September 10, 2011

Victim of father's abuse gets suppression lifted

By Anne Clarkson at the Rangiora Court House

The victim of childhood sexual abuse by her father did not want either of their names suppressed, and the judge agreed with her when she confronted her abuser in the Christchurch District Court yesterday.

Kevin Edwin McAllister, 72, was sentenced on three charges of rape and other indecent assault charges through the 1970s on his daughter who was aged under 16.

Helena Joy Watson, now 51, read her victim impact statement in the sentencing at the Rangiora Court House and said because she was raped and abused she found surviving extremely difficult.

She said her father told her to keep quiet as her mother would have a nervous breakdown if she found out, and she would lie in bed hoping her father would not wake her up.

She felt trapped by the terrible secret he made her keep, and she told him she hated being his sex slave, was terrified of all men, had low self-esteem, and was suicidal.

Later her father started sending her sexual emails and threatened suicide himself if she told anyone.

She is still having counselling sessions and told her father yesterday that she wanted the truth known to purge her terrible burden of silence. She wanted him to have all that responsibility back, and said it was his turn to pay for it instead of her.?

Defence counsel for McAllister, Allister Davis, said McAllister made a full confession to the police about the secret in the family that had gone on for years.

He said McAllister had taken steps to rehabilitate himself and was remorseful and ashamed. He could not reconcile what he had done to his own daughter.

Crown prosecutor, Marcus Zintl, said this serious historic sexual offending plumbed the depths perversion, and occurred weekly over a number of years.

Her father should have been protecting her from such behaviour and not indulging in it himself. She had her childhood stolen from her, he said.

Judge David Saunders said the offending occurred in Christchurch and Lake Tekapo.

He said it was deviant and reprehensible behaviour, which robbed her of her innocence, and had a huge impact on her life.

?In her own home she should have learned about love and trust, but you corrupted that for her,? he said.

He sentenced McAllister to three years ten months prison and lifted the name suppressions.