Gladstone man jailed for raping his daughter in Murrumba Downs

A Brisbane court has heard gut-churning details about a former Moreton Bay man who raped and assaulted his daughter 10 times in a year. WARNING – DISTURBING.

A Gladstone man who formerly lived in southeast Queensland’s Moreton Bay region has been jailed for repeatedly raping and sexually assaulting his daughter, with the court hearing gut-churning details about how he used knives to open locked doors and taunted her during assaults.

The Tannum Sands man, aged in his forties, was found guilty by a jury on Friday of eight counts of rape, eleven counts of sexual assault and one count of indecent act in a public place, all of which bar the indecent act occurred at the man’s former Murrumba Downs residence in 2011, when his daughter was in her mid-teens.

The indecent act occurred during a family holiday to Agnes Waters in 2014.

The man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was sentenced in Brisbane District Court on Wednesday by Judge Jennifer Rosengren, who described the man’s depraved acts as “predatory in nature and over a protracted period of time”.

There were nine separate occasions in 2011 the man was identified has having assaulted his daughter, leading to 19 charges of rape and sexual assault.

The sick father’s hunting grounds were the family pool, the shower, the girl’s bedroom and the living room, the court heard.

A Tannum Sands man in his forties has been jailed for five and a half years for raping and sexually assaulting his daughter on nine occasions in 2011, when he lived in Murrumba Downs. Picture: Facebook

The offending could broadly be characterised as inappropriate kissing and touching, taking the girl’s clothes off without her consent, and digitally raping her.

Several acts stood out for their depravity.

They included a time when the girl was on the phone to her mother and the man pulled out his penis and began “brushing” her face with it; when he was playing with her nipples while she was trying to watch a DVD, taunting her, “Why are your nipples hard?”; when he used a knife to unlock the bathroom door to assault her in the shower; and when he pulled her out from under the bed where she was hiding and digitally raped her so violently he drew blood.

Judge Rosengren told the court when the girl had her second interview with police, she told them she “knew what her father was doing was wrong, but didn’t have the courage to tell anyone about it”.

“She loved you,” Judge Rosengren said.

“She said she felt so ashamed about what was happening ­ the shame should be borne solely by you.”

The court heard the man relocated to the Gladstone region and remarried, and has owned his own trade business for more than a decade.

His wife, whose areas of specialty in her employment include “family therapy, parenting support and children and adolescence”, would be standing by her man, the court was told.

The man was sentenced to five-and-a-half years’ imprisonment and was required to serve the entire sentence behind bars.