Trigger warning: this article contains graphic and distressing details of child sex abuse, rape and violence.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported one of the most horrifying cases of sexual, physical, emotional and mental abuse ever heard in court.
From the age of five, a mother and a father viciously abused their daughter, all the while covering it with their ambitions of helping her become an Olympian.
The crimes were recounted for the first time in Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court, after 14 years of their abuse being kept secret. The father was on trial for 73 child sex offences, and the mother with 16 different charges.
The father, a former athlete, raped his daughter for the first time when the mother was giving birth to another child. The girl was just five.
Over that same year, the father continued sexually and physically abusing her in a shed near the family home.
For nights on end, the girl would be tied and left in the shed, and when she grew older, she would be locked inside a tiny box. During these periods, she was left unfed and forced to miss school. When her siblings asked where she was, the father would lie saying she was at a friend's house.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the court documents outline that the daughter grew up desperately wanting to please her father, particularly on "special days".
One "special day" was Father's Day, and after bringing him breakfast in bed, the father forced her to perform sexual acts on him.
The abuse continued to become more savage as the girl competed in national sporting events, most often when she did not perform at the standard her father desired.
The shed became a house of horrors, where she was raped and mutilated with tools. By the age of 14, the father became worried she would fall pregnant and so began dropping medicine balls 60 times on her stomach. He told his other children that it was one of her new training techniques.
Top Comments
I just want to send these girls all my love. I wish I could tell them that everything will be ok. But it won't be. I'm sorry we couldn't help them before the damage was done. I have failed them. Society has failed them. We turn a blind eye because it is uncomfortable to ask questions, and for that we are all damned.
I find it disgusting that the "mother" in this situation got lesser charges and I assume sentence than the "father". As far as I'm concerned if someone stands by and let's something like this happen they are JUST as guilty as the perpetrator, they're abhorrent.
Regarding the comments below on their mental health state, statistically speaking someone with mental health issues are more likely to commit crimes and in particular to be especially sadistic in their s. assaults BUT I think they would have mentioned that in the reporting - any time someone with issues commits a crime it's used just like religion or race by the media to create fear. I think people like knowing in a way that the people who do this are somehow impaired as though that makes it a little easier to understand because they can't comprehend how a "normal" or "sane" person could do such atrocious things - unfortunately they can & they do