Canberra father jailed after sexually abusing daughter for more than eight years

In the ACT Supreme Court on Friday, Acting Justice Stephen Norrish ordered the man to serve at least seven years and six months of the prison sentence without parole.

The rapist, aged in his 30s, cannot be named because doing so would identify the victim.

He pleaded guilty last year to a charge of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child under special care.

Sentencing the man on Friday, Acting Justice Norrish said the offence had occurred between January 2013 and February 2021.

It took place across a number of suburbs in Canberra's south, beginning when the victim was just six.

The girl would regularly stay with the offender, who had shared custody of her, sleeping in the same bed as him when she visited because he did not provide one of her own.

The rapist told his daughter early in the piece the abuse was their "secret", and warned her not to tell anybody about it because he would "go to jail".

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In one particularly graphic incident detailed by Acting Justice Norrish, the offender grew angry at the girl for jumping on the bed and grabbed her, spun her around and raped her.

The girl was reported to have cried and felt pain as a result of this incident.

Acting Justice Norrish said over the course of the offending period, the rapist committed some kind of sexual act on the victim at least once or twice each month.

The abuse became particularly frequent after the man moved house in late 2017, after which time there were at least 76 rapes of a certain type in a period of a little more than three years.

Hints of the man's deviance came to light in July 2019, when the victim's mother saw messages the girl had sent someone else about having felt uncomfortable watching a TV show where a father had raped his children because it "brought back bad memories".

Acting Justice Norrish said the offender initially denied any wrongdoing when confronted, and continued sexually abusing the girl for another 18 months despite what might have served as a warning to him to stop.

When the rapist was eventually interviewed by police, he admitted various things the girl had disclosed to investigators as well as some other offending the victim had not mentioned.

Acting Justice Norrish referred to this as he found the man, who had pleaded guilty and described his own conduct as "disgraceful", had shown genuine contrition.

However, the judge said this carried little weight given the lengthy offending period and the fact the man had known the entire time what he was doing was wrong.

Acting Justice Norrish also noted the "complete lack of insight" the man had into his crime, saying a pre-sentence report referred to him claiming his daughter had never asked him to stop and that she was sometimes "into it" as she grew older.

"There could be no suggestion whatsoever that a child so young could be encouraging him for sexual assaults to occur," the judge said.

Acting Justice Norrish added the man seemed to have "some deluded belief the victim either invited him to sexually assault her, or enjoyed the prospect of that occurring".

In fact, he said, the man had acted in an "entirely self-gratifying" manner that would have been "humiliating" and "belittling" for the victim.

Acting Justice Norrish described the offence as being "just below" the worst-case scenario for a crime of its type.

The offender sat in the dock silently over the course of more than an hour as the sentence was pronounced.

Having been behind bars on remand since July last year, he will become eligible for parole in January 2029.

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