Darwin step-father sentenced to 15 years in prison after sexually abusing his daughter over three years

A Darwin man who exposed his step-daughter to Disney themed pornography will spend the next decade behind bars. WARNING: Explicit and graphic story involving the sexual assault of a minor.

The predator repeated a pattern of exposing the girl to pornographic versions of children’s movies, or child abuse material before assaulting or raping her.

It was “a special kind of evil” that possessed a self-described monster to repeatedly sexually assault his young step-daughter after showing her Disney themed pornography.

A 42-year-old Darwin man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was sentenced to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under 16 between 2013 and 2016.

In handing down her sentence, Justice Judith Kelly described the three-year period of abuse against the young girl as “abhorrent” and “depraved”, saying he had ruined the life of his young victim.

“There is a special kind of evil to abuse a child, and a special kind of evil to treat someone as an object — and you did both,” Justice Kelly told the man.

On Thursday the Supreme Court heard the offending started when she was just seven years old, only several weeks after the predator met his victim’s mother on a dating website.

He was alone with the seven-year-old in the kitchen when he invited her to sit on his lap, before he started rocking her body up and down on him.

“Is this normal?” the seven-year-old asked him.

“Yes it’s normal, it’s what step dads do to their daughters,” he replied.

On Thursday the Supreme Court heard the offending started when she was just seven years old, only several weeks after the predator met his victim’s mother on a dating website.

Prosecutor Ian Rowbottam said the little girl was “scared and confused” as she watched the explicit videos from Pornhub as her step-father started touching her, forced her to masturbate him before sexually assaulting her.

The court heard her stepfather used the guise of telling the little girl a bedtime story to be alone with her in the bedroom, with the abuse happening on an almost “daily” basis.

The predator repeated a pattern of exposing the girl to pornographic versions of children’s movies, or child abuse material, before assaulting or raping her.

Her stepfather told the little girl they were ‘special’ videos, after showing her The Little Mermaid themed pornography on which King Triton had sex with his daughter Ariel.

Over three years the adult man exposed the child to other cartoon-based graphic videos, including Cinderella, Tinkerbell and a version of Beauty and the Beast where the princess was physically and sexually abused.

“They were cartoons that might be thought to be entertaining to children...but were actually depraved images showing sexual activity,” Justice Kelly said.

The Darwin man later told police he showed her child abuse material to normalise sexual acts between children and adults, which Justice Kelly described as “abhorrent”.

In handing down her sentence Justice Judith Kelly described the three years period of abuse against the young girl as “abhorrent” and “depraved”, saying he had ruined the life of his young victim.

The court heard the 42-year-old told police he thought he was teaching the girl “love” and a “sex language”, but admitted he “took her innocence away from her”.

When she was just nine years old, her step-father gave her a dildo and told her “this is for you to use”, and in another incident offered to smear peanut butter on his penis so she could “lick it off”.

At 10 years old she said she would tell her mother, and he pushed her to the ground warning her: “Don’t you ever say anything or I’ll f--king hurt you”.

In another incident she told him: “I don’t really wanna do it no more, that’s enough.”

The adult man then hit her, before sexually assaulting her as she screamed, kicked and yelled.

With his hand around her throat and mouth, her step-father hit her and told her to “shut up” before she stopped struggling, laid still and cried.

After he broke up with his victim’s mother, the predator continued to visit the family home.

Prosecutor Ian Rowbottam said the little girl was “scared and confused” as she watched the explicit videos from Pornhub as her step-father started touching her, forced her to masturbate him before sexually assaulting her.

On one occasion while her mother was out, he walked into her 10-year-old daughters room while completely naked and asked: “Did you miss dad?”

The young girl said, “No dad, I don’t want to”, and while he raped her she called out: “No dad, you’re hurting me.”

The predator and the little girl showered together afterwards. She was crying the whole time.

Mr Rowbottam said in his statement to police the 42-year-old tried to make his abuse of the young girl sound “as if it was a natural, loving relationship”.

“The repugnancy of the facts jump out,” he said.

Justice Kelly said it was “ludicrous and abhorrent” to imply the child was complicit in her own abuse.

In her victim statement, the now teenaged victim wrote she felt “twisted in the brain” and was often overwhelmed by the anger, paranoia and anxiety left from his offending.

“I don't want any child to go through what I’ve been through,” she said.

In her victim statement the now teenaged victim wrote that she felt “twisted in the brain” and was often overwhelmed by the anger, paranoia and anxiety left from his offending.

Her mother said despite her daughter’s bad days and suicidal ideation, “she’s still here fighting”.

As the facts were read aloud in the Darwin court room, the 42-year-old crouched over with his head in his hands.

His lawyer Erin Morton said her client had a dysfunctional childhood, being raised by two parents with substance abuse issues who spent time in prison before being shuffled around foster care homes and separated from his siblings until he was 14 years old.

“His destabilised childhood...has followed into his adulthood,” she said.

But in a handwritten letter he wrote to Justice Kelly, the 42-year-old said: “I know that my past experiences.... do not excuse the man I am today or the things that I did.”

The court heard the Darwin man was sober and clean of drugs when he started abusing the child, but later started drinking heavily and “hit rock bottom really fast”.

In 2017 he was sentenced to nine years in prison for a violent armed robbery of a Darwin bottle shop.

The 42-year-old was nearing the end of his non-parole period when the child abuse charges were laid, moving him from the low-security ward to a higher security section of the prison.

Justice Kelly sentenced him to 15 years in prison, with a 10 year six month non-parole period.

She said the sentence would only begin in September 2023, meaning he would only be eligible for parole in 2034.