QLD: Man who made pregnancy pact with stepdaughter loses appeal
By Christine Flatley06 Mar 2009 3:09 PM
EDS: Note language in last par
BRISBANE, March 6 AAP - A man who tried to impregnate his 15-year-old stepdaughter because he and his wife desperately wanted another child has failed in a bid to have his sentence reduced.
Lawyers for the man took the case to the Queensland Court of Appeal in February, arguing the eight-year jail sentence handed down to him in July last year was manifestly excessive, and should have been as low as six years.
However in a written judgment handed down on Friday, Chief Justice Paul de Jersey said there were so many aggravating features in the case that it warranted an eight-year prison term.
The man was 35 when he was sentenced in the Brisbane District Court.
His 39-year-old wife, who had offered her daughter advice on the best sexual positions to achieve their goal, received a six-month jail term, to be followed by three years probation.
Both had pleaded guilty to one charge each of maintaining a sexual relationship with a child.
During the original hearing, the court was told they manipulated the girl into participating in their scheme.
The girl, then 15, initially used a syringe to try to artificially inseminate herself with her stepfather's semen.
When this was unsuccessful, the man started having sex with the girl up to three times a day at their home at Russell Island, southeast of Brisbane, between April and August 2006.
The teenager succumbed to his advances until the day after her 16th birthday, when she filed a complaint with police.
The court heard that when the man was arrested he referred to a written pact, asking police: "Did you not see the f***ing contract?"
