An "evil" Victorian father who abused his daughter for a decade, got her pregnant then forced her to have an abortion should be more ashamed of his actions than he is, a judge says.
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The 74-year-old doctor, who was still working until last year, has shown little remorse for the abuse of the girl between the ages of eight and 18.
"Your conduct was shameful and evil. It was totally destructive and perverse. You should be totally ashamed of yourself, more ashamed than you actually are," County Court Judge Michael Tinney told the man, who cannot be named.
The effects of his crimes on the girl, now a woman and a mother, would reverberate throughout the rest of her life, long after the man was gone, he said.
"You betrayed every duty you owed to her as a father. You did that for close to a decade," he said.
The man's sexual touching of his daughter began when she was eight and progressed to penetration - sometimes, but not always, with a condom - by the time she was 14 or 15.
He called her his "little wife" or "secret wife" and told her that he was having relationship problems with her mother and that she would not have sex with him.
He often gave her the morning after pill, but she fell pregnant to him. Her father chastised her and booked an appointment under a false name for her to have an abortion.
"You were a GP and know what that procedure would involve. You just dropped her off - you didn't even go inside the clinic with her," Judge Tinney said.
"Not even that served as a wake up call - thereafter you gave her the contraceptive pill and continued on with your damaging and pervasive conduct."
The daughter didn't speak up at the time, telling police later she feared the unknown more than the known.
She feared what would happen if he didn't get his way or that no-one would believe her.
The judge said he was pleased she had expressed a "note of optimism" in her evidence to the court, and that disclosure had improved her life.
She confronted her father in recorded phone calls as an adult, after her own daughter turned eight.
He blamed her for the abuse and told police later it "would have been helpful if she resisted but she was too accepting and passive".
Judge Tinney was scathing of the man's lack of remorse, despite his guilty plea. He abused his daughter on more than 100 occasions and left her with a sense of abandonment and betrayal.
"You have, simply, deliberately exploited and debased your daughter through all the formative portions of her childhood an adolescence ... caused vast harm to someone who it was your duty to love, nurture and protect," he said.
Judge Tinney ordered the man serve 16-and-a-half years behind bars for the two charges of indecent assault and incest.
He'll serve 11-and-a-half years before becoming eligible for parole.
Australian Associated Press
