Abuse started at the age of 5; victim is now 24 years old.
An Australian court on Friday sentenced a husband and wife lengthy jail term for torturing and sexually abusing their daughter for more than 15 years, reported Associated Press.
The 59-year-old father was sentenced to 48 years in prison, while the mother was sentenced to 16 years’ jail term. The father will have to serve at least 36 years to be eligible for a parole.
During the trial, the district court in Sydney was told about the torture suffered by the girl for over a decade. The girl was tied up in a shed or a plastic box by her father in their property in northern New South Wales.
The father used to rape and torture the girl using sharp tools that lasted for three days at a time. He held the girl’s head under water in a creek, wrapped her in barbed wire, threatened her with a chainsaw and forced her to eat hot chilies. He started abusing the girl while she was just five years old.
The mother started abusing the girl from the age of eight and taught her how to sexually arouse her father. The identity of the parents has not been revealed.
Judge Sarah Huggett described the crimes as “atrocious in the extreme,” and the acts of the father as “selfish, depraved and sadistic.”
The father was convicted of 73 offenses and his wife of 13 offenses in June. They denied all charges. They were arrested in 2013 after an investigation following the revelation of the girl about the torture while she was admitted to a hospital in 2011. Now she is 24 years old.