A GIRL asked her dad why he was abusing her and not his other daughters only to be told ‘because you’re the prettiest’, a court heard.

The girl gave evidence behind a screen during her father’s ongoing trial at Worcester Crown Court yesterday.

The 51-year-old from Worcester denies two counts of sexual assault against a child under 13, two counts of sexual assault by penetration, one of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and another of causing a child to watch a sexual act. The offences are alleged to have taken place in Upton and Malvern, beginning when the girl was five.

Matthew Barnes, for the defendant, asked why she did not tell an adult, including her doctor, what had happened at the time. She said: “I didn’t feel like I could.”

The girl said it was mainly her father’s actions which led to her eating disorder and told the jury: “Yes, I did want to die.”

The girl said her mum was ‘speechless’ when she told her of the abuse while her sister hit her in the face when she learned she had reported their father to the police.

Mr Barnes suggested she was ‘lying’ about the abuse and wanted to get out of sitting exams but she replied: “I’m not lying sir. I promise you I’m not lying. I have no reason to lie about it.”

The girl told the jury she had not seen her father since the matters were reported to police.

The girl’s mother also gave evidence, describing an incident in which she said she had witnessed the defendant put his arms around their daughter’s neck. She told the jury: “I was furious.”

She said her daughter had become thin, ill and withdrawn but eventually told her the secret that her father had been abusing her.

Her mother said she had first recited a list of names of people they knew before her daughter identified her dad as her abuser, ‘the last on the list’.

Her mother said: “She completely broke down. You can’t describe it. She just fell apart. She was crying uncontrollably. She was shaking. She was feeling sick and the colour, what little colour she had, completely went from her. It was awful, absolutely awful.”

The woman said that when her daughter told she had been abused from the age of five she felt ‘physically sick’.

The trial continues.