Dad controlled freed "incest victim"

Babylon · 2009-09-17T19:35:03+00:00

A MAN accused of raping his daughter almost daily from the age of 11, fathering four children with her over decades of sexual abuse, had a powerful emotional hold over her long after she left the family home. PlayFather like Fritzl, mother unaware A Victorian man has been accused of raping his daughter for 30 years, fathering four children with... A former friend and neighbour told The Australian she had long suspected the young woman's father was the father of her children. She said that, when he visited them, in the Latrobe Valley town of Morwell, the children called him "Daddy". She told how the young woman would refuse to go out without her father's permission, saying: "Oh no, I've got to do what Dad tells me." "And then one day I was out the front and one of the kids said, 'Daddy, can we go up the road and ride our bikes?'," the former friend said. "I thought, 'Daddy?' It didn't sound right to me. That's not a normal sort of thing. It was on the grapevine that he was ... the daddy, of all the kids." The former friend said the young woman, although then aged in her 30s, was "only a kid in her mind". "To me, she never had a life," she said. "Her dad was the domineering man over her." As rain poured down in the several Latrobe Valley towns where the family lived, long associated with deep social and economic challenges, there was anger and dismay yesterday when it was revealed that, in February, as bushfires burst into flame across Victoria, the man, now aged in his 60s, was arrested and charged with sexually abusing his daughter, who is aged in her 40s, over several decades. The rapes were alleged to have begun in the 1970s when the victim was about 11 and continued until 2007. The girl gave birth to four children, allegedly fathered by her father. All were born with health problems in major Melbourne hospitals. None had fathers listed on their birth certificates, raising concerns about why questions were not asked at the time. One of the children died from severe developmental problems soon after birth. After being arrested, the man denied raping his daughter, but was charged after DNA tests allegedly showed he was the father of her children. He will appear in court in November for a plea hearing. Initially facing 83 offences, he now faces 13 charges: five of incest, five of rape, two of indecently assaulting a girl under the age of 16 and one of assault. It is understood that during a County Court hearing last month, he indicated he would plead guilty to 13 charges. The man is on remand awaiting trial. His wife continues to live in the Latrobe Valley. Their daughter and her children are believed to be in a safe house. Victorian Premier John Brumby said it was among "the worst sort of sex cases, the worst sort of abuses". He said people would have "recoiled in horror" when they learned of it. For several years the family lived in the town of Moe in a red brick housing commission house. Police will allege abuse occurred here. The house has four bedrooms, including two rooms at the back and one to the side where children would normally sleep. "It's disgusting to me," said Molly, who now lives in the house with her family. "The idea that there was someone trapping his daughter there and having kids with her ... I hope they lock him up for life for what he did." Former neighbour Jeanette lived alongside the family in Moe for several years, but said she had no inkling of the abuse, although she rarely saw the children outside the house. Jeannette said: "If I had have known, I probably would have said something." The man is understood to have six children with his wife. Two reportedly died of cot death and one drowned. In 2005, after being encouraged by a neighbour, the man's daughter approached police in Morwell, but refused to press charges, apparently fearing for her safety and the safety of her mother and siblings. The case was yesterday compared to Austria's house of horror where Fritzl held his daughter Elisabeth prisoner in the basement of his house for 24 years, raping her constantly, resulting in seven children and one miscarriage. A similar case was discovered last month in the US state of California, when Phillip Garrido and his wife Nancy were arrested and charged with keeping Jaycee Lee Dugard as Garrido's sex slave for 18 years. Garrido began raping her when she was 11 years old and fathered two of her children. But there are significant differences in the cases, including the Victorian woman being allowed to move out of the family home with her children. Aged in her 30s, 12 or 13 years ago, she lived in Morwell with her children and her brother for at least two years. After that she is believed to have moved back into her parents' home, which by then was in another Latrobe Valley town, where her mother still lives and where her father was arrested in February. In Morwell, it was suspected by some neighbours that the young woman and her brother were involved in an incestuous relationship. She was remembered from that period as being "dumpy", with curly long brown hair. She would wear hippy-style clothes. One neighbour said her housing commission home was flea-ridden, but that her children appeared happy and attended the local school. She said the woman's grey-haired father would visit regularly and it was obvious to neighbours that "he ran the house" and it appeared the man's wife and daughter were afraid of him. Neighbour Lynne remembered asking the young woman to go to the bingo with her. "When I went over to visit, when I said to her 'do you want to go to the bingo?', (she said) 'Oh no, Dad won't let me'. I thought, 'Dad won't let you?' and you're in your 30s? It didn't make sense to me."

Thread starter Babylon
Start date Sep 17, 2009

Babylon

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Dad controlled freed "incest victim"

Babylon

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