To keep quiet on father's sexual abuse, mother buys daughter's silence with $2m

August 19, 2015 7:43 PM

The mother, who died in 2012 aged 93, left her daughter with 22 percent of the estate and gave the majority of it to her two sons despite their agreement.

An abused child

A woman who was promised an equal share of her mother's $6 million estate to remain quiet about being sexually abused by her father as a child has successfully sued over the inheritance.

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According to The Age, the mother, who died in 2012 aged 93, left her daughter with 22 percent of the estate and gave the majority of it to her two sons despite their agreement.

She also made it clear she didn't want her 38-year-old grandson to receive anything from the estate because he informed police in 2005 that his grandfather also sexually abused him when he was a child, Victoria's Supreme Court heard.

Her 62-year-old daughter and her son were both awarded sums of money after suing the executor of her mother's estate.

Supreme Court Justice Kate McMillan ordered the daughter to receive a $775,000 property and $100,000, while her son was to receive $175,000.

The court heard the woman was 14 when her father started sexually abusing her and it continued for 12 months in various parts of their family home.

She informed her mother when she realised she could potentially fall pregnant and was told she would 'take care' of it.

A few days later, her mother told (the daughter) that she had discussed it with her father.

'He had begged for forgiveness and said he would not do it again,' Justice McMillan said. 'Her mother told her that if she left her husband, (the daughter) would lose out as the estate they were building together would go entirely to her husband.'

While the abuse stopped, the woman's father made her life hell until she married in 1973.

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After her father died eight years ago, the woman claimed her mother told her she didn't leave her father because 'this will be all yours one day'.

'(The daughter) described her mother as being kind and affectionate to her children but her downfall was that she had a weak nature and did not protect the children from their father,' Justice McMillan said.