Molesting stepfather who threatened to throw himself off cliff kept ‘rule book’ to limit girl’s contact with boys
A STEPFATHER who pleaded guilty to molesting his stepdaughter kept a rule book to limit the teenage girl’s contact with boys.
WARNING: Disturbing content
A MOLESTING stepfather on trial for drugging his teenage stepdaughter and her mother to take advantage of the girl kept a rule book to limit her contact with boys her own age.
The Sydney man had checked the girl’s phone when she was 14 years old and had found messages with a boy that amounted to her “basically having phone sex”.
When police found letters with “rules in relation to using the phone and having boyfriends”, they asked the man if he was trying to protect his sexual relationship with the girl.
The man admitted to police that he had been “probably jealous” of the girl having boyfriends.
Asked by police whether his stepdaughter had seen him naked, he said “all my children have seen me naked and ... have seen my wife naked”.
The 45-year-old salesman who has pleaded not guilty to slipping Travacalm crushed with a meat tenderiser into the mother’s drinks sobbed uncontrollably and threatened to “jump off a cliff”.
Video of his police interview in Katoomba police station shows him listening to a dramatic telephone call he made after his sexual molestation of the girl was uncovered.
Replayed before a jury in the Sydney District Court on Tuesday, the video shows him listening to himself sobbing, and declaring his love to his teenage stepdaughter.
The man can be heard crying and saying “my little gorgeous girl. I love you so much. I am so sorry. Please, please be good”.
At the time of the police interview, on January 14, 2014, the man told police that the reason he was apologising to the girl was because he was about to “jump off a cliff”.
Following a confrontation between himself, the girl and the girl’s mother in which he was accused of molesting the girl, he had taken off in his car.
Driving from their western Sydney home to the Blue Mountains, he had spent the night in his car and said he wanted to take his life but hadn’t.
He told police in Katoomba station that the sobbing apology was in advance of his planned suicide and was a message to all his seven children, whose names he mentions on the tape.
But in a second interview in Silverwater prison, the man admits that he was apologising to his stepdaughter for their “inappropriate relationship”.
The accused has pleaded guilty to 99 child sex offences against the girl when she was aged between 12 and 16 years old.
Videos he made of himself sexually assaulting the girl have been played to the jury during the trial which is into its third week.
The man has pleaded not guilty to 22 counts of allegedly drugging the girl and not guilty to five counts of allegedly drugging the mother.
He has also pleaded not guilty to sexually assaulting a younger stepdaughter when she was aged 11.
When asked by detectives about the younger stepdaughter during taped Silverwater prison interview, the man said the question made him feel “sick, because I didn’t do it”.
Detective Senior Constable Kieran Deas: “Prior to [the younger stepdaughter’s] twelfth birthday, [she] was in bed and she was in the top bunk.”
He asked the accused about inappropriately touching the girl. He replied: “No comment”.
In the prison interview with police, the man says his relationship with the elder stepdaughter was obvious and “anyone who said they didn’t know were liars”.
He said of his relationship with the girl, “There was an interaction. She would always make sure she would sit next to me.
“She would sit on my lap when she was 15 years old.
“We did everything together ... I don’t know, the connection was just there.”
But he said he was “not that twisted” that he didn’t realise it was inappropriate, and he denied drugging the girl.
“In the earliest videos taken [the elder stepdaughter] is unaware of what you are doing to her. She can be heard snoring. Did you use medication,” a detective asks the man.
The man replies “no” and then says “I never drugged her”.
The trial continues.