Dad charged after boys report physical, sexual and psychological abuse in rural NSW home
Police will allege a NSW father padlocked his fridge and pantry and fed his sons pet food at a rural property, all against an alleged backdrop of neglect and sexual abuse.
A father has been charged and his two boys taken into state care amid allegations they were tied up and forced to eat dog food out of a can to survive while living in squalid conditions inside their rural NSW home.
Police will allege the man padlocked the fridge and pantry shut, fed the children pet food and made them ask permission to go to the toilet, all against an alleged backdrop of neglect and sexual abuse that only ended when a teacher at their school raised concerns with authorities.
The boys, both under the age of 10, were removed from the care of their parents and subsequently interviewed by child abuse squad detectives.
According to documents tendered to the NSW Supreme Court, the pair allegedly disclosed a history of abuse at the hands of their father, claiming he repeatedly physically and sexually assaulted them and touched them inappropriately.
It is alleged the man also made the boys touch each other and would hit them and lock them in their bedrooms for hours if they failed to obey him.
The father was subsequently arrested and charged with two counts each of failing to provide the necessities of life and adult maintain an unlawful sexual relationship with a child.
He has pleaded not guilty to the charges and will face trial in the NSW District Court early next year.
Details of the case were aired publicly for the first time during the father’s recent unsuccessful bid for bail, where it was revealed the children’s mother is sticking by her husband, telling the Supreme Court she believes her children lied to police.
“I still stand by [the accused] as I don’t believe the accusations,” she wrote in a letter in support of his bail application.
Justice Nicholas Chen refused to release the man from custody, citing the serious nature of the offences and concerns he planned to live within a few kilometres of his children’s school.
According to court documents, a caseworker sent out to investigate the teacher’s initial welfare report was allegedly told to “f**k off” by the father, who denied her entry to the home.
She returned a few months later and gained entry, allegedly discovering the boys living in sparse but filthy conditions, noting there appeared to be faeces smeared on the floor throughout the house.
She also noted all the bedroom doors, the toilet door and the bathroom door had external locks on them, with the father appearing to hold sole custody of the keys.
When interviewed by detectives, one boy allegedly told police their father locked the pantry and fridge so he and his siblings couldn’t get “proper food”.
When asked what other food he usually got fed, the boy allegedly replied “I think it was only cat food and dog food and bird food”.
“It was like, sometimes we got fed the biscuits and sometimes it was the wet food,” he allegedly said.
The court heard the boy told police the animal food was mixed together, kept in a container and he was given it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, sometimes force-fed to him by his father.
“[The boy] told police that if he refused to eat the animal food, the accused would gaffer tape him to a wooden chair … the tape would be around his arms so he could not get off the chair,” police wrote in court documents.
The boy said he never took any food to school, but didn’t tell his teachers because if he did, his father would “belt him”.
Meanwhile, the other boy allegedly gave a similar account of abuse, telling officers the pet food came out of a can and sometimes mixed with regular human food but he could always smell the cat and dog food.
He allegedly told police his father told him he “should be grateful for what he got and eat it (dog food and cat food) so he does not starve”.
The man will remain behind bars on remand ahead of his upcoming trial at a regional courthouse.
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Originally published as Dad charged after boys report physical, sexual and psychological abuse in rural NSW home
