An Illawarra man who molested and attempted to rape his own daughter under the disturbing guise of teaching her about sex has failed to have his eight-and-a-half year prison sentence reduced on appeal.
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The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, repeatedly assaulted the then 11-year-old girl and showed her pornographic movies throughout 2000 when she was in Year 6, just months after his wife had decided against allowing the girl to participate in sex education classes at school.
In sentencing the man in Wollongong District Court last September, Judge Andrew Haesler noted the mother had then obtained nightshift work, leaving the children, including the victim, in the care of their father.
"There was no other adult in the home and over the course of the next few months, [the father] took it upon himself in a disturbed and disturbing way to raise sex education matters with his daughter," Judge Haesler said.
"The pretext led to series of serious crimes....he used his daughter for his own sexual gratifications."
The victim later said she did not disclose the acts because she feared she and her siblings would grow up without a father if she did.
Meanwhile, the court heard the abuse ceased after about a year, and it was only more than a decade later in 2011 that the man confessed to the victim that he too had been sexually abused by his stepfather as a child and was sorry for what he'd done to her.
The woman, now aged in her 20s, told her husband what had happened in 2015 then reported it to the police.
Her father was arrested in November 2018 and eventually pleading guilty to seven charges including attempted rape and aggravated indecent assault.
Judge Haesler sentenced the man, now aged in his 50s, to eight years and six months' jail, with a non-parole period of five years and six months.
However, the man's legal team appealed the sentence to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal, claiming Judge Haesler had not given enough thought to the man's remorse, his poor health and his own background of sexual abuse as a child.
Barrister Anthony Rogers suggested all of those factors significantly reduced the man's moral culpability, which should entitle him to a more lenient sentence.
But a three-judge appeals panel consisting of justices Ian Harrison, Peter Hamill and Peter Johnson found Judge Haesler's decision was fair and thorough.
"The applicant has not made good on any of his grounds of appeal," they said in their published judgement.
"The sentencing judge's careful and balanced sentencing remarks demonstrate the exercise of instinctive synthesis undertaken in this case, where all factors were taken into account in passing sentence.
"Each ground of appeal should be rejected."
With time served, the man will be eligible to apply for release on parole in March 2025.
He will then spend three years on parole.
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