A Sydney man who repeatedly sexually assaulted his teenage stepdaughter has told a jury she would drug her mother at night because she was in love with him and wanted “our time”.
He’s accused of mixing crushed travel sickness tablets into his wife’s food and drink so she would fall asleep and he could have sex with his stepdaughter.
“I didn’t administer it,” the man, who is representing himself, said in his closing address at the Downing Centre District Court on Thursday.
“A young girl loved me and that’s the reason why she used an over-the-counter medicine because she had access to it.
“I don’t blame (her) for doing it, this whole episode is my fault.”
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, has pleaded guilty to 99 charges relating to the sexual abuse of his stepdaughter when she was aged 12 to 15.
He’s pleaded not guilty to drugging his wife and stepdaughter, and indecently assaulting a younger stepdaughter when she was about 11.
In his summing up to the jury, Judge Paul Conlin referred to the older stepdaughter’s evidence in which she denied ever drugging her mum.
She said half a dozen times her stepfather would prepare the drug and ask her to put it in her mum’s drink.
The teen also denied acting like husband and wife with her stepfather – who called her “princess” and bought her lacy lingerie – or wanting “our time”.
The judge cited her evidence: “I loved my stepfather as my dad, not as anything else, and I didn’t want my mum to go sleep,” she said.
The court previously heard SD memory cards discovered in the lining of the man’s jacket contained 78 videos and 778 images showing him sexually and indecently assaulting the older stepdaughter, sometimes while she’s asleep.
“I apologise for every second of every single video you’ve watched,” the man told the jury on Thursday.
“I didn’t drug (her).
“She was up late, (she) was waiting up for me, she was tired.”
He admitted his behaviour was “inexcusable” and the sex games he played with her were “appalling, disgusting, vile and abhorrent.”
The judge will continue his summing on Friday.