Sex predator may die in jail

Father who abused girls sentenced to 18 years

AN evil predator who sexually abused his daughter, niece and then his granddaughter over a 30-year period will probably die behind bars, after being sentenced to 18 years and nine months’ jail.

Prior to sentencing, the man, who cannot be named, admitted to inflicting decades of physical and mental abuse upon his victims.

In her victim impact state- ment read to County Court in Geelong, the man’s daughter said she would never understand why her father stole her childhood and then did the same to her daughter.

The woman said she thought she was protecting her sisters from being abused but, 40 years on, they had turned against her for reporting the offending.

The man recently pleaded guilty to 10 charges, including five of incest. Six of the charges represented multiple counts of offending, with one covering 31 instances of incest.

The court heard all three victims were taken to a property at Lara, where the man also abused the child of a family friend, for which he was jailed for three years in the 1990s.

Crown prosecutor Kevin Doyle said the man molested his daughter from age six until she left home at 16, buying her silence with threats and cash.

“She would cry and the accused would say, ‘shut up it won’t take long’,” Mr Doyle said. “The abuse at the farm happened so many times that, when he pointed to an area, she knew she was to go there and take her knickers off.”

The court heard the second victim, the man’s niece, was eight years old when he first isolated her, telling her the abuse was ‘nice’.

“When the woman was 12 years old, the accused told her, ‘all you girls are the same’ ... that she was used goods and when he was finished, no one would want her or love her,” Mr Doyle said. “It was then that she realised she wasn’t the only victim.”

Mr Doyle said the man would abuse his granddaughter while his wife sat sleeping on the couch beside them.

The woman and her daughter first reported the matter to police in 2007 but the record of interview and transcript were lost and it wasn’t until the niece reported his offending in 2014 that the case was reopened.

Judge Felicity Hampel this week sentenced the man to 18 years and nine months jail with a non-parole period 14 years. He was also placed on the sex offenders register for life.