NSW parents sentenced to jail for raping, torturing daughter for 15 years

A mother and father from New South Wales have each been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for sexually abusing and torturing their daughter for 15 years. The father was sentenced to 48 years, while the mother was given 16 years.

Judge Sarah Huggett of Sydney’s District Court said the 59-year-old father is likely to die in jail as he would only be eligible for parole in 2049. He was found guilty of 73 offences, including repeatedly raping his daughter from when she was only 5 years old. The mother, 51, was convicted of 13 offences, including child rape. She will be eligible for parole in 2027.

Both parents pleaded not guilty by a jury earlier this year following a months-long trial. The judge said during the two-day sentencing on Thursday and Friday that they have shown no remorse over their offences, which Huggett called “atrocious in the extreme.”

The court heard that the abuse began in February 1997 when the father walked into the girl’s room naked while his wife was at the hospital giving birth. He forced himself on his daughter, and since then had continued regularly for 15 years. The girl was abused in the dilapidated shed on their property. On several occasions, she was bound with rope and left wounded in the shed for several nights. The father also used metal instruments to rape the girl, who had buried them in a bid to stop him from using them on her.

The father also threatened to kill her on many occasions, warning her never to tell anyone what he was doing to her. “I own you,” he told the girl.

In 2000, after the family arrived home from a local pub, the mother drunkenly offered her then-8-year-old daughter advice on how to please her father during sex. “It makes it better if you make noises,” she said. The court also learned that the girl was forced to have sex with both her parents simultaneously.

The abuse only came to the attention of authorities when the victim was admitted to a psychiatric ward in 2011. She helped the police locate some of the tools of torture that her parents had used on her. DNA evidence on the tools and her clothing found in the shed supported her statement, according to the ABC. Her sister also gave evidence supporting her.

The girl requires ongoing treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and dissociative identity disorder she developed from her experience.

Her parents were trusted members of the community and who worked in the teaching profession before the abuse was found out.