Father guilty of abusing daughter

A father who claimed his fouryear-old daughter made sexual advances toward him because she had been molested by others has been found guilty of several sex-related offences involving the child.

“The defendant’s version of events cannot be believed,”

Judge Joseph De Filippis said Thursday in Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines.

“That he would display such a wanton disregard for the welfare of his four-year-old daughter and not expose her abusers, including a mother he portrays as evil, is beyond comprehension.”

The Niagara man, who cannot be identified in order to protect the identity of child, was found guilty of sexual assault and sexual interference. He returns to court Sept. 27 for sentencing.

He did not take the stand at trial. His daughter, now six, did testify.

“I find the complainant’s evidence to be a candid and compelling account of sexual abuse at the hands of her father,” the judge said.

The girl’s mother testified her daughter had disclosed the abuse in April 2016.

When she confronted the defendant, he told her the child had attempted to touch his genitals on several occasions and said she may have been exposed to “porn or something.”

The defendant admitted to police there had been some inappropriate sexual contact between him and his daughter but that the four-year-old had initiated it. He also suggested the girl may have been molested by her sibling and her grandfather, among others.