A JEHOVAH’S Witness stands accused of sexually abusing his daughter when she was aged just four years old.


Almost four decades after the alleged incident happened, one of the women subjected to years of sexual abuse broke down in tears as she described the times her father would simulate rape as she lay on a bed of hay in a cowshed.


Her sister claimed to have been raped by the man, in his 40s at the time, and her then teenage brother. Neither woman can be named, for legal reasons. 
The patriarch, now in his 80s and ruled unfit to plead by a judge, and his son, 50s, deny charges of indecent assault, rape and incest. 


Opening the case at Swindon Crown Court yesterday afternoon, prosecutor Tara Wolfe said: “This case concerns the historic sexual abuse of two women. Women now, they were young girls at the time.”


The older girl claimed the abuse began after she started secondary school. Her father would take her out in his car, touching her inappropriately and demanding she perform  sex acts. He was later said to have raped her near Swindon.

When she was 16, she claimed her brother had taken her to a Clint Eastwood film. “On the way back home he stopped the vehicle, turned to her and said he had been nice to her and now it was her turn to be nice to him,” said Ms Wolfe. He is accused of raping her in the car.

The woman was said to have thought as she had been molested by her father it was “almost normal for her to be treated in this way by the men in her family”. 
When she was around 16, she told her father she wasn’t going to be abused by him any longer. It was around this time that allegedly her sister began to be assaulted, with the prosecution implying the dad had moved from older to younger daughter.

The first incident had taken place in the man’s car, parked outside shops near Swindon. The man had instructed his four-year-old daughter to perform a sex act on him. 

In a taped police interview played to jurors, the younger woman described being taken to a cowshed by her father from the age of around seven, where he would simulate sex as she lay half-clothed on a straw bale.

Once the assaults ended, he was said to have carried on as normal, feeding the animals then going back to the house. “It was like nothing had ever happened,” she told detectives. “I had to blank it out.” 
The allegations came to light after the younger victim had a mental breakdown and sought the help of a counsellor in Swindon, who persuaded her to go to police.

The father denies indecent assault and rape, while his son denies incest. The trial continues.