A 'wicked' pensioner has
been jailed after admitting incest charges for abusing his own daughter and
fathering her three children.
Ashraf Khan, 81, from
Bradford, was jailed for four-and-a-half years yesterday after his victim
confessed to their children on her deathbed and they fought for justice for
their mother.
The defendant was arrested
after the woman's husband, who had DNA tests to confirm the children's
parentage, reported the matter to West Yorkshire Police in 2012.
Prosecutor Abigail Langford
told the court the complainant in the case was born in Pakistan in the 1960s,
one of Khan's six children.
She married her husband
there in the early 1980s, before moving to Bradford, West Yorks, to join him
and her father, who abused her and she went on to give birth to three children
over a decade before passing away.
Her husband was praised
today for bringing the children up as his own.
Miss Langford said: 'It was
on her deathbed she told her husband the defendant was in fact the father of
her three children.'
The man did not report the
matter to police straightaway, with Miss Langford explaining: 'He wished to
continue to act as a father and care for the children he had brought up as his
own.'
When the matters were
reported to police in 2012, Khan was back in Pakistan and did not return to the
UK until 2016.
When he was interviewed in
September of that year, the court heard he 'denied having any sexual relations
with his daughter'.
Miss Langford said a
medical report concerning the three children had found various ailments
'directly attributed to their incestual parentage', including an inability to
feel certain kinds of pain, resulting in injuries such as burns during their
childhoods.
In a joint victim impact
statement, the children said Khan's offending had caused psychological damage
and had impacted on their physical health.
They also paid tribute to
their mother's 'honourable' husband for his 'fortitude and selflessness
throughout the years'.
Khan, from Bradford,
pleaded guilty to three counts of incest a month ahead of a proposed trial.
His barrister, Nigel
Jamieson, said his client suffered from poor health, but accepted a prison
sentence would not be unjust.
He said: 'He comes to court
today knowing that it must be an immediate custodial sentence.'
The Recorder of Bradford,
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, told Khan: 'You are a very dishonourable and
wicked gentleman, we all now see.'
Speaking of how the woman
brought Khan's offending to light, the judge said: 'Her deathbed confession,
how dreadful that must have been. Unburdening her soul about this awful trauma
she had carried with her.'
He told Khan: 'Those who do
this will be regarded as very serious offenders, but in this case, the harm is
off the scale.
'You are of good character,
but that is a shallow comment, because you have got away with this for years.'
Judge Durham Hall said the
guidelines for an offence of incest gave a maximum sentence of two years, but
added the 18-month sentences for each three counts would run consecutively,
giving a total prison term of 54 months.
Speaking after the case,
one of the woman's three children said: 'We would like this case to bring
awareness of incest being committed, and for other people who may have
experienced something similar to come forward so that other offenders who have
committed similar crimes can be tried through the courts.'
They also highlighted
extracts from their victim impact statement, which read: 'The only one who was
there for us was a man of no blood relation who brought us up as if we were his
own children.
'The significant choice and
sacrifice he made, we will never be able to be thank him enough.
'It takes a special man to
be a dad, as anyone can be a father. He is one of a kind and we will never be
able to repay him for what he has done for us.
'The man pleading guilty
was life-changing for us.
'He had portrayed a
clean-cut image for many years, but secrets cannot be hidden and lies
eventually catch up with you.
'The psychological and
mental damage he has done is significant to so many lives, especially to our
lives.
'It has been a long journey
from discovering the horrific acts he committed to his daughter to reporting
the matter to the police.
'With the help and support
of the fantastic police force and the CPS, today, after many, many years since
our mother passed away, we have finally got justice for our mum.'
Lobatan
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