Justice has finally been served against a mother who allowed her husband to rape their daughter repeatedly. The unnamed woman, was taken to court by her daughter, now an adult, who claimed that she was abused over a six-year period when she was a child. From the ages of 10 to 16, during the late 70s and 80s, her mother agreed to swap beds with her so her husband could have better access to their daughter to enable his abuse and shockingly the two even used to pass in the hallway as the daughter was forced to walk to the waiting abuse and the mother to sleep. The mother thought of the act as her husband 'getting it out of his system' and is said to have allowed the abuse to continue until her own parents found out and out an end to it.
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Prosecutor Andrew Walklate told the court at Townsville District Court in Queensland, Australia: "For about a week when the complainant was about 15 years old the [mother] swapped bedrooms with the complainant… that was in order to facilitate the sexual activity taking place. She was to vacate the bedroom every night for a week in order for the complainant to enter the bedroom and enable him to do what he wanted to do." He added that the mother knew about the abuse for a very long time, and had apparently confided in a GP who told her to ignore the situation. The daughter claimed that the mother's enabling and inaction was as damaging emotionally as her father's physical actions. The abuse ended when her grandfather finally intervened.The mother admitted incest and allowing the abuse of a child under the age of 16.
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Barrister Scott Geeves, representing the mother, said that she had a great deal of remorse for what she had done. The woman, now aged 72, pleaded guilty to incest and permitting the abuse of a child under 16 on premises. Geeves said she had never been in trouble with the law and was valued in the community. Judge Coker took into account the woman's age, her lack of criminal history and his certainty that she would not re-offend. He sentenced her to two years imprisonment to be suspended after four months.
