Warning: This story contains references to child sexual assault.
The girl’s mother cried yesterday as she revealed how the attack had impacted her young daughter, who can’t be named for legal reasons.
“She is different now, fearful and withdrawn. Her innocence was cruelly taken from her,” she said.
” … Our daughter should have been playing, growing, learning and enjoying simple things.”
Davies, then 25, was captured on home security camera moments before he broke in through the bathroom window and gagged and raped the girl, forever shattering the family’s lives.
He taped her mouth shut as she lay in her bed, awake, choking her until she lost consciousness before abusing her and leaving the home.
“Our lives changed forever because of a stranger. My heart is broken that my child carries these emotional scars,” the girl’s mother said.
The court heard the family couldn’t afford to move, stuck living in their house, haunted by memories.
“She can’t sleep without one of us with her,” the girl’s mother said.
“I listen to her fears and anxieties about going to sleep, sometimes this takes hours.
“She asks us why this happened to her, which we have no answer.”
Davies handed himself in three days after the attack, then pleaded not guilty, claiming mental impairment.
Today, the 28-year-old was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
The judge considered Davies’ autism and psychosis disorders but said the dominant factor was the offender’s paedophilic interests and if they went untreated, he would be at risk of reoffending.
“If there’s a sexual assault in the course of a home invasion, the sentencing parameters are much more different,” lawyer Tom Percy, KC, said.
“It puts it akin to murder.”
With time already served, Davies could be eligible for parole in about 13 years.
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