‘My evil dad raped me and called me his mistress'

Annie Lafferty, 26, from Donegal, tells how she was assaulted for years by her own father – and how her mum has stood by him

- CANDICE FERNANDEZ

As country music blasted from the stereo, I watched my father swing his hips in time to the music. “You’re Daddy’s little girl!” he slurred, twirling me around the living room. As we danced together, I could smell the stench of alcohol on his breath. It was March 2003 and I was nine years old.

Growing up, my father Maurice, now 51, played the same song, the country hit Daddy’s Little Girl every night after he’d had a few drinks. My mum Andrea, now 43, worked as a care assistant three nights a week, so Dad looked after me and my younger siblings – my seven-year-old brother and my three sisters, who were then six, five and four.

We would entertain ourselves most nights, playing with each other in our bedrooms while he got drunk and listened to music. He wasn’t a doting father and would spend his day's boozing and watching TV, so we didn’t have a close relationship.

Then, one night in September 2006, when I was about to turn 13, I heard a noise outside my bedroom. I spotted Dad peering at me through the crack in the door. I squeezed my eyes shut and pretended not to notice him. After a few minutes, he was gone.

In June 2007, like most teenagers, I began experimenting with make-up and clothes.

Pulling on a white denim mini-skirt and pink lipstick, I ran downstairs one afternoon to go to meet some school friends. Before I made it to the front door, Dad looked at me in disgust. “You look like a slut,” he said. “Get changed now.” Upset, I ran to my room and put on a pair of jeans, but when I went back downstairs he refused to let me go out. Deflated I skulked back upstairs.