The father of the 14-year-old victim who was sexually assaulted by the Epping migrant said he is “disgusted” with Labour, which has failed them “relentlessly”. Hadush Kebatu, who was staying at the controversial Bell Hotel in Essex, was sentenced to one year in prison last month after he sexually assaulted a woman and a girl just days after illegally arriving in the UK on a small boat. However, weeks after he was jailed, Kebatu was wrongly released, sparking a two-day manhunt.
The dad of the youngest victim has now spoken out and said all the government has been doing is “breaking us as a family”, and they have yet to receive an apology. “She was getting better until last weekend. All I can do now is try and pick up the pieces that the government will keep breaking off my daughter,” he anonymously told ITV News, to protect his daughter’s identity.
He continued: “All they do is keep breaking us as a family. Like from July, from that very first phone call until now, we’ve just been let down relentlessly, time and time again.
“We haven’t had a single apology from the government. We haven’t had a single apology or any recognition whatsoever.
“It’s just been failure after failure after failure. And, you know, I’m disappointed. More than anything, I’m disgusted.”
The girl previously shared a written statement explaining how she can no longer sleep because she “was so worried he was going to come back to Epping looking for me”.
“I didn’t want to be in Epping because I was so scared I was going to see him and he would recognise me,” she said.
“I think it’s disgusting how me and my family have been treated in all of this and it’s not fair that he was released by accident.
“I feel like I was put in danger all over again and all the feelings from that day came back.”
In response to Kebatu’s attacks, nationwide protests erupted outside of migrant hotels over the summer.
The girl’s father said: “I don’t condone a single bit of that. I don’t want any fighting, I don’t want any violence. I’m not racist, I’m not prejudiced. I never have been, and I never will be.
“There’s been no justice served, absolutely nothing. Seventeen weeks from the day he was arrested to the day he was deported. Seventeen weeks. Disgusting.
“There’s no justice system. It’s such a shame that we’ve been treated the way we have and we’ve had no help, no nothing.”
The Ministry of Justice has said that Prisons Minister Lord Timpson has offered to meet with representatives of the family.
Justice Secretary David Lammy also said last week in Parliament, but not to the family: “Of course I am sorry – sorry that any victim of crime had the anxious weekend that they had.”
