Prosecutor wants 25-year jail term for rapist dad who fathered 4 children with daughter (Melbourne, Australia)

UNNAMED DAD has pleaded guilty to sexually abusing his daughter for 28 years, and fathering 4 children with her. The daughter sought help from social workers and the like several times, but got no help from police until last year.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/prosecutor-wants-long-jail-term-for-fathers-incest-20100129-n46o.html

Prosecutor wants long jail term for father's incest
ADRIAN LOWE
January 30, 2010

A FATHER who sexually abused his daughter for 28 years and fathered four of her children should be jailed for up to 25 years, a court has heard.

The 66-year-old man's offending was among the most serious of its type and he had shown no real remorse outside his guilty plea, the County Court was told yesterday.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, pleaded guilty to 10 representative counts of incest, two counts of indecent assault and one count of assault.

The incest counts are collectively representative of more than 1000 occasions between 1977 and 2005 where the woman was forced to have sex with her father in the family home and her home in Melbourne and the Latrobe Valley.

Crown prosecutor Amanda Forrester said the woman's abuse continued while she was pregnant with the children and when she moved, her father pursued her.

Ms Forrester said the woman, now 45, was fearful that when she escaped, her father would hunt her down, find her and kill her.

On one occasion, when the daughter stood up to the father to refuse his advances, he pushed her against a wall and said: ''I'll teach you to knock me back.''

''You're damaged goods and no one will want you,'' the father told his daughter after one of the first occasions of abuse.

The court heard that one of the four children died shortly after birth and two of the three who live with their mother have disabilities.

The woman reported her father's behaviour to social workers and counsellors several times but police did not charge him until last year.

Ms Forrester said the man's offending was at the most serious end of the scale and constituted ''a gross breach of trust''.

Defence barrister Graham Thomas, SC, said his client realised that he was facing jail but the sentence imposed should give him some view to a life outside of custody.

''This isn't a calm, rational man offending. He was not that and he never was that in his life,'' he said.

''If and when he is released, he is an unlikely prospect of reoffending.''

Mr Thomas said the father had a personality disorder and had not been capable of making calm or rational decisions.

But Ms Forrester said no evidence had been advanced by psychologists that the man's personality disorder could be linked to his long history of sexual offending.

She said the daughter had had two-thirds of her life affected by abuse and the man should be jailed for between 22 and 25 years, with a non-parole period of 18 to 21 years.

''In these circumstances, it's somewhat ironic … that one of the factors of mitigation is the prospect of giving the offender the prospect of a meaningful life, when for so much of his life outside custody he has denied one to his own child,'' she said.

The father will be sentenced next month.