An Illawarra father who laughed and played along as his mentally disabled teenage daughter was chained up and taunted by his ex-partner's new boyfriend has been sentenced to 15 months behind bars, with a magistrate describing the man's behaviour towards his daughter as "abhorrent".
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The 43-year-old man, who cannot be named in order to protect his daughter's identity, admitted to police upon his arrest in February this year that he and the new boyfriend wanted to torment the 14-year-old girl after she lashed out during a "sensory overload" episode on the evening of December 18, 2018.
Magistrate Sally McLaughlin was scathing of the man's actions during a sentence hearing in Wollongong Local Court on Friday.
"This was abhorrent [behaviour].....perpetrated against one of our community's most vulnerable persons, a child with a severe disability," Magistrate McLaughlin said.
"It's a significant breach of trust against her by her father, which is aggravated by her vulnerability and severe disability."
A set of agreed facts tendered to the court reveal the 14-year-old victim was living with her mother, siblings and their father in a home south of Wollongong when a loud noise on the television triggered a sensory overload episode.
The teen lashed out and started scratching her sister and her mother's new boyfriend, who was at the home that day.
This prompted the boyfriend to declare he was "going to get the chains". He returned a short time later with a long chain, which he placed around her wrist, securing it with a padlock.
The chain hold resembled handcuffs and had a long piece extending from the wrists, which could be held, police said.
The teen's father entered the lounge room, at which time the older sibling said "you better stop doing that because my mum's going to go off, it's just not right".
The father told police he "played along" with what his ex's boyfriend was doing, saying he didn't want to cause trouble with him.
Meanwhile, three short videos of the incident, shot by the teen's older sister, were played in court on Friday but have been prohibited from wider publication under court order.
The first showed the teen chained up, sitting on the lounge, while her father and her mum's boyfriend stood in front of her, taunting her. At one stage they put a sheet or blanket over her head, then remove it.
The girl's sister can be heard saying "if you're watching this, call someone".
Her father responds "don't tape me, I'm wanted mate".
The second and third videos show the victim on the floor, still chained up.
Both men can be seen smiling and laughing in the videos, while the mum's boyfriend is overheard threatening to break the older sister's mobile phone if she keeps filming the encounter.
At one stage, the victim was heard begging to be let go.
The fact sheets said the three videos were inadvertently uploaded to an iCloud account belonging to the phone's previous owner, who spotted them in January this year and reported them to police.
The father was arrested in mid-February and charged.
When interviewed, he told police his ex's boyfriend liked to torment the victim.
"Like, knowing she's got a disability... just to provoke her a little bit," he said.
He admitted they both intended to torment his daughter with their actions, but not to physically hurt her, although did concede his behaviour was wrong.
Defence lawyer Justine Hall said nothing justified her client's behaviour that day.
"Quite frankly, his inaction and participation in going along with what the co-accused was doing and taking no steps to stop it was a failure on his part as a father, a failure as a responsible adult and a failure as a member of the community," she said.
Magistrate McLaughlin sentenced the man to 20 months' prison, with a non-parole period of 15 months and 15 days.
With time served, he will be eligible for release on parole in May next year.
