Queensland farmer subjected his stepdaughter to years of intense abuse, including zapping her with a cattle prod and forcing her to hold onto an electric fence as he beat her with a plastic pipe.
The 57-year-old man is this week in court to determine whether he will stand trial for multiple assault, torture and rape charges against nine people, News.com.au reports.
The abuse allegations, which span over a decade, include hitting his stepdaughter with a poly pipe when she was in Year 3 or 4 (age 8-9) and being dragged out of bed by her hair in the middle of the night to be zapped with a cattle prod in the stomach, after forgetting to put a chicken in its coop.
The stepdaughter was crying in the stand as she spoke about the abuse she allegedly endured until she was 15 when her mother finally left the farmer, The Border Mail reports.
Her stepfather would allegedly hit her with pipe up to two to three times a week, sometimes forcing her to hold onto an electric fence while enduring the beatings.
“I often came up with bruises,” she said.
When she was 13 she revealed a bit about the abuse to a school-based police officer and child services visited her house.
“Once the (Department of Child Safety) left nothing ever happened,” she said, before saying she was then too "scared" to bring it up again.
“They did nothing for me, so what was I meant to do?”
The hearings continue.
This article first published on Marie Claire.
