A 19-year-old girl, who was raped by her father for eight years and gave birth to his child, must now leave not only her home but also her country in fear, as he is released after his sentence is reduced.
Shannon Clifton gave birth at the age of 13 to the child of her 36-year-old father, who, according to the girl, abused her sexually and treated her as his wife.
Shannon, who grew up in Chaddesden, a suburb of Derby, UK, said she moved in with her father when she was five when her parents divorced.
The girl describes that at first she was nice to her father, but then he became violent, hitting her every time he came back from school. The first rape took place when they moved into a new apartment near Elvaston Castle.
The girl describes that she went to school "with bruises everywhere", but was forced to tell the teachers that she was playing and fighting with her cousins. After a while, Shannon and her father moved again. "Then everything started to get worse and rapes were more frequent, up to four times a day."
The girl reports that her father abused her before and after school and sometimes in the middle of the night, while she began to realize it happened at the age of 9, as in the sex education lesson at school she was taught that "no one should touches in these places ".
When Shannon was 11 years old, she noticed that her body began to change and realized she was pregnant.
He said: "I did not tell him for a while. But when I finally told him, he hit me. "Everything was really confusing, I was a child expecting a child."
She lost the baby at about 28 weeks, and in December 2012, she realized that she was pregnant again.
At the age of 12, the girl tried to talk to her teachers and a social worker, saying that her father had beaten her badly, but later realized that this was in vain, as they did not help her get to the hospital. "They did nothing about it, so I thought it made no sense to say anything. I put myself in greater danger by talking to them. I was scared It was easier to do nothing. "I thought it would last forever."
The tangle began to unravel when Shannon went to the hospital to give birth. In court she managed to stand up with courage and say everything she had experienced close to her father, and then, as she says, she received a multitude of messages of support, while many people wrote to her that she inspired them with her strength and courage.
Shannon kept her child for only a year and then gave it up for adoption. In April 2015, Shane Ray Clifton was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and later, his sentence was reduced to 10 years, which means that he will be released on parole.
The 19-year-old now trembles at the idea of her father approaching her again and wants to escape abroad. She is now a student of forensic psychology at Open University and plans to release her book, The Monster I Loved, before the end of the year.
Source: athensvoice