Father gets 8 years in prison for sexually abusing daughters since 2008

The court in Utrecht convicted a 51-year-old man for the methodical sexual abuse of his three underage daughters for several years. The Meerkerk man was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The sentence was two years longer than what was requested by the Public Prosecution Service. The court also ruled that he may not contact the victims for a period of five years.

The three daughters stated that their father committed sexual acts with them and raped them several times a week. The suspect confessed to his actions.

The systematic abuse of one daughter started in 2008 and only stopped when she fled her parent's home in 2013 and went to live with her grandfather and grandmother. The girl then filed a criminal complaint against him, and her father knew about the accusation. He dismissed her story as a deception, and then he began abusing the other two daughters. One of the girls was abused from the age of 12 to 16. The other girl continued to be victimized until she filed a complaint herself last year.

The court called the man's behavior "shocking" and said he was exclusively "occupied with satisfying his own lust."

Behavioral experts said the man has a mild intellectual disability. Because of that, the court considered his responsibility for his actions to be more limited. Nevertheless, the court determined the prosecution's six-year sentence demand was insufficient. A nine-year sentence could have been imposed, the court said. The suspect was acquitted on one count, and the court took his personal circumstances into account, resulting in a prison sentence of eight years.