Daughter raped by father over three decades 'too scared to tell of ordeal'

The women were repeatedly beaten and endured 18 pregnancies between them. Seven of the children survived.

The father, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, was jailed for life in November 2008.

On Wednesday, the women received an unreserved apology from the authorities who failed to protect them. A serious case review found there had been a “collective failure”.

Yesterday, one of the victims told The Sun newspaper that she feared she would lose her children if she went to the police.

“We love our kids more than anything in the world. As I got older, he said if I told anyone my children would be taken away from me,” she told the newspaper. “I was too scared to tell anyone. Besides, I didn’t think anyone would believe me.

“When my mum asked me who the father of my first child was, I told her it was a local boy - but I knew the real father was my dad.”

The review said the family had contact with 28 different agencies and 100 members of staff over 35 years.

It showed the family moved repeatedly – 67 times – in the Sheffield and Lincolnshire areas so the father could avoid detection.

Concerns were raised the women were bearing his children, but professionals failed to help them, the report revealed.

The Sheffield and Lincolnshire safeguarding children boards apologised for their failings.

The independent chairman of Lincolnshire Safeguarding Children Board, Chris Cook, told the women: “We are genuinely sorry. We should have protected you.

“People’s lives were devastated both by a controlling, power-obsessed and deviant father and our failure to act.”

Sue Fiennes, independent chairman of Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board, said they had failed the family and “nothing should shield us from that fact”.

She said lessons were being learned by the agencies to make sure nothing similar ever happened again.

In November 2008, Sheffield Crown Court heard the man’s campaign of abuse started when the women were aged between eight and 10.

If they refused his advances, they would be punched, kicked and sometimes held to the flames of a gas fire.

The defendant, who called himself the “gaffer”, took pleasure in fathering children by his daughters and would continue to rape them despite problems with their pregnancies, the court heard.

Judge Alan Goldsack QC said questions would inevitably be asked as to what professionals had “been doing for the last 20 years”.

And after the case, the women’s brother blamed social services for not protecting the family.

Despite the failures, nobody involved with the family had been sacked, disciplined or resigned.