A woman was left by police to "lead the investigation herself" after her father fled to South Africa when he was charged with raping her as a child.

Kent Police has agreed to pay a five-figure damages settlement to the woman who says she's fought for 20 years for justice against her abuser.

The woman, who cannot be named to protect her identity, made the allegations in 1999 when she was aged 19 claiming her father sexually abused her for three years from the age of 13 in north Kent.

Despite her father being charged and granted bail following initial investigations, he left the UK and has never been extradited by police to face prosecution in the courts.

In her desperation to see her father brought to justice, the woman agreed to travel to South Africa when police asked her to and provided information as to his whereabouts.

But no action was taken by the force.

An internal investigation by Kent Police into the way the case was handled found officers had expected the woman to "do all the work" in locating him but made no attempts to verify the information or work with South African authorities which had offered to help.

The woman, now in her 40s and is a mother to a daughter in her 20s, says she endured almost two decades chasing up the police to progress the case without success.

In 2018, she says she felt she had "lost her fight" and no longer wanted to pursue it anymore and instructed solicitors to investigate Kent Police on her behalf.

The woman, who now volunteers for a charity supporting victims, told KentOnline: "I'm annoyed about how it transpired in the sense that I didn't get justice but I think I gave up a long time ago.

"What's kept me going was trying to get them to acknowledge the problem and fix their internal processes that were broken.

"With the work I do with charity I see lots of people like me and they will not accept that their processes are broken. They're not fixed and the fact the police don't acknowledge that says to me they won't get fixed."

She said being left to investigate her own father and abuser was "traumatising".

"I'm annoyed about how it transpired in the sense that I didn't get justice but I think I gave up a long time ago..."

"They made me search Facebook and ask family members," she said. "My daughter was 15 – they realised through conversations she was in contact and asked if she could track him down, which I thought was inappropriate.

"It's laziness I think. They had lost my file. I reported them to the IPCC (now IOPC) and they tracked it down.

"They should have carried it through. They had the evidence they needed.

"I told them he would skip the country and had another passport. They didn't do anything and he did."

She says winning the case against police has been "bittersweet" and has not been able to achieve everything she wanted by seeing her abuser convicted.

"Life is really good now. I dealt with being a victim a long time ago.

"Now I can say it's closed and I can just enjoy what's left of my life. It's taken 22 years but I'm pleased it's closed and I can move forward with my family.

"I never wanted compensation, but in many ways I lost my will to continue fighting for the police to do the right thing.

"The last straw was when they asked for my medical records, years after the investigation had repeatedly stalled, and an officer described them as ‘good stuff’ when talking about the most harrowing moments of my life.

"I know they’ve not made any admissions over failings, and I haven’t had an apology for the way they have treated me as a victim, but in my mind people don’t pay compensation if they don’t believe they’ve done anything wrong.

"It is perhaps as close to an apology as I can get, and in some way an acknowledgement of the damage they have caused me."

Acting assistant chief constable Andy Pritchard from Kent Police's crime command, said an internal review carried out by the force after a receiving a complaint in 2017 which found the "overall quality of the investigation had fallen below the standards expected".

"The overall quality of the investigation had fallen below the standards expected..."

He added an officer was issued with "management action and an apology offered to the victim".

Asst Ch Con Pritchard said: "Further correspondence was received from the victim in 2018 alleging losses as a consequence of a breach of the Human Rights Act and on June 9, 2021 Kent Police agreed an out of court settlement to the victim, which the force hopes will provide some sort of closure to what was undoubtedly a very difficult time for the victim.

"It is important to note that this complaint dates back to an investigation in 1999 and is therefore not a reflection of the improved investigative standards and victim support we have now.

"Victims and witnesses are at the heart of everything we do and the public should have every confidence that when they contact us, their report will be thoroughly investigated."

Solicitor Adam Biglin, of Hudgell Solicitors who represented the woman, said the case had been "woefully handled at every stage and every level".

To get the latest updates in ongoing cases, police appeals and criminals put behind bars, click here

Read more: All the latest news from Kent