Man who raped stepdaughter, 11, has sentence slashed

He repeatedly raped his 11-year-old stepdaughter but his jail time has just been slashed.

A Western Australian man who repeatedly raped his 11-year-old step-daughter before also raping her mother at knifepoint has had his sentence reduced by four years.

The 49-year-old man was sentenced to 20 years in prison last June after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting his young stepdaughter multiple times over a period of several months.

The girl was aged just 11 and living with the man and her mother when the attacks began. He admitted to filming one of the attacks, in which he told the girl to “stop whingeing” when she started crying.

When the girl’s mother found out about the abuse, she ended their relationship but around six months later, he kidnapped the mother and raped her at knifepoint before stabbing her.

Yesterday, three Court of Appeal judges reduced the man’s sentence to 16 years, ruling the first sentence “did not bear a proper relationship to the criminality involved”.