by Lekan Olanrewaju

A man was yesterday handed a 19 year jail sentence for the rape of two girls. The victims were his daughter and stepdaughter who he reportedly raped up to three times a week and beat with a leather belt if they refused.

The man, 51, whose identity has been protected fathered three children with the girls. One with his daughter when she was 15, and two with his step daughter, first when she was 16 and then when she was 20.

He was found guilty of eight counts of rape and two counts of child cruelty after a trial at Bradford Crown Court for which he was sentenced to 19 years in prison for each count of rape and six years to run concurrently for the child cruelty charges.

“You are a cruel, violent, controlling, manipulative sexual offender who has shown little, if any, remorse for the harm that you have caused.” Judge John Potter said to him. “The rape and child cruelty counts reflect the brutal and sustained abuse by you of two of your children, your stepdaughter and your natural daughter, over a significant period of time. Both of your victims indicated in their evidence…that for a time you were raping them as frequently as three times a week. Abuse supported by the threat of a beating by you with a leather belt if they did not comply.”

The judge said the man used rape to punish his stepdaughter, who he abused between the ages of 13 and 15, until she conceived her first child.

He did not rape her again until she was 19 after she told her mother of an affair that he was having with another woman.

“Your response was to resume the rape,” Judge Potter said “it seems as a punishment for her telling her mother of the affair.”

The court heard he raped her on at least four occasions until she conceived her second child, aged 20,  three years after which he began the “sustained and systematic raping” of his own daughter.

Judge Potter commended the two women for their “acts of bravery” in giving evidence during the trial.