Life for father who raped daughters
A rapist who fathered seven children with his two daughters during a campaign of abuse spanning more than quarter of a century has received 25 life sentences.
The 56-year-old man repeatedly raped his daughters, who between them went through 19 pregnancies, Sheffield Crown Court heard.
The campaign started when the women were aged between eight and 10. If they refused their father's advances, they were badly beaten.
Judge Alan Goldsack QC ordered the Sheffield man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to serve 25 life sentences that will run concurrently. He said the minimum term the rapist should serve in jail should be 19-and-a-half years.
Judge Goldsack said: "The phrase 'it is difficult to imagine a worse case' is much overused and rarely, if ever, true. I am not going to say no case of rape within a family situation will ever come to light. But I can say that in nearly 40 years of dealing with criminal cases and 14 as a family judge the combination of aggravating circumstances here is the worst I have come across."
The defendant refused to attend the sentencing hearing, during which the court heard he had fathered five children by his youngest daughter and two by his eldest.
Two of the eldest daughter's babies died the day they were born, the court heard. Between them his daughters suffered five miscarriages and five terminations and doctors advised them not to have any more children by the man they did not know then to be their father.
The judge was told that both daughters were raped repeatedly during their ordeal which started in 1981. At the start they were attacked every day, whilst for long periods they would be raped two or three times a week. If they refused their father's request they would be punched, kicked and sometimes held to the flames of a gas fire, burning their eyes and arms.
James Baird, representing the defendant, launched a stinging attack on social services in both Sheffield and Lincolnshire, which was where the defendant fled with his family in the 1990s to avoid detection.
Judge Goldsack also supported this view when he sentenced the defendant. He added: "As a result of this case questions will inevitably be asked about what professionals, social and medical workers, have been doing for the last 20 years."
