‘We were a really close family... now we are broken’

A young man who raped his niece repeatedly and frequently for seven years has been jailed for 10 years.

The 25-year-old man from the Midlands, who can’t be named to protect the victim’s anonymity, was 15 when he began molesting the seven-year-old. The abuse quickly progressed to rape and anal rape. The assaults took place in a relative’s house in the Midlands, in a treehouse in their grandparents’ garden, and in the girl’s house when her uncle was babysitting her and her younger sister.

The man pleaded guilty at the Central Criminal Court to three counts of sexual assault and seven counts of raping his niece between January 2007 and August 2014.