Bradford girl ‘suffered eight years of sex abuse’

The alleged victim, now in her 30s, wept as she told Bradford Crown Court yesterday that the man people assumed was her dad demanded sex in return for clothes and a birthday party.

A Bradford man 20 years her senior denies ten charges of rape, eight allegations of indecent assault and four charges of indecency with a child.

He cannot be named to protect the identity of the woman.

Prosecutor Kirsty Watson told the jury the charges reflected a catalogue of abuse stretching from 1984 to 1992.

The woman said she lived at three different addresses in Bradford with the man when she was aged between seven and 15.

She said she enjoyed spending time at his house when she was a little girl. He gave her a lot of attention and she played with his cat.

When her mother moved house, she stayed behind with him. “She gave me up to him,” the woman told the court.

They shared a bed and he sexually molested her, she said. When she was 11, he began to rape her up to twice a week.

He demanded sex in return for buying her a shell suit and allowing her to have a 13th birthday party, she told the jury.

When she became pregnant at 15, she did not know if the man was the father.

He found out she was expecting a baby and threw her down the stairs, she said.

The woman said she tried to tell her mother about the abuse when she was a girl, but she accused her of “being silly”.

“I thought I would be put in a care home if I did not go along with it. I used to hate it,” she said.

When she told the man to stop, he threatened to kill himself with two live plug wires, she alleged.

In his defence, the man told the court he used to send the girl home to her mother. When she stayed, it was never in the same room and nothing sexual ever happened between them.

When she was a teenager, she played truant and stayed out late.

He sent her back to live with her mother when she got pregnant, he said.

The trial continues.