A TEEN sobbed as she told concerned relatives “daddy raped me”, a court heard.

Now, her stepfather of 15 years has been jailed for three-and-a-half years at Swindon Crown Court after admitting two counts of sexual activity with a child family member.

The businessman, who we are not naming in order to prevent the identification of his victim, had sex with the teen as she lay in her mother’s bed in May. Three months later he molested the girl in a caravan while her younger brother slept nearby.

Prosecuting, Hannah Squire said the girl had returned from a night out in early May. Her mother was in the girl’s bed, looking after a poorly younger sibling.

The then 17-year-old got into her parents’ bed, where her stepfather lay sleeping. As she lay on her side trying to get to sleep the man woke and began to have sex with his stepdaughter.

She froze. “She felt empty and she just lay there,” Ms Squire said. “When he finished he rolled over and he went back to sleep.”

The second incident took place in early August. The family had gone to a music festival.

The victim’s mother had gone early, taking a sick child home with her. The teen, her younger brother and stepfather had stayed for the final night of the festival. The girl and her stepfather had been drinking, with the girl describing him being between eight and nine out of 10 on a scale of insobriety.

That night, he claimed he was cold and asked to sleep beside her on her caravan bed. “He came closer and closer to her,” Ms Squire said. The man began touching his stepdaughter sexually and also used her hand to perform a sex act on himself. It stopped when the girl spotted her younger brother, who was also in the caravan at the time, appearing to wake.

The abuse came out a month later, when the girl became uncontrollably upset at a family function. She said: “I don’t want to go home. Don’t make me go home.” She was asked what had happened and replied: “Daddy raped me.”

In a victim statement the teen said the case had split the family: “It makes me sick this was the man I called dad.”

Arrested by police, the man initially denied the accusations before turning up at the police station the following day to make full admissions.He wrote in a letter to another daughter: “This is the hardest thing I have ever written, but I am guilty of all they say.” The man said he was disgusted with himself.

Defending, Peter Binder drew the judge’s attention to his client’s full admissions to police, early guilty pleas, the lengthy period he had been on bail and the stack of positive references from family and his employees.

Referencing the packed public gallery, Mr Binder added: “A number of people have come to this court today in support of this defendant because they recognise that despite the nature of these offences he is essentially – if I can put it in its simplest terms – a good man.

“He is a good man who has on two occasions lost his moral compass and no one bears that burden heavier than he does.”

Jailing him, Judge Peter Crabtree said: “It is clear that you behaviour has had a very real impact on her life and indeed on the whole of your family.”

While the teen blamed herself for the break-up of the family, Judge Crabtree told the defendant: “There is only one person who bears responsibility for that and that is you.”

The man was made subject to a Sexual Harm Prevention Order and told he would have to sign on to the sex offenders’ register for life.