Logan man jailed for sexually molesting two stepdaughters

A man been jailed for robbing his stepdaughters of their childhood and their dignity, molesting them over more than two years.

A LOGAN man who molested his two adolescent stepchildren in the family home while his wife was pregnant with their baby brother has been jailed for 20 months.

In a victim impact statement read to the court, the girls’ mother said her ex-husband had robbed them of their childhood, innocence and dignity.

The former Cedar Vale resident, who cannot be named for legal reasons, pleaded guilty in Beenleigh District Court to two charges of maintaining an unlawful relationship with children – domestic violence offence.

The court was told the offending, which occurred between September 2016 and January 2019, mostly involved kissing and inappropriate touching.

The court was told the man, who was aged between 33 to 35 at the time of the offences, “blackmailed” his two stepdaughters into keeping the assaults secret from their mother by telling them they would ruin the family and make her unhappy if they told her about the assaults.

The elder sister was told that if she told her mother, her new baby brother would never see his father again and it would be her fault.

When the elder girl, aged 12, walked in on the man performing oral sex on her 11-year-old sister in her bedroom, the man turned his attention to her and she was molested for a year and a half.

Crown prosecutor Elizabeth Kelso read the court three victim impact statements, from the two girls and their mother.

The youngest daughter, who was aged 10 when she was first molested, said the man was “supposed to be her dad, I was supposed to be able to trust him”.

She said she always felt watched and expected her former stepfather to appear out of nowhere.

The mother said she had encountered financial difficulty since the offences, and had had to use all her annual and sick leave to seek mental health support for her daughters.

She said she dreaded the day she had to tell her young son his father was not a good man.

Judge Craig Chowdhury sentenced the man — who now lives in Sydney’s western suburbs where his parents and siblings live — to five years’ jail, suspended after serving 20 months.