Jury finds dad guilty of abuse

A FATHER accused by his daughter of sexually assaulting her for 18 months has been found guilty by a court jury.

Gladstone District Court heard the teenage girl was scared enough to wear tight jeans to bed and to not shower for days in an attempt to stop him interfering with her.

"My dad has been sexually assaulting me for a few years now," the girl told police.

At his trial her father, aged in his 30s, took to the witness stand saying, "I didn't do it".

The jury found him guilty of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child under 16 in 2014-15 and indecent dealing with a child, his linear descendent, in June 2015.

In his opening address of the three-day trial, Crown prosecutor Sam Bain said the teen's father "was the man who should have protected her against the bad things in the world".

The father, at times emotional and in tears, agreed during cross examination by Mr Bain that when confronted by his wife and daughter about the assaults, he said it was possible he could have done it but would not have done it on purpose.

"You know you indecently touched your daughter on many occasions," Mr Bain said.

"No. I have not," the father said.

"That you touched her genital area when she was asleep. "No," he said.

"That you offended against her since she was 13," Mr Bain asked. "No," he said.

The trial heard how, when his wife asked him immediately after their daughter revealed what had been happening to her while she slept, he said: "If I had been doing it I don't remember doing it ... If I had done that I'd be disgusted with myself."

Asked by his defence barrister, Jordan Ahlstrand, about this, the father said:

"I broke down. I don't know why I used that language. I felt shattered. Everything was hazy that night.

"I'd broken down. Sitting down in tears, not thinking about anything, in shock."

In her evidence his daughter accused him of indecently touching her at least twice a week after she fell asleep on a sofa in the lounge room and in her bed while her mother and family were asleep.

She said her father would stay up playing games on Xbox and she would wake to find him indecently touching her beneath her clothes.

In the trial Mr Ahlstrand maintained the daughter's allegations were not corroborated by anyone else, saying it was "implausible such offending could go on in a very small house that no one sees or hears anything".

Judge Michael Burnett remanded the father in custody and will sentence him this month.