NSW Colt family member guilty of child incest rape
A member of the incestuous Colt clan has been found guilty of raping his niece/half-sister two years before authorities uncovered 40 people including inbred children living on a squalid NSW farm.
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A member of the notorious NSW Colt family has been found guilty of raping his teenage niece.
Frank Colt, a pseudonym, was arrested in April 2018 as part of Australia’s largest incest investigation that uncovered horrific alleged child sex abuse.
It came nearly six years after police found 40 relatives living on a squalid southern NSW farm before removing inbred kids who were severely malnourished and illiterate.
On Monday Judge Gina O'Rourke found Frank Colt guilty of sexual intercourse without consent at Downing Centre District Court.
The victim gave tearful evidence that the 51-year-old grabbed her while she was walking through their camp in 2010, threw her headfirst into the back seat of his car and raped her.
“I was kicking him, punching him, pulling his hair,’ Petra Colt, also a pseudonym, told the court. “He kept going and going. He wouldn't stop.”
After the ordeal was over Frank threw her clothes out the car window, calling her a “pig” and an “ungrateful b****,” she said.
“I considered her evidence quite powerful, credible and believable,” Judge O'Rourke said.
The now 27-year-old told the court she and her siblings were the children of Tim Colt and his own daughter Betty.
The court heard Petra and her uncle Frank shared the same father, who also allegedly raped her.
The vulnerable witness said this was actively encouraged by her mother, who told her to keep her mouth shut and would give her “a hiding” if she ever complained.
The court heard Petra was told she would get “a bullet in her head” if she revealed her family’s sickening abuse.
In 2013 Petra told police she lived in a cult where "all my aunts, uncles and cousins have all been sleeping together".
The woman said she’s never been to school, is legally blind and one of her eyes was permanently damaged when she was severely bashed by another menacing uncle.
Petra, who has cut ties with her mother, also recounted trying to escape the clan at age eight.
But her parents tied her up and left her in a room without food for a week while she was sexually abused by relatives, the court heard.
The Crown says other sexual assaults in the family were "not a secret,” and all but one removed child had parents who were related.
On the eve of Frank’s trial prosecutors withdrew 48 charges against him and two of his male relatives.
Charlie Colt will now face trial on six charges, including raping a child aged between 10 and 14, and indecently assaulting a child aged under 16.
Cliff Colt is now only facing four charges, including sexual intercourse with a child aged between 10 and 14, and indecent assault of a person aged under 16.