The NSW parents, with backgrounds in elite sport and teaching and who cannot be identified, subjected their child to horrific sexual, physical and mental abuse from the time the girl was five years old.
Judge Sarah Huggett in Sydney’s District Court sentenced the father to at least 36 years in prison over 73 counts relating to the shocking abuse. She said in sentencing that the chance for any kind of rehabilitation for the father was ‘bleak’, and that he ‘should not be released from custody before he passes away’.
The mother was sentenced to a minimum 11 years for 13 offences
Judge Huggett said the man carried out the sexual attacks over 15 years “for his own depraved and sadistic reasons”.
The father was described as ‘selfish, depraved and sadistic’, and arrogant with an inflated ego.
‘People were hoodwinked as to his true nature,’ Judge Huggett said.
The girl has developed several disorders and requires ongoing counselling and sporadic treatment in hospital. She suffers frequent nightmares and flashbacks so bad she struggles to remain employed, study or enjoy relationships, Judge Huggett said.
“She will suffer the consequences of his despicable and horrible conduct for the rest of her life,” the judge said.
Over the years the girl was repeatedly tied up and locked in the garden shed or a plastic box in the garage, raped and tortured by her parents.
During the trial which has lasted several months, the court heard horrific details of the years of abuse. It heard the man used a range of implements to torture his daughter during sex sessions that sometimes took place in a shed on his rural property.
Judge Huggett described how the man “took tangled barbed wire with loops on the end and nailed it around her”, “locked her in a box overnight”, “held a chainsaw to her neck”, “held her head under water” and “put her on an ants nest”, the ABC has reported
The court heard that the man used scissors, spanners, nails and other tools to abuse her and told her. Her genital area is now “abnormal”.
The offences took place while the daughter, also an elite athlete, was training at sporting events around Australia.
“If she did not perform a personal best [she] would be taken to the shed when they got home,” the judge told the court.
The court heard the girl’s mother gave her instructions about how best to please her husband.
Judge Huggett said it took the girl so long to come forward to police partly because her mother had “abused her role as a mother in the gravest way”.
The case only came to attention of authorities in 2011 when the victim was admitted to a psychiatric ward.
The Daily Mail reports that with time served, the father will first be eligible for release in October 2049, while the mother can first apply for parole in June 2027.
