Pendle man accused of raping nine-year-old stepdaughter (From Burnley and Pendle Citizen)

Pendle man accused of raping nine-year-old stepdaughter

12:40pm Thursday 1st November 2012 in News

A DAD-OF-THREE was allegedly a ‘drunken bully’ who raped his stepdaughter when she was nine years old, and inflicted violence on her and her brother, a jury has been told.

Burnley Crown Court heard claims the ‘vicious’ man, from Pendle, took advantage of the fact the girl was scared of him.

He terrified her for years, telling her a story about a drug dealer who, he said, had been beaten so badly the back of his skull was missing.

He threatened the same might happen to her.

The hearing was told the defendant, his then-wife, and the children, were once on hol-iday with another family and the other mother was worried about the alleged victims being treated badly and verbally abused.

She had been reading a book on the beach, called: ‘A Child Called It’ about child abuse.

Prosecutor Kathryn Johnson said: “The girl asked to read the book and, over the course of the week, the woman heard her saying to herself as she was reading: ‘This is me’.”

The man was alleged to have smashed the girl's head on a worktop in the family home, twisted her wrist, flung her on the floor, and hit her.

The girl’s brother was also allegedly assaulted and injured by the defendant who, on one occasion, banged his head into a kitchen draining board, picked up a knife and threatened to kill him.

The defendant, now 48, denies rape, two counts of cruelty to a person under 16, and two charges of assault causing actual bodily harm relating to the girl, and two allegations of cruelty to a person under 16 against the boy.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is alleged to have committed the offences between 2000 and 2010.

Miss Johnson told the jury: “It’s the prosecution case that the defendant was a drunken bully. He was an abusive step-father, was violent to both the girl and the boy, and on one occasion raped the girl when she was nine years of age.”

The court heard the victim told her friend she was sexually abused by the defendant in her room when she was nine. Police were informed and arrested the defendant last February. He said the allegation of rape was a ‘total fabrication’.

The trial continues