A 63-year-old man who sexually assaulted his step-granddaughter while other family members visited a dying relative has been sentenced to eight years jail.
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The ordeal has had a lasting impact on the five-year-old girl, the ACT Supreme Court heard on Thursday.
Her mother said the girl suffers night terrors, needs counselling, and is petrified of running into her grandfather.
She said her daughter was so distressed she would sit and rock back and forth, and bang her head against the wall.
“She wishes things could go back to the way they were before poppy took it all away,” the mother wrote in a victim impact statement.
The assault took place in an already difficult time for the family in 2009.
A family member was fighting a losing battle against cancer in hospital, the court heard.
The offender, who cannot be named, had been to see the dying relative, and offered to take the young girl home while her mother and grandmothervisited the hospital.
As they drove home, the court heard, he told the girl they could have a little secret and spoke of explicit acts.
He put pressure on her by telling her she would get “in big trouble” if she didn’t agree.
Once home, he molested her in two rooms in the house.
He was eventually arrested and faced trial in the ACT Supreme Court on two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
The grandfather maintained his innocence, but was found guilty of both charges in a second trial.
He came before Justice Hilary Penfold on Thursday for sentencing.
Justice Penfold sentenced the man to eight years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of four years and six months.
“On any view, these are serious examples of this offence,” she said.
The judge said the offender had breached the girl’s trust, and had extracted her consent by telling her she would get in trouble.
The mother, through her victim impact statement, said her daughter’s innocence had been taken away in “one fell swoop”.
“The impact of his actions will be felt for many years to come, if not a lifetime,” she wrote.
The man has no prior record and was found to be otherwise of good character by the court.
He is appealing the conviction, and has shown no remorse or contrition, Justice Penfold said.
