A father treated his severely disabled daughter "like a dog" when he was videoed using a silver chain to tie the teenager up inside a home south of Wollongong in late 2018, a court has heard.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, stands accused of binding the 15-year-old girl's wrists and holding her against her will on the evening of December 30, as he and another man - the girl's mother's new boyfriend - watched on and laughed.
The shocking incident was captured in three short videos shot by the victim's terrified older sister, who can be heard saying "please, if you're watching this, call someone" as the camera on her mobile phone is recording.
Police claim the first video shows the two men standing in the lounge room with the girl, whose wrists are bound by a chain. She is also covered with a white sheet.
The sheet is then pulled of her head and one of the men can be overheard calling her a "good girl". The chain binding the girl's wrists also has a long piece extending out, which police say "can be held like a dog leash".
In the second video, the victim can be seen kneeling on the floor while her mother's new boyfriend holds the chain in a scene police described as similar to "that of a person commanding a dog to sit and stay".
Both men allegedly utter a series of threats towards the sister videoing the encounter after she tells them she has called her boyfriend to the house.
In the third video, which is only three seconds long, the victim can be seen sitting on the lounge with both hands chained together with a padlock.
The alleged abuse was never reported to police, with documents tendered to Port Kembla Local Court on Friday saying the incident only came to light a year later when the older sister sold her mobile phone to a third party.
The purchaser discovered the horrific videos still stored on the phone and took the matter to police last month.
Detectives subsequently spoke with the victim's older sister, who confirmed the contents of the videos.
She also said her mother had been out of the house when the incident took place and that her father had released the victim a short time after the end of the third video.
The man was arrested on Thursday evening and charged with detaining a person while in company.
Meanwhile, he was also charged with online grooming offences amid allegations he sent explicit images to, and sexually propositioned, a police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl on social media.
The interaction, said to have taken place in the first two weeks of February, allegedly included the man sending the girl's profile pictures of male and female masturbation and asking the identity to touch herself in a similar way.
He also promised to teach her how to perform fellatio on him.
When interviewed by police, the man also allegedly admitted to sending highly sexual messages to a 13-year-old girl whose mother he used to date.
In court on Friday, defence lawyer Cate Doosey said the man was concerned he would lose his job if he was refused bail. She said there were no children living at the the accommodation he had lined up.
However, Magistrate Roger Clisdell refused to release the man, noting he was already serving an intensive corrections order and the cases against him on both sets of fresh charges were strong.
The case will return to court on April 8.
