COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

The mum had been sterilised so couple tried to use daughter as a surrogate

A couple have been jailed for using the woman’s 12-year-old daughter as an unwilling surrogate because she was unable to have any more children of her own.

The young girl’s step-father raped her three times before their plan of making her pregnant succeeded, a judge has heard.

The couple, from Warwickshire, who cannot be named to protect the girl’s identity, had denied a charge of conspiracy to rape and child cruelty.

But on the day of their trial at Warwick Crown Court, the step-father pleaded guilty to two charges of raping her – and her mother’s plea of guilty to child cruelty was accepted.

After ruling that the step-father is likely to pose an ongoing danger to children, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC jailed him for 18 years as part of an extended prison sentence.

He will have to serve at least 12 years of that term, and even then will only be released when the Parole Board considers it safe to do so, after which he will be on licence for the rest of the period and for a further eight years.

The girl’s mother, who the judge said had "actively encouraged her to become pregnant", was jailed for six years and three months but, unlike her husband, will not have to register as a sex offender.

The judge said there were two victims, not just the girl but her baby who, having been taken into care, has been "deprived of the right to be brought up by her own mother", and who may later learn she had been conceived "by reason of her grandmother’s neglect" and rape by her mother’s step-father.