Custodial dad kept daughter as "Cinderella-slave" for 11 years (London, England, United Kingdom)

UNNAMED DAD is on trial for the "horrific abuse" of his daughter over 11 years. It's easy to get lost as you read all the details of said abuse (torture) below. And what get's lost is that this father appears to have been CUSTODIAL, as there are brief references to shipping her back to her mother, a new wife, and five marriages in all. There is a very short mention of Daddy leaving his old family behind and "bringing" this girl with him, apparently when he moved away from his former family, so he could "care for her." Very odd.

Basically this article is an object lesson in how to write a mother out of the story. Was this girl just a sack of potatoes to be toted around as Daddy wished? Did her mother object? Was she threatened? (Wouldn't surprise me at all, if only half of what is said about this guy is true.) Just how did Daddy get custody anyway? Were the courts involved? Why isn't that clarified? From articles like this, you would never know that real human mothers are required to give birth to real human children, and that daddies don't just magically have custody. Behind every custodial father is a back story--in a way that just doesn't apply to mothers. Mothers are mothers on account of biology and the act of giving birth. Fathers are sometimes custodial because a mother died or became seriously incapacitated. But more often than not, there is an act of coercion somewhere in the past that just gets erased from the record--especially when the father's abuse and violence goes public.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354779/Father-kept-daughter-Cinderella-slave-11-years-abuse.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Father 'kept his daughter as Cinderella-slave during eleven years of horrific abuse'
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 3:27 PM on 8th February 2011

He 'submerged her in bath until she almost drowned'
'Wrapped her in masking tape in a zipped-up hold all and threatened to post her back to her mother'
'Shut her in bedroom for summer holidays'
'Yanked clumps of her hair pulled out and was spat at'

No respite: the father cannot be identified to protect his alleged victim

A 'father from hell' treated his daughter like a Cinderella-slave for 11 years as he subjected her to a catalogue of horrific abuse, a court has heard.

The cruelty meted out to the girl included pulling out her hair, telling her he wished she was dead and almost drowning her in a bath.

A jury was also told that the man wrapped the victim in masking tape and put her in a holdall, saying she would be posted back to her mother.

She was also allegedly kept in her bedroom for the entire summer holidays by her father, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

She is also said to have been forced to do all the household chores, before being manhandled around the house to do them again because she had not met his impossibly high standards.
Prosecutors said that the father 'treated his own daughter with an extraordinary cruelty'.

'He treated her like a modern-day Cinderella - Cinders with no Prince Charming or a happy ending or her,' Sean Brunton told Exeter Crown Court.

'She became the household slave, the butt of his frustration, the family whipping boy - or girl.' He said abuse went on 'each day without respite'.

'We say he was really for his daughter, the father from hell.'

The man is also accused of giving his daughter a lemon and a squeezer for Christmas, forcing her to write notes of apology which he read out loud as he scorned her even more and calling another of his daughters 'Fave' because she was his favourite.

Mr Brunton said this was not 'heavy handed discipline once or twice or a severe punishment inflicted and regretted immediately' afterwards but that the victim was singled out from siblings.

The defendant is a five times married man who has produced nine children from his different wives.

He left one family in London and brought the victim, aged just four, with him because she suffers diabetes and he would care for her.

He set up home in Newton Abbot, Devon, with his new wife and they had three daughters.

Mr Brunton said: 'From that very early age she knew that he despised her, and that was not just childhood paranoia.If she tried to sit near him he would push her away saying 'you disgust me I wish you were dead'.'

The defendant would say 'you make me sick' just looking at her and spat in her face. But there was much worse than that.

The Crown alleged that daily he insulted and assaulted her shoving across the room, smack her, banged her head against a wall as he went into a rage over the slightest thing.

Jurors heard he said the victim was 'too ugly to be a child of mine' and stood on her fingers if she sat on the floor and twisted his foot to hurt her fingers even more.

He pulled out clumps of her hair, gave her Chinese burns and singled her out from his other daughters, said Mr Brunton.

The jury heard from the age of eight she had to do the household chores of cleaning the bathroom and toilet, vacuum cleaning and dusting, washing and dry and putting away the dishes.
But her father would leave traps to make sure she had done it properly and would be punished if she did not reach his 'impossibly high standards'.

Mr Brunton said he would drag her from her bed while she slept to make her do the dishes again if it was not good enough.

He rubbed the waste from the sink and rubbed it into her face, the jury was told.

Mr Brunton said her dad was fed up with her when just five years old and was sending her back to London and wrapped her in masking tape around her legs, body and head and mouth so she could not call out before forcing her into a black holdall bag and zipping it up.

He added that the father forced her to spend the entire summer holidays in her bedroom, only allowed to leave to use the toilet, as a punishment.

When she was around seven or eight she did not eat all her cereal and in a rage her father picked her up and dragged her to the bathroom and forced her under the water

When she was 16 she was thrown out of the house, the jury heard, without even her insulin and she went to stay with a family friend.

The father, who is now 73, denies thirteen charges of cruelty and ill treatment which date back to the 1980s and 90s.

He cannot be named because it would identify his daughter who is due to give evidence in person today.

The victim is now aged 27 and is a mother of two.

The trial continues.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1354779/Father-kept-daughter-Cinderella-slave-11-years-abuse.html#ixzz1DNlVzVLm