A rape victim who was impregnated in the attack which took place when she was 14 is fighting to keep her attacker away from her daughter as he keeps the right to apply for visitation seven years layer.

Jamie Melendez, 27, was found guilty of statutory rape and sentenced to 16 years probation for the 2009 assaults.

Melendez knew the girl, having met her through a friend of her older sister's. She said he pressured her into having sex with him four times.

The victim, who was in eighth grade at the time, became pregnant as a result of one of the attacks and gave birth to a baby girl in 2010.

He was arrested in 2009 and initially denied paternity to escape the charges but was proven to be her father by DNA tests ordered by the prosecutors.

In 2011, Melendez admitted four counts of statutory rape but was spared jail by a judge who said a probation sentence would allow him to work and pay her child support.

The child is now six and Melendez has been paying her mother, now 22, $110 a week.

Jamie Melendez, who pleaded guilty to four counts of statutory rape in 2011, (left), can apply as many times as he likes for visitation rights to the child he fathered in one of the attacks. His victim (right in disguise) is fighting to have that right stamped out

While he has never met the child, he applied for visitation rights in 2012 under the argument that since he is paying child support, he deserves the right to see her.

He was turned down by a judge who said his motives were insincere. It was claimed he was only using the threat of seeing the child to get the victim to relent in demanding child support payments.

The victim was forced to see him in family court 'many, many' times as a result, her lawyer said.

He can now return to court as many times as he likes to apply for the same rights until the child is 18.

In June, he stopped paying child support and has not yet been forced by the court to stump up the money. He was previously jailed for violating his probation for not reporting to his probation officer.

Melendez was 19 when he raped the girl four times. She was 14

He spent three months behind bars for the violation. Now, the victim is racing to have the case removed from family court before Melendez makes another application which will force her to come face-to-face with him.

'She is terrified that this new ruling means her rapist will soon be taking her child on visits as a way of ramping up the pressure to revoke the order requiring him to pay for the consequences of his crime,' Wendy Murphy, her lawyer, told DailyMail.com on Wednesday.

Ms Murphy said she would now take their case to the Supreme Judicial Court.

Massachusetts Court of Appeals denied the victim's request to have his rights stamped out

The case was turned over to the family court after Melendez's sentencing in 2011 - something the victim argues should never have happened.

RAPISTS CAN SUE FOR VISITATION AND CUSTODY IN 31 STATES Thirty-one states including the District of Columbia affords convicted rapists the right to apply in court for a relationship with a child they fathered in an attack. Some states have no laws whatsoever to prevent a rapist from claiming access to a child conceived in an attack. They are; Alabama, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Dakota, Wyoming. Others require a conviction to prevent action in court. These include; West Virginia, Washington, Virginia, Utah, Tennessee, Rhode Island, Oregon, Ohio, North Carolina, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Nebraska, Montana, Massachusetts, Maine, Kentucky, District of Columbia, Delaware, California, Arkansas and Arizona. Technically, Jamie Melendez has been stripped of his rights in being denied access to the child. He has not however been prevented from applying again, meaning he can continue to do so, putting his victim through the same process, until the child is 18. Advertisement

Outraged that the pair be treated in the same court as divorced parents and consenting couples, the girl argued that they were never a family despite the pair conceiving a child together.

She asked that instead of child support, he pay her in criminal restitution to help cover the cost of raising the baby.

The victim was however turned down. In 2013, when she was 19, she appeared in disguise for interviews with her lawyer to plead for a change in the law.

In them, she said she felt her attacker was using the legal system to victimize her all over again, a legal phenomenon often referred to as 'second rape'.

Her most recent effort to have his case quashed was to file a motion in appeals court to dismiss his argument. It was however rejected, with three judges upholding his right to apply in family court for a relationship with the girl.

In Massachusetts, a convicted rapist can be given parental visitation rights to a child he fathered during an attack if a judge decides it is in the child's best interest.

Murphy said it is not uncommon for rapists to use this right to get out of paying child support, threatening that they will apply for visitation unless the child's mother agrees they do not have to pay any.