava. What he told us about his offending was, of course, difficult to hear. His offending went on for several years, looking at indecent images and videos of young children. His own daughter told us she was "repulsed" by what he did. But John wanted to speak to us, frankly and honestly. He told us he was "sorry" for what he had done, and that it was only after counselling that he realised the "actual impact on the people in the images" of his crime. By sharing his story, he hopes to try to stop other people doing what he did and raise awareness about the impact this type of offence has - on everyone involved, including his unsuspecting family. John tells us he'd been looking at indecent images and videos of children since 2013. "I was on the internet, on a chat site," he says. "Someone sent a link. I opened it, and that's what it was. "Then more people started sending links and it just kind of gathered pace from there really. It kind of sucks you in without you even realising it. And it becomes almost like a drug, to, you know, get your next fix." John says he got a "sexual kick" from looking at the images and claims "at the time, when you're doing it, you don't realise how wrong it is". 'I told them exactly what they would find' At the point of his arrest, John had around 1,000 indecent images and videos of children on his laptop - some were Category A, the most severe. Referencing the counselling that he since received, John says he believes the abuse he received as a child affected the way he initially perceived what he was doing. "I had this thing in my mind," he says, "that the kids in these were enjoying it." "Unfortunately, [that] was the way that my brain was wired up" and "I'm not proud of it", he adds. John had been offending for several years when he downloaded an image that had been electronically tagged by security agencies. It flagged his location to police. John was arrested at his work and says he "straight away just admitted everything". "I told them exactly what they would find, and they found it." The police bailed John - and he describes the next 24 hours as "hell". "I wanted to kill myself," he remembers. "It was the only way I could see out of the situation. I was just thinking about my family, my daughter and my son, how is it going to affect them?" But John says the police had given information about a free counselling service, a helpline, which he called that day. "It stopped me in my tracks and probably saved my life." 'My world was crumbling around me' Six weeks later, John was allowed to make contact with Ava. By this point she describes how she was "hysterically crying" at school every day, not knowing what had happened to her dad. But once he told her what he'd done, things got even worse. "When I found out, it genuinely felt like my world was crumbling around me," Ava says. "I felt like I couldn't tell anyone. I was so embarrassed of what people might think of me. It sounds so silly, but I was so scared that people would think that I would end up like him as well, which would never happen. "It felt like this really big secret that I just had to hold in." "I genuinely felt like the only person that was going through something like this," Ava says. She didn't know it then, but her father also had a sense of fear and shame. "You can't share what you've done with anybody because people can get killed for things like that," he says. "It would take a very, very brave man to go around telling people something like that." And as for his kids? "They wouldn't want to tell anybody, would they?" he says. For her, Ava says "for a very, very long time" things were "incredibly dark". "I turned to drugs," she says. "I was doing lots of like Class As and Bs and going out all the time, I guess because it just was a form of escape. "There was a point in my life where I just I didn't believe it was going to get better. I really just didn't want to exist. I was just like, if this is what life is like then why am I here?" 'The trauma is huge for those children' Ava felt alone, but research shows this is happening to thousands of British children every year. Whereas suspects like John are able to access free services, such as counselling, there are no similar automatic services for their children - unless families can pay. Professor Rachel Armitage, a criminology expert, set up a Leeds-based charity called Talking Forward in 2021. It's the only free, in-person, peer support group for families of suspected online child sex offenders in England. But it does not have the resources to provide support for under-18s. "The trauma is huge for those children," Prof Armitage says. "We have families that are paying for private therapy for their children and getting in a huge amount of debt to pay for that." Prof Armitage says if these children were legally recognised as victims, then if would get them the right level of automatic, free support. It's not unheard of for "indirect" or "secondary" victims to be recognised in law. Currently, the Domestic Abuse Act does that for children in a domestic abuse household, even if the child hasn't been a direct victim themselves. In the case of children like Ava, Prof Armitage says it would mean "they would have communication with the parents in terms of what was happening with this offence; they would get the therapeutic intervention and referral to school to let them know that something has happened, which that child needs consideration for". We asked the Ministry of Justice whether children of online child sex offenders could be legally recognised as victims. "We sympathise with the challenges faced by the unsuspecting families of sex offenders and fund a helpline for prisoners' families which provides free and confidential support," a spokesperson said. But when we spoke with that helpline, and several other charities that the Ministry of Justice said could help, they told us they could only help children with a parent in prison - which for online offences is, nowadays, rarely the outcome. None of them could help children like Ava, whose dad received a three-year non-custodial sentence, and was put on the sex offenders' register for five years. "These children will absolutely fall through the gap," Prof Armitage says. "I think there's some sort of belief that these families are almost not deserving enough," she says. "That there's some sort of hierarchy of harms, and that they're not harmed enough, really." 'People try to protect kids from people like me' Ava says there is simply not enough help - and that feels unfair. "In some ways we're kind of forgotten about by the services," she says. "It's always about the offender." John agrees with his daughter. "I think the children should get more support than the offender because nobody stops and ask them really, do they?" he says. " Nobody thinks about what they're going through." Although Ava and John now see each other, they have never spoken about the impact that John's offending had on his daughter. Ava was happy for us to share with John what she had gone through. "I never knew it was that bad," he says. "I understand that this is probably something that will affect her the rest of her life. "You try to protect your kids, don't you. People try to protect their kids from people like me."
