'As my son got worse, we needed help - I wasn't treated as a human being... until it was too late'

Tragic Awaab Ishak's father says he believes he wasn't treated 'as a human being' as he pleaded for help while his family was trapped in a flat riddled with deadly mould. The toddler died aged two following prolonged exposure to mould at a Rochdale Boroughwide Housing (RBH) flat on the Freehold estate.

Last November, his family's plight became the focus of a nation's fury after an inquest into the child's death uncovered the social housing landlord's shocking failure to act for months before tragedy struck. In the year since, a campaign to change the law - to make sure no family loses a child in such unthinkable circumstances - has been successful. In Awaab's name, real progress is being made.

Faisal Abdullah, Awaab's father, told the Manchester Evening News it was a 'good feeling' when he and his wife Aisha Amin were finally heard. Earlier, as the tragedy unfolded, he said he felt 'powerless'. The family, he said, was expected to simply 'get on' with it and deal with dangerous situation themselves.

READ MORE: To read all the M.E.N's stories on Awaab's Law, click here

READ MORE: 'We were finally listened to... but we still ask, what if?'

Faisal, 31, said: "I didn't feel actually that they treated me as a human being. The way I felt and the message that I got, it was 'here we are, RBH, we gave him accommodation, just live in that accommodation and get on with it.. just accept it as it is'.

Speaking through an interpreter, he added: "I didn't feel as though we were being listened to, they didn't consider [us]." On the steps of Rochdale Coroners' Court last year, the family urged RBH to 'stop being racist'.

It followed evidence of how staff assumed the family carried out what workers called 'bucket bathing', based