Man not guilty of incest, exposing daughter to bestiality

A Fgura man has been cleared of the aggravated sexual assault of his 11-year-old daughter and showing her pornographic films involving animals.

Appogg had been notified of the case by the girl’s mother, after her the daughter had revealed the alleged abuse in January 2012.

The daughter had claimed that on a number of different occasions during the summer of 2009, her father had shown her pornography and asked her to perform sex acts on him. She alleged that her father had offered her €20 and a month off school if she cooperated and that he had threatened to kill her mother, were she to tell anyone about the arrangement.

The girl said that she had tried to tell her mother about the pornographic films, however the mother “did not believe her and laughed it off”.

From the witness stand, the mother rebutted this assertion, testifying that she immediately reported the abuse to Appoġġ upon being told about it by her daughter.

The court also heard how the father and daughter had not been on good terms due to the fact that she had insisted on carrying on a sexual relationship with her boyfriend, in spite of the father prohibiting this.  

Other details in her story also did not add up. The magistrate noted that on one occasion the girl had said she was wearing a fur coat during the abuse, when the alleged incident took place in summer. Also, it felt it to be unlikely that the father would have tried to entice his daughter with the offer of a month off school during the summer holidays. The girl was not attending summer school.

Finally, the pornographic films allegedly shown to the girl were not found by the police.

The daughter’s story failed to convince magistrate Audrey Demicoli, who noted that the alleged abuse was only reported after this incident and that when called to testify in court, the girl had tried to halt proceedings, saying that she had forgiven him. “This indicates that the girl was not telling the truth and was trying to put things right by stopping proceedings”.

All the evidence pointed towards the girl trying to get back at her father, the Magistrate said, declaring him not guilty of all charges.

Lawyers Lucio and Michael Sciriha appeared for the man.