My ‘respectable’ PC dad passed me around like a prize in family sex abuse ring – I escaped but cops didn’t believe me

CLUTCHING a battered library copy of Cinderella, Rhanna Latham dreamed of being rescued just like her storybook heroine.

Behind the closed doors of a modest suburban home, she endured years of abuse at the hands of the very people who were supposed to protect her.

Rhanna believes her dad began to abuse her at just two years old[/caption]

While her classmates giggled over pop stars and sleepovers, Rhanna was subjected to a decade of sexual abuse by her own father, his cousin and her great-uncle.

But through the darkest days of her childhood between Edinburgh and Hamilton, Scotland, she found a glimmer of hope in her favourite fairytale.

She told The Sun: “When I was a child, I used to read Cinderella over and over at the library. I always related to her story.

“I felt trapped in a life I didn’t choose, surrounded by people who were meant to care for me but only caused suffering.

“It was the only thing that gave me hope – that one day someone would realise what was happening and take me away.”

Rhanna, 29, was just two years old when her police officer father first sexual abused her.

Predatory paedophile Craig Hodgkins, 54, hid behind a cloak of respectability in public as a PC with then Lothian and Borders Police in Edinburgh.

But behind closed doors, he sexually abused his daughter, passing her “like a parcel” to her great-uncle Alexander Phillips, 59.

Both men sexually abused her regularly knowing what the other one was doing in the horrific family sex abuse ring.

Rhanna says: “‘I was really too young to know what was happening to me.

“I was four at the time but I have blurred memories of it happening when I was about two.

“All I remember was the horrible grinning faces and the smell of stale breath. I remember the pain and being tossed around like a rag doll.

“I was unable to fight back or even understand why it was happening. Those early years were filled with fear I didn’t have words for.”

Rhanna says that her dad’s public persona was a far cry from what he was like behind closed doors.

She says: “My dad worked hard to craft a public image as a devoted single parent handling everything alone. But in private he was anything but the man he pretended to be.

He told me I was getting what I deserved and insisted no one would believe me anyway – especially because he was in the police.

Rhanna Latham

Rhanna as a young girl. She describes feeling like a ‘rag doll’ as she was passed around[/caption]

Another abuser was her great-uncle, Alexander Philips[/caption]

“He would constantly warn me not to speak to anyone.

“He told me I was getting what I deserved and insisted no one would believe me anyway – especially because he was in the police.

“As a frightened child, you believe those things.

“His eyes were a cold, piercing blue – and to this day, those are what haunt me in my nightmares. There was just nothing human behind them.”

‘Passed around like a parcel’

Aged 10, Rhanna then began being abused by her father’s cousin, Colin Murray, 64.

For two years, she was subjected to unspeakable sexual violence at the monster’s hands.

Rhanna says: “The abuse went on until I was twelve. That’s a decade of my life – a stolen childhood. There was no childhood at all.

“It became normal and I didn’t know any different. But the night with Colin Murray – that was the worst. That’s the night that lives in my nightmares. That’s the night that took everything. Innocence, dignity, safety.

“I was passed around like a parcel between the men in my family. They all knew. It wasn’t hidden. It was orchestrated.”

Rhanna had bravely tried to raise the alarm aged 10, telling a social worker what was happening to her.

But the report instead found its way back to Hodgkins, who by this point had left the police, and was promptly shelved.

She says: “When I got home from school, I was made to stand in the middle of the room, and it was read out in front of me.

“And then I got battered from one end of the house to the other. So I kept my mouth shut.”

All I remember was the horrible grinning faces and the smell of stale breath. I remember the pain and being tossed around like a rag doll.

Rhanna Latham29

The abuse carried on until Rhanna was finally taken out of her father’s custody aged 12 when another child made allegations against him.

She then told police everything – yet justice still did not follow.

She says: “When I finally got taken out of my dad’s custody at 12, a police officer told me, ‘You don’t have to go back.

“I burst into tears. I couldn’t believe I was finally free.

“I poured my heart out, I told them I wasn’t being abused by just one fully grown male family member but three. But they said there wasn’t enough evidence.

“I felt so scared, helpless and alone knowing there was no one to protect me.”

Living in fear

For 15 years, Rhanna lived in fear her abusers were attacking other children.

She says: “It haunted me. I couldn’t protect myself – but maybe I could protect someone else.”

About three years ago, detectives got back in touch.

New allegations had been made – including shocking disclosures from others who revealed they had also been abused as children.

Rhanna gave a full video statement and was asked to do an ID parade to pick out her abusers.

She says: “I was shaking. I couldn’t even breathe during the ID parade. But I knew I had to be brave.

“Straight away, I said, stop the video, that’s my father. I was hyperventilating. I was actually physically sick, just seeing him again after all those years.

“It was the first time I had seen him since I left the house aged 12.

“I remember thinking his eyes are just dead.

“There’s no life behind them.”

Her father, from Hamilton, and Alexander Phillips, from South Queensferry, were jailed for 10 years each in late 2023. This month, Colin Murray was sentenced to six years.

All had pleaded not guilty, forcing Rhanna to relive her ordeal on the witness stand.

She recalls: “They forced me to stand in a courtroom and prove it, like it wasn’t real.

“What haunted me wasn’t just what they did to me – it was the fear they might do it to someone else. I had to speak, to stop them.

“When the verdict came in, I sobbed. Not just for me but for every other little girl who’s gone through the same horrors as I did at the hands of these three monsters.

“When my father was sentenced, he tried to shout at me in the courtroom. I hadn’t seen him in person since the day I was rescued.

“The police dragged him out before he could say anything.”

Remorseless Hodgkin and Phillips were found guilty of sexual offences against five young people aged between six and 13-years-old between 1978 and 2008 in  Edinburgh, Hamilton and Airdrie.

Murray, of Larkhall, was found guilty of rape between 2006 and 2008 and put on the sex offenders list for life.

While scarred by trauma and suffering complex post-traumatic stress, Rhanna finally got her real life fairytale.

‘Like my prince’

Her life turned around when she met husband Gary Latham, 49, in 2019.

The couple now live in Shetland – far away from the horrors endured on the mainland.

I used to see life in black, white, and grey. Then Gary came into my life – and he brought the colour back.

Rhanna Latham

Rhanna says: “Gary came into my life, like my prince, and rewrote the ending for me.

“I used to see life in black, white, and grey. Then Gary came into my life – and he brought the colour back.

“He told me, ‘I can’t fall in love with you while you’re destroying yourself.’ And something clicked. That’s when I started trying to live again.

“I still live with complex PTSD. I can’t work.

“Most days, I can’t leave the house without my husband. It’s like I’m still trapped in those rooms, still hearing their voices.

“But Gary is my safe place. I had zero trust in men before him. I don’t know how he broke through the walls – but he did.”

Rhanna found her Prince Charming and is now happily married[/caption]