A sick couple have been jailed after forcing their 11 year old son to have sex with them to prove he wasn’t gay, a court heard.
The pair, who have not been named for legal reasons, made the young lad carry out sexual acts to keep him ‘on the straight and narrow.’
His father has been jailed for six years for coercing the boy to have sex with his stepmother at their home in Reading. She will serve a nine year jail sentence.
Judge Maria Lamb heard that the victim had initially told the police what was happening to him but his father lied to detectives and he was not believed. The judge described the lies as a “betrayal of your son.”
Years later the victim, now an adult aged in his 30s, complained again to the police in 1998 and this time the father and the boy’s step-mother were both arrested and charged with a string of sex offences.
The father and step-mother sat in the dock at Reading Crown Court as prosecutor Ruby Silva described to the court how, in caring for the child, they had begun a routine of humiliating sexual assaults from when the boy was aged 11 years.
Ms Silva read aloud a statement from the father’s initial interview with police, citing how he had claimed the abuse was to “keep him on the straight and narrow path,” following the couple’s irrational fear of their son being a homosexual.
The court heard how the father, who was convicted of charges of child cruelty and indecent acts with a child, had allowed his then girlfriend to involve his son in routine sexual acts as part of an “ill-founded sex education.” She was charged with child cruelty, indecent assault and indecent acts with a child.
Judge Lamb said: “This was a child who had been neglected by his mother and was particularly vulnerable.
“You have both argued that this whole trial process has weighed heavily on the both of you. This will provide you absolutely no mitigation. This was your own warped sense of right and wrong.
“The damage that you two have done is unacceptable”.
Turning to the step-mother she said: “For your own personal sexual gratification, you performed sexual acts on a boy who considered you his mother.
“This was your warped sense of right and wrong.”
After the hearing the victim, who is now in his 30s, said: “It’s been a long process, and I tried before. I tried when I was 16 and obviously I was made out to be a liar. A lot of people will ask ‘why now?’ But it took me that long to convince myself that I had the courage to go through it all again. If my story can reach just one other person, I will be perfectly happy with that.”
