'I was confused when I saw it. I knew it wasn't right.
A rapist who
forced his wife to have sex with him in front of her eight-year-old
daughter has been jailed for 15 years after fleeing to Spain.
Christopher Birch fled while on bail following his repeated attacks on Louise Birch over six years.
During
one incident, Louise's daughter Sophie O'Farrell had heard her mother's
anguished screams and walked in the room - but her step-father brutally
continued.
However,
when he was due to appear in court charged with rape and indecent
exposure in May 2011, he never arrived - sparking a three-year manhunt.
He was still at large seven months later when Louise died after an illness aged just 33 in December 2011.
Today, Sophie, 18, has said she can 'finally rest' as Birch is jailed for 15 years for rape and indecent exposure to a child.
Addressing
her ordeal, Sophie, who has waived her right to anonymity, said: 'My
bed was right up against her wall, you could hear it.
'If you can hear your mum screaming, then you're going to go in there.
'He [Birch] was stopping my mum from saying anything with his hand over her mouth.
'It's not like he stopped when I walked into the room. He just said "it's ok we're just playing".
'I said something the next morning and my mum said "we were playing".
'There was always something between us after that, and I do blame him for that.
'Now she's dead I can't regain that with her. That is upsetting because he's done that. He's ruined a lot of lives.
'It's hard to rekindle relationships when you know something so horrible has happened to someone.'
Mr and Mrs Birch met in late 2004 and married in December 2005.
After they split in 2007, he sent Sophie, then aged 13, pictures showing his genitalia.
Sophie, of Waterlooville, Hampshire, said: 'It was vile. It sickened me.
'It was disgusting to think that he was meant to be a father to me. That was a big thing to me.'
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