Man jailed for engaging in sex acts with partner's 14-year-old daughter

A 47-year-old Msida man has been jailed for corrupting a minor after a magistrate was shown footage from his mobile phone showing his partner's 14-year old daughter performing sex acts on him.

The man who cannot be named, had been charged with corrupting a minor, participating in sexual activity with a minor, violent indecent assault and making a video recording of an indecent act. He was sentenced for five years in prison.

The accused's partner had gone to the police headquarters in Floriana, accompanied by her daughter and her partner's two children in November 2012 to inform the authorities that they were in possession of video clips showing the girl performing oral sex on a man. Although only the man's feet and genitals are visible in the video, the girl told the police that the man she was pleasuring was the accused and that she had performed the acts on approximately seven occasions between January and September 2012 in his bedroom.

The man was arrested and had to be taken to hospital, after complaining of chest pains. The next day, his partner told the police that her daughter was saying that the man in the footage was not the accused. However, the girl confirmed her initial accusation when speaking to police inspector Louise Calleja in private.

When her mother had discovered the films, an argument had broken out between the man and her mother, reported the girl, but this had later subsided and the woman and her children had gone back to living with the accused.

She told the Inspector that the acts had taken place over the space of a year and insisted that she had been a willing participant. She had lied about the identity of the man because she didn't want him to get into trouble. That would have been “selfish,” the girl said, as she “had wanted to do what she did.” The daughter explained that she had other sexual experiences with other men before the accused; a youth aged 17 and a boy her age.

The girl claimed that she and her mother had been forced into reporting the man to the police by his natural daughter, who insisted on this after falling out with him. She had gone to live with her sister, but intended to seize her father's apartment for her own use, the girl told the court.

The accused’s daughter had also threatened to report her father's partner to the police so that her children would be taken away from her and placed in an institution, the 14-year-old girl said.

The accused denied the charges, explaining that throughout his five-year relationship with the mother, he often argued with the girl as she was "very strong-willed."

The defence attacked the girl’s credibility, highlighting the fact that she had changed her story more than once.

Magistrate Audrey Demicoli, however held that the girl had said the truth when she had been testifying, saying that she had clearly lied in the past in order to protect the accused. The girl and her mother had been intimidated by the threats made by the accused’s spiteful daughter, the court ruled.

However, in spite of the consensual nature of the acts, the court held that the accused had taken advantage of a 13 to 14 year old girl who had only just started to experiment with her sexuality, by convincing her that it was normal to engage in sexual activities with one's mother's partner. Her attempts at protecting the accused were "further evidence of how the girl had been corrupted by the accused," ruled the magistrate.

The man was sentenced to five years imprisonment, the court also issuing a two-year protection order in favour of the mother and the girl. In addition, the man was ordered to pay the costs of the case.