Dad blackmailed daughter into performing sex acts blindfolded

Charlene was blackmailed into sordid sex acts with a stranger. Little did she know, he was inside her family home. WARNING: Disturbing.

Warning: Disturbing content.

A woman who endured horrific sexual assaults in a disturbing blackmail plot has spoken out about the moment she discovered her seven-year ordeal had been orchestrated by her own father.

David Masterson, 56, from Dublin, Ireland, was jailed for 17 years for a seven-year abuse campaign against daughter Charlene, now 32, which started when she was aged 18.

Her ordeal began about a month after her milestone birthday when she received an anonymous text threatening to “expose” damaging information about her.

In distress, Charlene turned to her dad for help, but when the person texting threatened have her father fired from his job if she refused to perform sex acts on him, her dad encouraged her to do it.

Shockingly, Masterson even helped facilitate the stranger’s visit to their home where he’d let the person in before they carried out horrific attacks on his daughter while she was and forced to listen to music.

He’d even let the man out while Charlene was left to change the bedsheets and scrub herself off in the shower.

In reality though, there was no stranger. The man sexually abusing the teen was her own father – and he was only exposed as the blackmailer when Charlene, then 23, uncovered a DVD at her grandma’s house that contained two videos of his assaults.

Charlene Masterson was blackmailed into performing sex acts on strangers at age 18. Picture: RTE

“I watched about 10 seconds of it and I realised it was my dad,” she told the News Talk podcast.

“I ejected the disc and closed the laptop, but then the text messages continued. My dad came home and he went upstairs for a lie down, and I got a message, and I just said, ‘I know you’re my dad’.

“Within three seconds he shouted from upstairs and started gaslighting me, saying ‘how could you think I would do that?’ and ‘how dare you even say that’.”

When the abuse had begun five years earlier, Charlene recalled how her father would “play the hero” after each attack and would be a “doting father”, the Daily Record reports.

But every time the stranger sending the texts demanded another shocking sex act, he would tell her to do it, insisting he couldn’t afford to lose his airport job.

“I randomly got messages from a number, I didn’t know the number, and it read ‘I know what you did’, and anyone that knows me, knows I hate being in trouble, so I immediately panicked,” she told The Indo Daily podcast.

“The one person you go to for help is your dad, and I did, and his response was, ‘You’re going to have to’. It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.

“[But] it was him, so he knew I didn’t do anything, I don’t even know how he concocted this whole thing, he knew exactly what I had done, which was nothing.”

But the horrific sexual assaults were actually being performed on her by her dad David Masterson. Picture: RTE

Masterson used his cooked blackmail plot to manipulate his daughter into doing unthinkable things – even demanding she wear certain clothing items during the attacks.

“I remember it vividly, sitting there in whatever he had demanded I wear that night and he would be looking out the window going, ‘Oh he is coming across the field’,” she said.

He would then pretend he was the stranger and abuse her.

After, her dad would say: “’Oh we drove him up to the mountains and he won’t come back again’’, like he was trying to play the hero and the protector,” Charlene added.

With time the abuse escalated, with Charlene stating there was one occasion where two men sexually abused her while she was blindfolded.

She had no idea until she found a recording of one of the assaults and saw it was her dad. Picture: RTE

Things only changed when she found the video of her dad assaulting her, but not for the better.

Instead, Masterson began a fresh torrent of “open abuse” in the home, where he would physically grope and rape her.

“The text messages stopped, but I had no intention of going to the guards [Irish police],” she told News Talk.

“The abuse had reached a point where he didn’t care who was around and my friend had just twigged that something wasn’t right.

“I had started to pull back from everything, I wasn’t myself and she asked me outright ‘Is your dad abusing you?’ and I said no.”

But her friend instinctively knew something was wrong and a few months later, she asked again. This time Charlene was able to say “yes”.

With her friend’s help, Charlene was able to tell her mother what was going on, and she kicked Masterson out.

But it was another two years before police became involved, and by this point, he had “defiled” three other girls, Daily Mail reported.

The Central Criminal Court heard that Masterson had sexual encounters with two teenage girls and entered into a sexual relationship with a third, who lived with him for a period of time.

Masterson pleaded guilty in 2021 to six offences relating to his daughter between 2007 and 2014 including oral rape, sexual assault and incest.

A further 25 counts, including 14 counts of incest and one count of possessing child pornography, were taken into account, Sunday World reported at the time.

The abuse began when Charlene, now 32, received a text message from someone threatening to expose incriminating information about her. Picture: RTE

He was sentenced to 17 years in 2021. Charlene is now campaigning for greater awareness. Picture: Instagram

Sickeningly, Masterson accepted there were other men involved, but only told officials one of their names and claimed it was the only name he knew.

He said this man had known that the victim was his daughter.

Charlene said her father didn’t show any remorse when he was sentenced to 17 years for a seven-year abuse campaign.

“It was gut wrenching, you’d think that he will be a little bit sorry. I am never going to get an apology. No remorse, but he has to live with that,” she said.

“It did destroy my life at one point but I’m determined the horrendous experience won’t determine the rest of my life.”

She’s now campaigning for greater awareness and support for individuals who affected by incest and sexual abuse.

Originally published as Dad blackmailed daughter into performing sex acts blindfolded