Daughter recounts sexual assaults at incest trial

“Iwas sexually assaulted by my dad for four years.”

Not exactly the words one would expect to hear from a 15-year-old girl, but that’s what a jury heard Thursday during the accused’s trial in Lethbridge Court of Queen’s Bench.

For more than two hours the jury watched the girl’s videorecorded statement to police, in which she said the assaults began when she was only nine years old and continued until she was 13.

The assaults finally ended after the father moved out of the home and the girl told her mother in January 2018 what her dad had been doing.

The assaults began in her father’s vehicle where he would touch her inappropriately while she sat on his lap and drove. The assaults, she told the officer in the video, gradually escalated to the point where they would have intercourse, and the father would bribe his daughter to perform sexual acts. “If you want this, you have to do this,” he would tell her. The girl described numerous encounters in various locations, including during camping trips. They also occurred in the house, and when she complained he was hurting her, he wouldn’t stop or he would get upset at her. Once he even hit her when she told him to stop. “He wound up and punched me in the leg.” The accused, who can’t be named so not to identify the girl, threatened his daughter that he would leave if she told anyone about their sexual encounters. And when she said she was worried about getting pregnant, he said that wouldn’t happen, but if it did they would go to Calgary for an abortion.

During the video the accused, who was watching only a few metres away in a prisoners’ dock, sat slumped over, often with his head in his hands.

The mother testified Wednesday that after the accused moved out of the house, her daughter revealed what had been happening. They went to see a doctor the next day then reported the assaults to the police.

The 54-year-old man is charged with incest, sexual assault, sexual interference and invitation to sexual touching. The trial is expected to continue today and next week. Follow @DShurtzHerald on Twitter