By DENISE MAYCOCK
Tribune Freeport Reporter
dmaycock@tribunemedia.net
A TEENAGE girl testified in an incest trial that her father began sexually abusing her in 2015 when she was just ten years old and continued doing so into her early teens until 2019.
The 19-year-old victim said the abuse took place in Abaco during her father’s visits from Freeport, as well as during one summer when she and her siblings stayed with him in Freeport.
The victim recalled being awakened in the middle of the night by her father, who engaged in oral sex with her. After enduring years of abuse and recurring nightmares, she began documenting her experiences in a journal, which she later shared with her mother.
The father is now facing five counts of incest in the Supreme Court.
Justice Petra Hanna-Adderley is presiding over the case, which opened on Thursday before a jury of seven women and two men.
Sean Smith, representing the Office of the Attorney General, is prosecuting on behalf of the Crown, while Brian Hanna serves as the defence counsel.
Mr Smith alleges that the father committed incest, which is a criminal offence under Section 13 1A of the Sexual Offences Act.
The first incident allegedly occurred on September 30, 2015, in Murphy Town, Abaco, when the victim was just ten years old. Additional incidents occurred between February 1 and 30, 2016; December 1 and 30, 2016, in Abaco; June 1 and 31, 2018, in Freeport; and July 1 and 31, 2019, in Abaco.
The virtual complainant recalled the first time she was awakened by her father in the middle of the night on September 30, 2015. At the time, she shared a bedroom with her two brothers while her parents slept in another bedroom.
The father entered the bedroom and told her to put on a skirt and meet him in the hallway.
The complainant told how he pulled her panties to the side and began performing oral sex on her for about 20 minutes to half an hour while the mother slept not far away in the next bedroom.
She said he then forced her to perform oral sex on him.
Afterward, the father told her to always wear it before going to bed.
Two nights later, it happened again. After performing oral sex, she said he told her to face the wall and proceeded to penetrate her anus with his penis.
“It was painful, and I began making noise, and he told me to be quiet because my mother’s bedroom door was cracked,” she recalled.
When Mr Smith asked if she had told her mother what had happened, the teen said she had not because she was afraid.
She and her three brothers lived with their parents in a two-bedroom duplex.
The virtual complainant said her father had explained that what he was doing was preparing her for when she started to have a boyfriend.
She said in February 2016, while home on midterm break from school, the sexual abuse occurred again while her mother and brothers had gone to the food store.
The teen told the court that she did not tell her mother what had happened when she returned home because she was “sacred.”
In December 2016, when her father came from Freeport, he took the virtual complainant and brothers to a hotel where they stayed for two nights. While there, he allegedly had oral sex with her in a rental car.
The teen recalled another incident in June 2018 in Freeport when she and her brothers went to spend time with their father during the summer.
“When we arrived, he dropped my brothers off at my aunt’s house and took me back to his place,” she said.
The father attempted to have sexual intercourse with her in his room and got upset when she refused to comply with his demands.
“He put his penis at my vagina, and told me to put it in,” she said.
“Did you do it?” asked Mr Smith. “No sir, he eventually got upset and left the room and went into the car.”
The teen said on another occasion, he took her for a drive to an abandoned building and poured a liquid in his hand and rubbed it at the entrance of her vagina, and tried to have sex with her.
The virtual complainant said she pushed him off.
She recalled similar incidents in June 2018 in Abaco at her grandfather’s residence and in July 2019.
On March 24, 2021, the virtual complainant finally confided in her mother, urging her to read a journal where she had documented the abuse and detailed what her father had done to her.
She had been unable to sleep at night because she was having nightmares.
The teen said her mother accompanied her to the police station on March 26 to report the sexual abuse. Police took a statement from the virtual complainant. The mother also took her to the clinic for examination by a doctor.
On April 26, at 6.45pm the teen and her mother were summoned to the police station by Officer Frazier for a confrontation with her father. After she recounted everything in the officer’s presence, her father allegedly held his head down and said no comment.
The mother also gave evidence. She said that all four children were for the one father, who she identified as the defendant sitting in court.
The couple lived together for a while but separated for nine years in May 2016. The mother said the children’s father would travel back and forth between Abaco and Grand Bahama to bring groceries and take the children with him to spend time with them.
She said when she read her daughter’s journal, she was very upset and called the father and asked him if he had been molesting their daughter for three years.
The mother said that initially, he denied the accusations. When she asked if their daughter was lying about him, the father replied that he wasn’t claiming she was lying but suggested he must have been drunk or out of his mind at the time. He then apologised.
The trial resumes on Friday.
Commenting has been disabled for this item.