Aug 26, 2010
Teen confronts rapist father
<!-- by line --> By Khushwant Singh
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<!--background story, collapse if none--> Dad preyed on her at night
The teenager said her father preyed on her mostly at night when the mother was working the night shift as a clinic assistant. He would enter the room where the three children were sleeping in and asked her to follow him into the living room where he raped her.
The sexual abuse came to light in April last year when the girl went back to the flat to collect some of her belongings and he is believed to have tried to unbutton her school uniform in an attempt to have sex with her. He did not succeed and later, she told her mother what happened at the flat and over the years.
The father, who has no lawyer, said he did not wish to cross-examine his daughter.
MID-WAY through her testimony, the prosecutor asked the 17-year-old rape victim to look into her father's eyes and repeat her allegations against him. Sobbing, she did just that. 'Yes, he raped me,' she told the High Court of her 34-year-old father, an odd job worker accused of sexually abusing her for over 10 years.
She told the High Court she sacrificed her happiness as she was aware that telling anyone about the sexual abuse she suffered from her father would tear up the family. Her only happy moments were when she and her younger siblings went out shopping with their parents.
'Only then could I feel the warmth of family life but once at home I would have second thoughts because of what was happening to me,' she said between sobs. Earlier, the secondary school student told the court how the sexual abuse started in 1999 when she was only six years old. He made her perform oral sex on him.
A year later, he raped her twice in the living room of their rented flat. She had not even reached puberty then.
