Man aged in his 30s faces Toowoomba District Court for raping ex-partner and molesting her young daughters

A court has been told that it was only after the rape of his ex-partner that it was discovered a man in his 30s had molested her daughters.

A Toowoomba man aged in his 30s who raped his estranged wife was found to have earlier molested her two young daughters.

The man, who cannot be named so as to protect the identity of his victims, was sentenced to nine months’ jail on October 24, 2022, after pleading guilty in Toowoomba District Court to two counts of indecently dealing with a girl under 16 and one count of indecently dealing with a girl under 12.

He was eligible to apply for release on parole as of January 23, 2023, after having served three months but as he was on bail for the rape of the girls’ mother, he remained in custody.

He appeared before the same court on Thursday for sentence, having pleaded guilty to rape at the December sittings of the District Court in Toowoomba.

Crown prosecutor Emily Coley told the court the couple had an on-again-off-again relationship for about five years during which time they had four children together.

The man pleaded guilty before Toowoomba District Court to the rape of his ex-partner.

The couple had experimented with sex and settled on a “safe word” of “red” which was to indicate to the other to stop immediately, she said.

The couple had separated by January 2020 but he was still living at the family home though sleeping in a spare room, she said.

On January 8, 2020, the two of them had been drinking alcohol at the home and he had made sexual advances toward her which she had rejected.

Ms Coley told the court the man grabbed the woman and pushed her face down onto a bed, telling her “you have been asking for it and I know you wanted it”.

Despite her pleas of “no”, “stop” and their safe word “red”, the man told her to “shush” and raped her.

The woman called police that night but the man was only charged at that point with breaching a domestic violence order and the woman hadn’t made a complaint of rape until about a year later, she said.

Soon after the rape, the woman had walked out to find her two daughters in the loungeroom and at least one of them had heard her mother’s cries during the attack, Ms Coley said.

The man’s plea of guilty at least saved the woman and her daughters from having to give evidence in court, she said.

The man’s barrister Nathan Edridge told the court the man had since taken up with a new partner and she was expecting their first child, which will be his client’s fifth, this week.

Since being in custody his client had done two of 10 rehabilitation program sessions, he said.

Judge Anthony Rafter SC sentenced the man to five and a half years in jail, to commence at the conclusion of his current nine-month sentence, and ordered he be eligible to apply for release on parole as of November 23, 2024.