WALKING around his home town of Stoke-on-Trent, 19-year-old Jayden Sheeran is constantly nervous, looking over his shoulder.
He told Fabulous: “I feel constantly under threat, I’m afraid to go in takeaways or do my deliveries in certain areas, as I never know who I might bump into – I shouldn't have to live this way in my own town.”;
The threat that overshadows Jayden's life is the that but were shockingly allowed to walk free – in particular the man that gang raped her and covered her in curry powder in a sick attack with his pals when she was aged 15, which resulted in his conception.
Even though DNA of a man was collected from Jodie’s body by police officers the night of the rape – no one was ever prosecuted for the callous attack.
In a crushing blow, the case was dropped before it reached court after authorities claimed there was not enough evidence – with delivery driver Jayden left with no answers as to who his father is and mum Jodie denied any justice.
What followed was a spiral of tragedies for Jayden who had to watch his young mum turn to alcohol and become embroiled in abusive relationships as she dealt with the trauma inflicted on her by the gangs – before her alcohol-related death age just 33.
Jayden, who became a dad himself aged 17, recalls ringing ambulances when his mum passed out from drink or watching on as she was beaten by abusive partners as a youngster.
He was then cruelly ripped away from his extended family and community in , and put into care hundreds of miles away in .
He says he is still dealing with the effects of his damaging childhood – including the feeling of not-belonging; rage towards the men who groomed and raped his mum; and bitter anger in authorities – , , and CPS – who he says utterly failed him and his mum, every step of the way.
Jayden’s story is a chilling reminder that are not a relic of the past but an ongoing tragedy, that has damaged entire families for generations – and are likely still destroying even more young lives today.
In an exclusive interview, brave Jayden said: “I wouldn't even call it a life – it's been more like a torture that I've had for the last 19 years I've been here.
“Growing up, obviously, I was blessed to have my nan and grandad to look out for me ….but obviously, all the stuff that's gone on with my mum, it's made me a bit lost and … I don't know who I actually am.
“What's gone on from then till now, it's still going on to this day.
“So nothing's changed. It's just obviously my mum's passed away and nothing's been done about it.”
Jayden said his childhood was marred with as his mum struggled with problems as a result of the grooming gang.
“When I was younger, she was in and out of relationships with abusive men and I'd see it happen,” he said.
“I know it all stemmed from the grooming because I think some of these men knew my mum was quite vulnerable.
I wouldn't even call it a life – it's been more like a torture that I've had for the last 19 years I've been here.
Jayden Sheeran
“She had no confidence and she had to have a drink before she met people because that's what type of person she was.”
Jayden said he always felt like he was different from other children, and had a feeling of not belonging – but it wasn't until he was about 11 that he was told the truth about how he was conceived.
His grandmother Ange, says then-teenage Jodie struggled to form a bond with Jayden after his birth because of the trauma of the rape.
He lived with his grandparents for most of his young childhood – although they shared parental responsibility with Jodie.
“As I was growing up, I started piecing stuff together. Like I'd look through my mum's phone and things like that, when she was sleeping,” Jayden said.
“Then I'd hear my nan talking and just started putting all the clues together – so it was like I knew where I came from, but I didn't know at the same time.
“Eventually when I got to a certain age, maybe end of primary school, my nan sat me down and told me the situation.”
“I grew up believing almost that, my grandad's my dad, my nan's my mum and my mum's my sister. That's what it was like. I always looked at my mum as like a sister,” he added.
“So it was strange and then even when I moved in with my mum, I'd never call her mum or things like that.
“So this has massively affected my whole relationship with her from the beginning, 100%.
“When my nan told me what had happened I don’t think I fully understood because I was young.
“I just remember all my mates in primary school, they always used to go on about going out with their dads, and they’d ask where my dad was and stuff like that.
“I already felt like absolute rubbish because I just felt different to all my friends at school because obviously they're doing things with their mums and dads but I'm with nan and grandad.
“I was more confused than angry back then but as I've grown up, I'd say I’m very angry towards the men that did that to my mum, definitely angry 100 percent.”
Mum's booze struggle
Jayden first moved in with his mum aged 13 and said it went “downhill” from there.
He said: “There was a teacher at school who I would have to ring every other week to get her coming out with ambulances and stuff because I'd come home from school and my mum would be passed out and things like that.
“When I was living with her I realised how bad it was, it was crazy, I've never known anything like it and I know around this area there's loads of people who drink and whatever but the way my mum did it was unbelievable.
“It was scary sometimes, it was dead scary.
“She didn’t drink all the time, she’d go months without then I’d come home from school and there would be a certain smell to the house and I start seeing drinks around the house and she’d be absolutely leathered or passed out.
“My first instinct, whenever I found my mum drunk – whether she can walk in a straight line or not – I'll ring an ambulance to try and get her help. That was the plan. And it's a lot of responsibility. I was dead lost.
“That’s why I used to have to ring my teacher at school because she used to come and help because I didn't know what to do.”
Groomed at 12
Jodie, whose mum Ange has been tirelessly campaigning for justice since her death in 2022, suffered crippling low self esteem after being groomed from the aged of 12 or 13 by older Asian males.
They would ply her with gifts and drinks and drive her around to hotels – including the one she was gang raped in November 2004 at the gang's Eid celebration.
She moved in with a violent partner when Jayden was 16 and the pattern of abuse she'd experienced since a teen repeated itself yet again.
Her partner had got the bucket of sick and tipped all over her. It was disgusting, vile. But she couldn’t see a way out. It was like she was used to being controlled and abused
Jayden Sheeran
“She'd been with this bloke for over a year and when she'd relapsed this bloke would actually help her, but then he started getting a lot more abusive towards her once they'd been seeing each other for a year,” Jayden recalled.
“I came home once and my mum had been drinking but she was covered in sick from her head to all down and I'm saying ‘how have you done that?’ and her partner had got the bucket of sick and tipped all over.
“It was disgusting, vile. But she couldn’t see a way out. It was like she was used to being controlled and abused.
“One time he got all the clothes out of wardrobe and just sent them all off the balcony, just chucked him all over the floor and then me and him ended up having like a row and I got put in care from there.”;
Jayden described being in care as “isolating”; and he soon started getting in trouble for not following the rules and staying out too late. He got kicked out of college and eventually sent to a care home in Scotland as he was deemed as “at high risk”; due to frequently going missing.
Desperately unhappy in Scotland, Jayden moved back to Stoke and lived in supported accommodation, aged 17.
Traumatic death
It was then, in November 2022, he got the shocking news his mother had been found dead at her home from alcoholic ketoacidosis.
“I was on the way to see the mum of my kid, and my aunty started calling, I thought it was weird she was calling,” Jayden said.
“And then she started screaming on the phone saying that my mum had died and I didn't believe it. I thought I was dreaming or something like that.
“I was in a taxi at the time. I just remember I got out of the taxi. I rang my kid's mum straight away, I was like ‘My mum's died, my mum's died’ and I just started crying my eyes out. I broke down, I fell to the floor … I didn't know what to do with myself.
“Then my uncle came and took me to my mum's house where obviously I had to see her to believe it.
“The police were saying no one's allowed in to my mum's bedroom – which is where she died – and I just thought I'm getting in regardless.
Grooming is a big thing, it's as bad as murder in my opinion, because people are dying from it and if they're not dying, they're dying mentally.
Jayden Sheeran
“So I went in and I just sat in the room with my mum for about half an hour. It was probably one of the worst things I've seen in my life. It was shocking.
“She was covered in blood and stuff all around her. It was awful to see.
“I think it's like she must have choked on her blood. I don't know exactly. I know she didn't want to die, she was scared of dying.
“Even if she had a headache she'd be on the phone straight away to the doctors.
“She was dead scared of like dying and she just never thought she'd die. She thought like she could keep going and going and nothing's going to happen.”;
Grooming gang to blame
Jayden firmly lays the blame for his mum’s death at the grooming gang’s door.
“If you look at photos when she was younger before the grooming she used to do like singing and things like that,” he said.
“And then from doing all that and to turn into an alcoholic, it's obvious it had a huge impact on her life.
“With her being raped and things like that, I can imagine it does a lot to your head. I just can't imagine.
“Even with my little sister, who was born after me, she was drinking through her pregnancy.
“So I'd definitely put it down to the grooming and all the other stuff, her case being dropped. She got let down by all the services around here.”;
Jayden hopes his story will inspire others to speak out and demand justice for victims who remain silenced and ignored.
“My nan has been fighting for justice for years and at first I didn't really want to get involved in it, I was like, my mum, she's already died now, what more can we do? Let's just move on,” Jayden said.
“But obviously my nan was so determined to get something done, it's only right I try and help and that's what I'm trying to do.
“I just want to help my nan get justice for my mum, and speak out against the CPS and the police for failing my mum.
Victims too scared to report
“I thought, if I come out and speak then people might not be scared to come out in the future.
“There will be loads out there that are probably a bit too scared to report this stuff because these males are very dangerous.
“I don't feel safe walking around in my own area, I think it's a dangerous place, so I can't imagine what the actual victims feel like, I reckon they're proper scared.”
Jodie's brazen attacker even admitted he was Jayden's dad in a phone call when he was in his early teens.
Shockingly, Jayden has had several threatening encounters with the man – believed to be his biological father – who was originally charged with his mum's rape before the charges were dropped the day of the trial.
“When my mum was alive, I found out his name through my mum, I'd get things out of her when she'd had a drink so off my own back, I found him on Facebook,” Jayden said.
These people are dangerous and it's scary, I don't feel safe in my own city, it's mental, constantly I don't know if I should trust people, I can't speak to certain people anymore because I don't know if they know him. I'm dead paranoid.
Jayden Sheeran
“I rang him and he was calling me ‘son’ at this point, so bearing in mind this is probably two years before my mum passed away, he's saying if I go to him, he'll look after me, if I follow his rules but I wouldn't be allowed to see or speak to my mum.
“So I just thought no chance and never spoke to him again.
“Then when my mum passed away, there was a taxi driver who used to pick me up, and I was speaking to him about what happened to my mum and he told me the guy who raped my mum was his uncle.
“I swear to God I didn't know what to do with myself. Then that same night I got a phone call from him [the accused rapist] and he was getting mad, saying he wants nothing to do with me.
“Basically he's gone from calling me son, to then realising my mum's died and now saying he's nothing to do with me.
“I was saying ‘You've raped my mum, that's what you've done’ and he said: ‘Don't ever say them words to me!’
“It was nasty and for weeks and weeks and weeks he was trying, he was trying to find me, he was trying to meet me, he'd spam my phone, I just ended up blocking him.”
Chilling encounter
Jayden added: “Then just a few weeks ago I saw him in a takeaway, I'd just finished work, I'd gone to get some food, I was sat there and he walked in.
“I s**t myself, I thought if he finds out it's me, I don't know what he's going to do.
“He just nodded his head at me and I'm thinking he hasn't recognised me, then as I was walking out I said to him, ‘Do you remember me?’
“Then he was like, ‘Do you know who I am?’ I felt threatened. So I just walked out.
“I feel threatened to this day. My nan doesn't but she should because he knows where my nan lives, that's why I'm trying to get my story out there.
“These people are dangerous and it's scary, I don't feel safe in my own city, it's mental, constantly I don't know if I should trust people, I can't speak to certain people anymore because I don't know if they know him. I'm dead paranoid.
“I still believe grooming is happening around here. I found my mum's rapist on social media and he has all these young girl followers.
“Once people do stuff like this grooming, raping, etc they don't suddenly stop do they?
“Especially when they have just been allowed to get away with it, it boils my blood.”
As bad as murder
Jayden does not think people realise the impact grooming has had on entire communities – and he resents people who thinks he is racist for telling his story.
He said: “I don’t think people realise. I think people are just throwing it under the bus like it's nothing.
“Grooming is a big thing, it's as bad as murder in my opinion, because people are dying from it and if they're not dying, they're dying mentally.
“They’re growing up and then they're dying mentally, they've got nothing left in them and they're not telling any one because they're scared.”;
Jayden is currently part of two lawsuits, the first of which is fighting for children conceived from rape to be recognised as victims under the criminal injuries compensation scheme so they can access the additional care and support.
The second is a lawsuit against Staffordshire Police for failing his family.
He is also willing to give his DNA to police to see if it matches the DNA taken from his mother on the night of her rape.
“That would prove without a doubt what happened and who my dad is,” he said.
“It’s confusing to me they don’t want to take my DNA because then it'd be like case solved.
“But the fact that they won't, to me it seems like they're trying to cover it all up and just hide it, throw it under the bus type thing.”;
Staffordshire Police did not respond when asked why Jayden's DNA cannot be used as evidence, but they did provide a detailed statement on the case below.
Jayden is clear that he wants to see the man who fathered him to be put behind bars.
“I think he should go to jail. Obviously, I don’t think it’s going to happen, but I think he should definitely go to jail and pay for what he's done,” he said.
“They feel that they are getting away with it. So once they've got away with it, once it's like, yeah, we'll do it again and again and again, and it'll just carry on.
“It won't stop until they finally get caught for what they've done. And even then, will they change? Probably not.
“Rapists don't even get a long time in jail either. You look and it's a couple of years, what's that for someone's life? You've ruined someone's life and you're getting a slap on the wrist. That's what it basically is, isn't it?
‘I'm not a racist'
“And this happens in all cities, all different races. It's not just Asian males, I believe it's all sorts, everyone. And I think that's one of the big things I believe because, and I'm far from racist, obviously I’m half Asian myself and I've got loads of Asian male friends.
“I feel like because the Asian males in the grooming gangs have got a lot of links with businesses like takeaways, taxis, hotels, solicitors – so they get away with it a lot easier.
“I know that my so-called dad or whatever he is to me, he linked up with good solicitors as well.
“People can look at me after this and they can call me racist, but I’m not and this is not about that, my point is, how are they all getting away with it?
“I believe the reason is because they all know certain people, because it is a big network all around the country, they all stick together, their businesses are linked.
“That saying it's not what you know, it's who you know, and that's exactly them.
“This is not about race, it’s a big national network who all looked after each other. And it’s hard to win a fight like this against them.”;
