Man sentenced for repeatedly raping step daughter after years inexplicably free

A man who committed repeated child sex abuse in the Northern Territory is now behind bars, more than 20 years after first confessing his crimes to the police. Warning: Distressing

A man is in prison for historic child sex abuse in the NT, more than 20 years after first confessing his crimes.

A man who willingly confessed to repeatedly raping his stepdaughter is behind bars after more than a decade spent inexplicably free in the community while authorities knew of his horrific crimes.

The man, now a converted Buddhist in his 60s, admitted to raping his victim “whenever the opportunity presented” while they lived in the Northern Territory – including when his wife was hospitalised giving birth to their son.

The NT Supreme Court heard the man married the victim’s mother in the 1980s, when the girl was six years old and the family lived interstate.

The abuse started interstate, and continued when they moved to the NT in the 1990s.

The court heard multiple, disturbing accounts of the man raping the girl, including while other adults and children were in the house, forcing her to wear lingerie and watch pornography, and threatening to kick both her and her mother out of the house if she told anyone of the abuse.

In 1995 the mum went into labour, and the man took advantage of his wife’s time in hospital, and the baby’s subsequent care needs, to continue preying on his stepdaughter.

The man pleaded guilty at the NT Supreme Court in November. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

In 2002, the man approached interstate police and confessed to everything.

He pleaded guilty interstate to maintaining a sexual relationship with a child, encompassing the interstate component of the offending which took place before and after his time in the NT.

In 2003 he was sentenced to seven years in prison, and was released on parole four years later.

It was not until 2022 that the victim participated in a recorded statement with police for the purpose of prosecuting the man in the Territory.

He was arrested interstate in February last year, extradited to the Territory and has been in custody since then.

“In the ordinary course, it would have been expected that you would have been extradited to the Northern Territory to be dealt with for this offending when released on parole interstate in 2007, or at least when completing parole there in 2010,” Justice Meredith Huntingford said. “There is no explanation for the lengthy delay in prosecuting you for the Northern Territory offending, which was known to police since 2002, more than 20 years.”

Justice Huntingford said the impact on the victim had been severe and ongoing.

“She suffers from insomnia, depression, anxiety and panic attacks. She often fears that you are going to walk through her door if she falls asleep,” she said.

“At times, she has questioned whether she wants to be alive anymore.

“(The victim) says in her statement that she attempted suicide on multiple occasions, with six of those attempts resulting in her staying in the Intensive Care Unit, waking up intubated and restrained.

“She has learnt to dissociate in order to try and escape the pain, and often wonders what her life could have been like had this not happened to her.

“She says you were supposed to protect, love and care for her, but instead you inflicted terror and sexual abuse that continues to shape her existence.”

In November the man pleaded guilty to one count of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child.

Justice Huntingford said her sentence had to take into account only the NT portion of offending, the fact he had already served a prison term interstate, and the time that had passed.

The man was sentenced to two years, backdated to his arrest and suspended after one year and five months.

Originally published as Man sentenced for repeatedly raping step daughter after years inexplicably free