Dad forces 11-year-old son to have sex with stepmum to ‘cure’ homosexuality
Daniel Dowling was just 11 when his father and stepmum’s sexual abuse began (Pexels)
A father has forced his 11-year-old son to repeatedly have sex with his stepmother in order to ‘cure’ his homosexuality.
Richard Dowling made his son Daniel engage in multiple sexual acts with his partner Annette Breakspear over a number of years, including threesomes in which the dad would get involved.
More than two decades after the abuse, the 62-year-old father was sentenced last week to five years in prison after admitting to one count of cruelty to a child and two counts relating to sexual offences involving a child, according to the Sunday Mirror.
“All I ever wanted was for him to turn out the right way.”
— Richard Dowling about his son
Daniel Dowling opened up after his father Richard Dowling and former stepmum were jailed (sunday mirror)
Breakspear, 62, was found guilty of three counts of indecent assault and given eight years behind bars after abusing the child more than 10 times until she and Daniel’s dad ended their relationship in 1996.
Richard Dowling wanted to stop Daniel Dowling being gay
During the trial at Reading Crown Court, Dowling said he forced his son to have sex with Breakspear, take part in threesomes with both of them and watch porn in their Bracknell, Berkshire, home in order to ensure he wouldn’t be gay.
The father said he was trying to “steer him in the right direction and not to go to the way of being gay, because there was like, sort of, tendencies for him to be gay.”
He added: “All I ever wanted was for him to turn out the right way.”
Judge Maria Lamb told Richard Dowling: “Your warped sense of right and wrong allowed him to be exploited by your then-partner not just once but again and again.
“You’ve failed to protect him from the sexually predatory behaviour of your co-defendant.”
The judge told Richard Dowling: “The damage is incalculable. The abuse of trust is monstrous.” (Wiki Commons)
She added: “The damage is incalculable. The abuse of trust is monstrous and the reality is that one of you was involved in active sexual abuse and the other connived at it.”
Turning to Breakspear, the judge said: “For your own perverted sexual gratification you initiated this boy into a world far beyond anything to which he should ever have had to be introduced at those tender years.”
Daniel Dowling’s sexual abuse began during a kids’ game
The abuse started when the three were playing a board game, Frustration, at home, and Daniel’s dad told him that they would play a strip version.
Breakspear ended the game completely naked, at which point Daniel said that “they instructed me to touch and kiss her breasts. Dad was encouraging me to do it so I thought it was okay.”
“I think that night was a tester of how I’d react because intercourse started after that,” said Daniel.
In one incident, Richard Dowling picked his son up from a Scouts session, drove him home and said he should give his stepmother “a goodnight kiss.”
Daniel recalled: “I went into their room and she was handcuffed to the bed naked.
Daniel Dowling was forced to watch porn by his dad Richard Dowling and stepmum Annette Breakspear (Pexels)
“I gave her a kiss and went to leave but she asked me to touch her and to untie one of her hands. We had intercourse and Dad came and joined in.”
Another example of abuse came when his dad forced him to watch porn before engaging in oral sex with Breakspear and telling his son: “That’s how you do it.”
“He is dead to me now.”
— Daniel Dowling about his dad
Daniel said: “We’d watch porn in bed together and then we’d have threesomes. She’d instruct me on what to do.
“Sometimes when Dad wasn’t there she’d ask me into her room for fondling and intercourse.”
Daniel Dowling is still traumatised
The victim, who is gay, said he remained traumatised by the abuse, to the extent that catching a whiff of Breakspear’s perfume can open decades-old wounds.
“The few positive memories of my childhood are tarnished by memories of the abuse,” said Daniel, who was the target of another paedophile when he was 16, in Dorset, with police finding naked photos of him at the abuser’s home.
After unsuccessfully attempting to report his dad and stepmum’s abuse to the police, Daniel tried to die by suicide.
But 17 years after his first attempt to bring his father and ex-partner to justice, he secretly recorded his dad confessing to the abuse and handed the evidence over to the police.
The victim revealed he had not spoken to his father in two years, adding: “Dad threw me under the bus instead of admit his guilt. He is dead to me now.”
