NSW:Stepfather jailed over abuse of 3-year-old

AAP General News (Australia)
08-16-2011
NSW:Stepfather jailed over abuse of 3-year-old

By Margaret Scheikowski

SYDNEY, Aug 16 AAP - A man who sexually assaulted his three-year-old stepdaughter in
a act of "wanton cruelty" has been jailed for at least 12 years.

The sentence includes terms for neglecting the girl and her younger sister as well
as trying to pervert the course of justice.

In the NSW District Court on Tuesday, Judge Robert Sorby set a maximum term of 16 years
and six months for the 31-year-old Sydney man.

He had pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to provide the necessities of life to
the sisters and to trying to pervert the course of justice.

In March, the judge found him guilty of having sexual intercourse with a girl under
his authority and causing her actual bodily harm.

He rejected a suggestion that a fall on a lawn mower had caused the three-year-old
girl's injuries.

The man was hosing the child down in the backyard after she had soiled her pants in
February 2009 when he committed the offence using the nozzle of the garden hose.

In sentencing him, the judge described the offence as a "wanton act of cruelty", saying
it had been forceful and caused injuries.

The man and the girls' mother met on the chatline Hot Gossip when she was living in
a women's refuge.

The neglect counts covered a 12-week period from late 2008, when the man regularly
confined the girls to their rooms for long periods without adequate sustenance.

They lived in "squalid conditions" and their health and safety were "severely compromised",
the judge said.

After his arrest over the backyard incident, the man arranged for the girl's mother
to receive a letter from him in which he asked her to lie about the offence.

The man had no previous criminal history and a good work record.

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KEYWORD: MOWER

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