'The law here is stupid': Father who gave away his daughter, 12, to a 26-year-old man says girls should be able to get married and have sex
- Father charged for sending his 12-year-old daughter to be married
- Court heard his reason was he did not want her to have extramarital sex
- Girl tells court her father said laws surrounding marriage were 'stupid'
- 'He knows no marriage under 16,' the girl said in an video interview played
- Court heard he told his daughter girls her age should be able to have sex
- Girl married 26-year-old in Islamic ceremony at her father's home in 2014
A
father of a 12-year-old girl who he married off in an Islamic ceremony
told his daughter that Australian laws forbidding her from marrying were
'stupid'.
The
father, who cannot be named legally, is on trial at Sydney's Downing
Centre District Court charged with procuring a child for unlawful sexual
activity and with being an accessory before the fact of sexual
intercourse with a child.
The
girl told a Sydney court her father said Australian law was 'stupid'
and girls her age should be allowed to get married and have sexual
intercourse.
Scroll down for video
A father of a 12-year-old girl who he
married off in an Islamic ceremony told his daughter that Australian
laws forbidding her from marrying were 'stupid'
The girl's interview with a child protection worker was played as part of her father's trial.
She said days after her wedding, her father began to panic that her husband might be jailed.
'He was upset because we might be in trouble,' the girl said.
'(My father) knows no marriage under the age of 16.
'Because he says to me the law here is stupid, girls your age should be allowed to get married and have intercourse.
'He said we didn't do anything wrong, we were just following religion.'
Her father said her husband, now 27, 'shouldn't be put away', and that they were 'just following religion'.
The
girl, now 14, said in her father's religion, marriage was allowed once
the girl got her period and having sex before marriage was punishable by
stoning or death in Islamic countries.
'(Premarital sex) is actually one of the worst things you can do,' she said.
A 27-year-old man (pictured) has been
sentenced to at least seven and a half years behind bars for marrying
and sexually assaulting a 12 year old girl. Now her father is on trial
for agreeing to the arrangement because he discovered that his daughter
was' menstruating and interested in boys' a court heard
The
court also heard the girl and her husband had sex 'once or twice' a day
after they were married. They also spent five nights staying at her
father's house.
The girl also detailed the motivation for the marriage being organised, which was her reaching puberty.
In the video interview shown to the court, she said she understood puberty to be 'blood...when I got my period'.
She
also said her father told her not to take birth control pills, and that
her father reminded her not to let her husband wear a condom.
'Don't use pills or condoms - don't let him use anything,' she said.
'He always said that - I think the first time was just after we got married.'
The
court also heard her 'husband' approached her father about the marriage
after he had been refused by leaders at her usual mosque.
'They said no because of my age and because I was Aussie,' she said.
'After he went to sheiks, after a while he came back and asked my Dad.'
Her comments come after her mother said she had pleaded with the father to stop the wedding.
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The woman, who legally cannot be named, told the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney she strongly opposed the marriage.
She
said her former husband - with whom she had split before the incident -
called her on what she believed to be the night of her daughter's
wedding.
'He said (my daughter) is going to get married; they wanted to bring the man to meet me,' the mother told the court.
'I said no. I did not want anything to do with (my daughter) getting married.'
The woman said she then spoke to her daughter and told her not to get married and the girl said she wouldn't.
'He wanted her to be married or he wouldn't have married her,' she said.
'I didn't agree with it, I had nothing to do with it.'
The
woman's former partner, a 63-year-old man, allegedly married his teen
daughter off to a 26-year-old man so she did not commit the sin of
extramarital sex.
The
father allegedly gave his daughter's mobile phone number to the
26-year-old man who wanted to marry her and then hosted an Islamic
ceremony at his home in the Hunter region.
The court heard the mother received a second call from her former partner that night, during which he used his 'angry voice'.
The woman, who legally cannot be
named, told the Downing Centre District Court in Sydney, she strongly
disagreed with the marriage to a 26-year-old man (pictured)
'He said she was going to get married no matter what, that next time I saw her she would be married,' the woman said.
'I just didn't agree with them getting married.
'I know it was him on the other end of the phone; I know his voice because I had to put up with it for 20 years.'
The
woman said she suffers from a learning disability that sometimes
impacts her memory, but said her recollection of the events leading up
to her daughter's marriage were correct.
'I don't have any trouble remembering the conversations,' she said.
'They did not have my consent. I was not at the wedding. I did not allow it.
'(He's) a liar; he is not going to admit to anything.
'What he said is what he said - I didn't add anything or forget anything.'
She
said she found out they couple had been married under Sharia law when
the Department of Community Services got involved after the girl's
husband tried to enrol her in a Sydney High school.
The woman said she suffers from a
learning disability that sometimes impacts her memory, but said her
recollection of the events leading up to her daughter's marriage were
correct
The
mother also told the court she briefly converted to Islam during their
relationship, the religion of her husband, because she 'was interested
in learning about God, and that was the only one he would let me learn
about'.
She
also lashed out at the father's barrister after it was suggested her
memory issues caused by her learning difficulty may have led to her
remembering a conversation that never took place.
'Who's going to forget that,' the mother said.
'I'm not happy about my daughter being married in the first place so don't have a go at me.'
When
Judge Deborah Sweeney attempted to calm her and said the barrister was
just doing his job asking questions, the woman asked if the barrister
was a Muslim.
'Because if he's Muslim then you got to do what the man says, because the woman is always a liar.'
Crown
prosecutor Siobhan Herbert earlier told the court the father hosted
the couple at his home, where they allegedly had sex on a specially set
up mattress.
The
father's trial comes after the husband, now 27, was jailed for seven and
a half years earlier this month for persistent sexual abuse against the
young girl.
'By her getting married he was stopping the sin of extramarital sex,' Ms Herbert said.
'His actions brought about or caused the unlawful sexual activity.'
On the wedding day, he allegedly instructed the girl that neither she nor her partner were allowed to use contraception.
On
the first weekend after the wedding, the court heard the father hosted
the couple at his home where he allegedly arranged a marital bed.
The 27-year-old Lebanese student and
the 12-year-old Australian girl spent their wedding night at a motel in
the Hunter region of NSW where they had sex several times
The
following morning, he asked his daughter if she needed to shower before
prayers, in line with Islamic practice after sexual intercourse, the
court was told
The
father allegedly consented to the wedding, in January 2014, after
discovering his daughter had begun menstruating and becoming interested
in boys.
Judge
Deborah Sweeney said on Friday the 27-year-old Lebanese man, who cannot
be named, had persisted in pursuing his Australian victim despite her
initial reluctance.
The girl was pregnant when her 27-year-old Lebanese husband was charged with ongoing child sex abuse.
However, she miscarried in February after complaining of abdominal pain
The
pair held their 'wedding', which was allegedly arranged by her father,
in the girl's lounge room in the Hunter region in NSW, in January last
year.
It is alleged the man gave the child $500 as a wedding gift.
The
girl, now 13, didn't want to marry the student because of the 14 year
age gap but the man bombarded her with text messages after he first laid
eyes on her in a mosque in November 2013, court papers stated.
Court
documents say the girl met the 27-year-old man at a mosque in November
2013 after he approached her father and asked to meet her.
A
week after the wedding, the father asked the girl's older siblings to
put two single mattresses next to each other to make a queen size bed so
the couple had a bed in the family home.
The Imam who performed the ceremony pleaded guilty to solemnising the marriage and was fined $500.
'The girl has expressed a strong desire to start a family with the [then] 26-year-old,' the police report states.
His trial will continue next week.
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