An eighty-one year old man has been jailed for four and a half years for committing incest by fathering three children by his own daughter.
Ashraf Khan, of Kirkburn Place, Bradford has pleaded guilty to three counts of incest.
Khan’s crime only came to light in the early 1990s, after the woman confessed on her deathbed. However, it wasn’t until 2012 that the woman’s husband, who had the confession confirmed with DNA tests that the incident was reported to West Yorkshire Police.
Bradford Crown Court heard that the woman was one of Khan’s six children and was born in Pakistan in the 1960s. She got married during the 1980s to her husband in Pakistan and later moved to Bradford to join her husband and father. Before passing away, she gave birth to three children.
Prosecutor Abigail Langford told the court that it was on her deathbed that she told her husband that the defendant was in fact the father of her three children. The court also heard after believing he was the children’s father, despite his wife’s confession and confirmation of the DNA tests the woman’s husband did not report the incident to police straightaway as he ‘wished to continue to act as a father and care for the children he had brought up as his own.
At the time of reporting the incident to the police, Khan was in Pakistan and didn’t return to the UK until 2016.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC told Khan during sentencing: “You are a very dishonourable and wicked gentleman, we all now see”
“Her deathbed confession, how dreadful that must have been. Unburdening her soul about this awful trauma she had carried with her” The judge said.
He continued to tell the defendant: “When arrested, you denied matters. Only in the month before your trial did you admit your guilt when you were confronted with the facts and had nowhere to go.
“Those who do this will be regarded as very serious offenders, but in this case, the harm is off the scale”.
Judge Durham Hall said the guidelines for an offence of incest gave a maximum sentence of two years, however the 18-month sentence for each of the three counts would run consecutively, giving a total prison term of 54 months.
