A Pakistani national has been accused of drugging his two biological children to sleep while his wife worked the night shift, so that he could rape his 15-year-old stepdaughter.
The suspect, 46, a shop-owner in Phoenix, appeared in the Verulam Magistrate’s Court on Monday on a charge of rape. The matter was adjourned to next week for his bail application.
The girl’s mother said she shared two children, aged 11 and 8, with the man – her husband of 12 years. Her teenage daughter was from a previous marriage.
She claimed he had been raping her daughter since the Covid-19 lockdown.
“My daughter had become distant, was performing poorly in school and was not eating. I kept asking her what was wrong. She finally opened up to me last Thursday about the rape.
“We cried together. She told he would take her in his car and molest her. She said he drugged the two other children with over the counter pain and sinus medication while I was at work, so they could sleep. Then he would force my daughter to watch pornographic videos and rape her…”
The mother, 39, said it devastated her to know that her child had been violated and living in fear for so many years.
She claimed her husband had become physically abusive in the last three years, but she didn’t know why.
She said her daughter was receiving counselling.
“I have also questioned the other two children, but they said they had not been interfered with. But, I am not taking any risks. They too will be examined by a doctor.”