Australian jailed for raping his daughter and granddaughters for 30 years

Wollongong, New South Wales: An Australian man was arrested for sexually abusing his daughter and granddaughters for over three decades, but was handed a lenient punishment owing to his illness and old age.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, the court sentenced the accused to 3.5 years in jail and observed that he could die in prison due to multiple health problems. He confessed to molesting and raping his daughter as well as his granddaughters.

The accused said that he had first molested his granddaughters when they were about five years old. However, police were never informed about the abuse.

The matter only came to light when the accused's daughter confronted her girls, and then filed a complaint with the cops, resulting in the arrest of the paedophile.

While sentencing him, the judge at Wollongong District Court said, "People who commit serious offences against their own children and grandchildren can’t expect to escape punishment because of their ill-health or age. However, his illness calls for a degree of leniency on humanitarian grounds."

"I will impose a significantly more lenient sentence than one that would ordinarily have been imposed," he added.