Stepfather pleads not guilty Woman ’ in tears over sex abuse’

A MAN has told a court his partner was “inconsolable” the night she told him she had been sexually abused for the first time.

The Burdekin woman’s stepfather is on trial in Townsville District Court after pleading not guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, two counts of rape and three counts of indecent treatment of a child.

He is accused of regularly touching the girl’s breasts and genitalia from 2010 onwards.

The abuse allegedly happened when the girl’s mother was out and her siblings were asleep, from when she was aged 13 to 17.

The woman’s partner gave evidence yesterday during the second day of the trial.

He said in September 2014, the couple arrived home after drinking at a friend’s party.

“When we got home, ( the woman) asked to go for a shower, she started crying and I asked her what was wrong,” he said.

“She kept on insisting and insisting and insisting she wanted to go for a shower. She kept on crying, ( she was) inconsolable.

“I asked again what was wrong and she said that her father had touched her.”

The man said he tried to console his partner and nothing more was said on the topic that night.

He told the court that in October 2015, the couple was drinking when his family members started discussing something they had seen on Facebook, about a person going to jail for child sex offences.

The girl allegedly left the conversation to have a shower, and the man said he went to see her 25 minutes later.

“She was crying with her head between her knees, sitting on the bathroom floor,” he said.

The man said his partner again told him her father had touched her.

He allegedly asked whether it was her real father or stepdad, and she replied it was her stepdad.

“The following morning we were sitting in bed, I asked her what her ( stepfather) had done to her, she said that he had touched her boobs and vagina,” he said.

The man testified that the woman’s parents had not been happy when they started their relationship in 2014.

He said the woman had very little contact with her parents after they started living together that year.

The woman’s aunt told the court that the woman had seemed to be a “normal nineyear- old girl” but appeared to become a bit “depressed and withdrawn” when she reached adolescence.

She said her niece came to her house one day in October 2015 and seemed distressed.

“She said ‘ my dad sexually abused me’. I was in shock to hear this,” she said.

“We went upstairs to talk about it a little bit more and she said she was quite upset.”

The trial is expected to continue today.