THE family of a girl sexually assaulted by the Epping hotel migrant say his £500 payment and bungled release have been the “biggest level of disrespect” they could face.
Hadush Kebatu, 41, took the cash to stop him disrupting his deportation to Ethiopia this week — while his 14-year-old victim’s family self-fund counselling for her ordeal.
Speaking through Epping councillor Shane Yerrell, the girl’s dad said: “The whole incident has been a horror story.
“From getting the phone call, to the court case, the sentencing, the accidental release, the £500 payoff. Everything. It has been the biggest level of disrespect to me and my family.
“It’s like the Government have rewarded him for his crimes. That’s how it feels.
“He had £500 and we haven’t even had contact or an apology, absolutely nothing.”
Kebatu was arrested in July and jailed for the attack but mistakenly freed on October 24.
The dad said: “I was blown away that (Justice Secretary) David Lammy still found it in his spineless body to laugh when called Calamity Lammy about all this.
“These people are in charge of this country and they are laughing in the faces of people talking about a sexual assault on a 14-year-old girl.”
The dad said he learned of his daughter’s ordeal in a call from his ex-wife and eldest daughter while driving home.
He said: “I had to pull over as I didn’t take in what they said. No parent should have to receive a call like that. I remember filling up with rage that a man had put his hand on my child and scared her.”
After a journalist told him that freed Kebatu had been spotted on Chelmsford high street, the dad stormed to the city’s jail to “demand answers”.
Kebatu was arrested in Finsbury Park, London, on Sunday.
The girl refused to leave the house on the weekend he was on the run.
Her dad added: “It brought back all fear, all the worries, all those horrible feelings.
“She was scared he would find her. Between the police and the prison service, they put that fear back into my child.
“I will hold them accountable for that for as long as I live.”
He says his daughter’s school has let them down after he claims the head gave an assembly telling the students they could engage with the residents of the migrant hotel.
He added: “As a family we are pulling through. I can’t thank Councillor Yerrell for all his support.
“We appreciate him so much. My daughter just wants to get back to her normal self doing what she loves doing. Her artwork, her singing and just being creative.”
