Rape trial hears family on both sides pressured daughter to accuse dad then recant

A YOUNG girl who accused her father of raping her later admitted to her stepmother “it was all lies” and other family members had forced her to make things up, a court has heard

The man, who cannot be named to protect the girl’s identity, has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court in Darwin to eight counts of rape. Picture: Che Chorley

• NT man faces trial for allegedly repeatedly raping, violently assaulting young daughter

A YOUNG girl who accused her father of repeatedly raping her later admitted to her stepmother “it was all lies” and other family members had forced her to make things up, a court has heard.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the girl’s identity, has pleaded not guilty in the Supreme Court in Darwin to eight counts of rape, allegedly committed against his daughter when she was aged between 10 and 13.

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In giving evidence on Thursday, the man’s current partner said the girl told her she wanted to confess to the lies she said she’d told police and played a recording of the conversation to the jury.

On the recording, the girl said another woman told her “you could just probably blame your dad for rape and then you could just go back to your mum, your dad won’t get in trouble”.

“I told her ‘Is there another way?’ I love my dad that much, I wouldn’t say anything about him raping me or doing anything to me because I love him that much,” she said.

“She forced me to tell all of this, she forced me to go through court just for nothing so my dad (would) just spend 25 years without seeing his daughter.”

The girl told her stepmother on the recording she wanted to recant “because I wanted to go back to my father’s side of the family”

“It was here I got bagged in front of my mum and she didn’t do anything to support me, she doesn’t even support me,” she said.

“I’m not saying this because it’s not nice living with my mum, I’m saying this because I really want to go back to my dad and I want to tell the truth.”

Earlier, the officer in charge of the investigation Detective Senior Constable Maria Karpathakis told the court the girl later changed her story again, saying “she’s always been telling the truth but she felt pressured to say otherwise because of the family”.

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“She said that the family was putting pressure on her and made her feel bad that dad was going to go to jail for so many years and they were trying to get her to change her mind, change her story about that she lied about those things that she told me,” she said.

The trial continues.