FEATURES...FEATURES...FEATURES...FEATURES...FEATURES...

ANGELA'S THREE-YEAR-OLD GIRL SUFFERED A HORRIFIC ATTACK BY A PAEDOPHILE AND NOW THE MONSTER FACES EARLY RELEASE

By Nic North

Every night is the same. Just after midnight, Angela is woken by her daughter’s terrified screams.

She runs to the little girl’s bedroom and, fighting back tears, peers inside cupboards and beneath the bed.

Only when her distraught daughter has seen Angela complete this nocturnal ritual does she finally calm down.

Then they cuddle in bed together until dawn, Angela’s arms wrapped reassuringly around the tiny five-year-old’s body.

This is the heartbreaking legacy of J’s abduction two years ago by paedophile Craig Sweeney, who snatched her from her family home and raped her three times in a crime that sickened Britain.

Astonishingly, despite being sentenced to life in prison in June 2006, Sweeney could be paroled in just three years and is already making plans to change his name on release.

Because he pleaded guilty, Sweeney was ordered to serve a minimum of just five years and 108 days.

The sentence horrified politicians and the public alike.

But Attorney General Lord Goldsmith refused to refer the case to the Court of Appeal.

“How can he be freed when my daughter is in a living hell?” asks Angela.

“She’s inconsolable every night. She shouts: ‘The nasty man is going to get me’, and begs me to check inside her wardrobe and under the bed.

"Sometimes we go through every room in the house.

“I stroke her cheeks and whisper: ‘It’s all right, no one will ever hurt you again. Mummy’s here.’

“I barely sleep. I’m so desperate to help her, it’s all that keeps me going.

"I’ve wanted to end my life many times because I can’t bear what that monster did to my baby, but I could never do that to her.”

The horrific attack occurred after Sweeney, now 26, called at the family’s home one evening in January 2006.

They had known him when he was younger and he’d carried out odd jobs for them, but they hadn’t seen him for years.

Unknown to Angela, 37, and partner James, 38, a self-employed businessman, Sweeney was already a child-sex convict and had been released early from jail on licence.

They invited him in.

But while Angela was on the phone, he grabbed J and bolted.

Frantic with worry, Angela and James rushed out to get his car number plate then rang police.

Sweeney drove terrified J to a bail hostel in Newport, South Wales.

He raped her, then bundled her back into the car where he assaulted her again.

He was arrested after he crashed with J in the car during a police chase in Swindon.

When Angela was reunited with her daughter in hospital, she barely recognised her.

The bubbly child she knew was lying lifeless on a bed with cuts to her head, stomach and leg.

The assaults had damaged her internally – doctors are still unsure whether she’ll be able to have children – but it’s the emotional trauma which is proving hardest to heal.

At first, J couldn’t bear even her mother’s touch and didn’t speak for a week.

There was a breakthrough when J started primary school this year.

Angela says: “Starting school is fantastic. She goes in every day and is starting to make friends.

"When I watch her walk through the gates I’m so proud. She is dealing with so much yet coping so well.”

Angela says her whole family have felt the dreadful impact of the attack.

“It’s hard for us all, as J says such heartbreaking things.

"She once said: ‘Mummy, I was waiting for you to come and get me when the nasty man took me and you didn’t come’ – which made me burst into tears.

"I tried to reassure her, but I worry she might think we’ve let her down.”

Angela has now joined forces with Sara Payne – the mother of eight-year-old Sarah, who was abducted and murdered by Roy Whiting – to fight for Sarah’s Law.

Backed by the News of the World, the law would give parents the right to know if predatory paedophiles are living in their area.

 “No other child should have to go through what my daughter did,” she adds.

Names have been changed to protect the family’s identity.

 

Do you think Craig Sweeney should be released after only three years? What do you think the correct sentencing should be? Can people like Craig change? Should convicted paedophiles be allowed to live in communities under supervision or locked-up for life?

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE FABULOUS DISCUSSION

 

Photography: Huw Evans, Rhian Ap Gruffydd