'British Fritzl' who fathered nine babies jailed for life

Published on Tuesday 25 November 2008 20:59

A RAPIST who fathered nine babies with his two daughters during a campaign of abuse spanning more than a quarter of a century yesterday received 25 life sentences.

The 56-year-old repeatedly raped his daughters, who between them went through 19 pregnancies. Nine of the children were born, two dying on the day of their birth. The other ten pregnancies were miscarried or aborted.

The man has already been compared with the Austrian rapist Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter locked in a dungeon for 24 years as he fathered seven children with her.

A court was told that both daughters were raped repeatedly during their ordeal, which started in 1981. At the start, they were attacked every day, while for long periods they would be raped two or three times a week.

If they refused their father's advances, they would be punched, kicked and sometimes held to the flames of a gas fire, burning their eyes and arms.

Sheffield Crown Court heard the defendant, who called himself "the gaffer" when at the family home, took "pleasure" in fathering children by his daughters and would continue to rape them despite there being problems with their pregnancies.

He would even rape them while they were pregnant, and they would have to take it in turns to babysit their children while the other was forced to have sex with him.

Their only reprieve came after they had just given birth or when they were ill because of the abuse.

They often visited hospitals but, despite this, none of the doctors, nurses or social workers they saw launched any kind of investigation into why they kept getting pregnant, the court heard.

James Baird, representing the father, attacked social services in both Sheffield and Lincolnshire, where he fled with his family in the 1990s to avoid detection.

"It must be inconceivable to those who have listened to this case that these offences have been carried out, in this day and age, in a so-called civilised society, over such a long time and with such consequences, without them being reported or investigated," Mr Baird said.

The judge, Alan Goldsack, QC, said the case was the worst he had come across in nearly 40 years of dealing with criminal cases.

He ordered the defendant, who cannot be named for legal reasons, to serve 25 life sentences, to run concurrently, for each of the rapes he last month admitted carrying out. The minimum prison term was set at 19 and a half years.

"The phrase 'It is difficult to imagine a worse case' is much overused and rarely, if ever, true," the judge said.

"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 daughters said in a statement: "His detention in prison brings us only the knowledge that he cannot physically touch us again. The suffering he caused will continue for many years and we must now concentrate our thoughts on finding the strength to rebuild our lives."

Jayne Ludlam, the director of children's and young people's services at Sheffield City Council, said the abuse was revealed to social workers in June. "This is one of the most harrowing cases we have had to deal with," she said.

But one relative has claimed police were told of incest allegations involving the man as long ago as in 1988. The council has already launched an independent review into the circumstances of the case.