Daughter a sex slave for 23 years, jury told

A father kept his daughter a virtual slave for 23 years, subjecting her to depraved and bizarre sex acts, a High Court jury has heard this week.

The alleged catalogue of mistreatment included blindfolding her and suspending her upside down from a ceiling while abusing her.

Another alleged fetish of the 66-year-old involved putting the woman's head inside a specially constructed wooden box which was padlocked closed while he had sex with her.

The man, who is represented by lawyer Allan Roberts, denies representative charges of rape and sexual violation - with alternative counts of incest - unlawful sexual connection, and indecent assault between 1983 and 1992.

In the High Court at Auckland this week, prosecutor Philip Hamlin told the jury it was a case of a father enslaving his daughter.

Initially she was a child slave, ordered to do his bidding.

"Worse still, he took her as his wife and sexually offended against her from when she was nine until she was 32.

"He enslaved her for more than 20 years in Vanuatu and in New Zealand where he totally controlled her."

Mr Hamlin said there was even a sham wedding ceremony in Vanuatu when he gave the then 16-year-old girl a ring.

She was beaten, verbally abused, subjected to sexual intercourse from the age of 10 and had other indignities done to her, said Mr Hamlin. She was also drugged and had pain inflicted on her.

The jury heard that the alleged offending started in Vanuatu after the girl's mother walked out. It continued from 1983 - when the father and daughter moved to New Zealand - until 1992, when she got pregnant to her father and miscarried.

The New Zealand-born woman, who is now married and living in Germany, alerted authorities,in a letter to police about what she says happened to her.

Exhibits before the court include handcuffs, a blindfold mask, and dozens of photographs of the naked and semi-naked woman said to have been taken by her father.

Another exhibit is a sketch of a woman suspended from a ceiling, legs apart and hands manacled to the floor.

It is alleged that the man showed his daughter the sketch to indicate what he was going to do.

Evidence has been given that when the man moved out of his West Auckland house, large screw holes were found in the ceiling of a bedroom where the contraption was said to have been installed.

When police searched his home they found negatives with a note attached which read: "Last visit to Vanuatu with the traitor."

In Vanuatu, the man is alleged to have tied and handcuffed his daughter spreadeagled to a four-poster bed after plying her with alcohol and the hypno-sedative drug Mandrax, before performing sex acts on her.

The woman, who gave evidence for more than two days, told the court she was terrified of her father.

She felt isolated and did not know how to find anyone who could help her.

Psychiatrist Dr Margaret Honeyman, who interviewed the woman and read the evidence the woman gave in court, said her behaviour was consistent with battered woman syndrome.

Though it seemed strange to outsiders, victims of the syndrome would stay in an abusive relationship for a number of complex reasons, even though they had opportunities to leave.

"From what she told me, I formed the opinion that her life had been one of enslavement," Dr Honeyman said.

Cross-examined by Mr Roberts, Dr Honeyman agreed that her conclusions depended on the truth of what she had been told.

In a videotaped interview played to the jury yesterday, the man denied his daughter's allegations.

The trial, before Justice Tony Randerson, continues on Monday when the defence is due to open its case.