Teen’s heartbreaking response to stepfather’s sex abuse

A teenage girl is so traumatised by her stepfather’s abuse of her she is considering taking drastic action.

A teenage girl has been left so disturbed by her stepfather’s sexual abuse of her that she is considering cosmetic surgery to make herself less attractive to men.

The stepfather, 33, took advantage of her mother’s ill health, repeatedly raping the girl, indecently touching her and taking photos of her naked body.

The man today pleaded guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a child at Indooroopilly in Brisbane between 2017 and 2020, when the girl, now 15, was aged 11 to 13.

He also pleaded guilty to four counts of rape, indecent treatment of a child under 12 under his care, and possessing and involving a child in making child exploitation material.

Crown prosecutor Katrina Overell told Brisbane District Court the man had been in a long-term relationship with the girl’s mother, and the child called him Daddy.

The sexual abuse occurred during a time when the mother was having frequent seizures and was bedridden or occasionally hospitalised and the stepfather was running the household.

Ms Overell said the man raped or sexually touched the girl 50 times.

She said he had touched the girl’s breasts and buttocks and had sexual intercourse with her on a lounge room couch and in bedrooms while the mother was bedridden.

The first rape was when the girl was asleep on a couch and she woke up when she felt “stabbing pain” in her pelvis and found her stepfather on top of her.

Ms Overell said on one occasion, while the man was raping his stepdaughter, he told her: “If your friends want me they can have me.”

The man was arrested after the girl moved to Melbourne and told family members about the abuse, but he initially denied it.

Ms Overell said police retrieved 850 child exploitation images deleted from the man’s phone, including 110 photos showing the girl naked and close up pictures of her genital area.

The man claimed he only had consensual sex with the girl once, after she propositioned him, which the judge said was “quite unbelievable and ludicrous”.

The victim told a friend the stepfather had masturbated to photos of her.

Ms Overell said the man had groomed his stepdaughter to accept the ongoing sexual offending, and she would pretend she was asleep while he was raping her.

“Whilst the complainant child was not a natural child of yours she was certainly a stepchild and in your care, since her mother had been unwell,” Judge Rinaudo said.

“You took advantage of that situation.”

He said the victim, who now lived with her biological father, would continue to suffer long-term effects of the abuse and her self-esteem had been significantly reduced.

“She’s even considering some cosmetic surgery to try and make herself less attractive to men and she has trust issues, of course,” Judge Rinaudo said.

He said the abuse also had a long-term effect on the girl’s mother, who felt less able to trust people and had wrongly blamed herself.

The judge took into account the man’s pleas of guilty, remorse, lack of criminal history and the fact that he had been twice assaulted in prison and had been in protective custody.

Judge Rinaudo sentenced the man to nine years’ jail with parole eligibility on October 26, 2024, for maintaining the sexual relationship and lesser concurrent jail terms for the other offences.

He declared 678 days he had spent in custody to be time served on the sentence.