A Staines man has bravely spoken out against his dad who forced him to have sex with his stepmum when he was 11 as he said "no son of mine will be gay".
Daniel Dowling, now 36, has waived his right to anonymity so his abusers, his dad Richard Dowling and stepmum Annette Breakspear, can be exposed.
Breakspear stole Daniel's virginity and sexually abused him more than 10 times. On one sordid occasion he was told to go into the bedroom and found her handcuffed to the bed naked and on another he was made to view porn before his dad had oral sex with her.
And when on one occasion Daniel refused to perform a sex act on his stepmum his dad tried to punch him.
Daniel has now seen his tormentors, who ae both 62 now but were 38 when the abuse began, jailed years after he first went to the police.
His dad, an ex-Ministry of Defence worker, was locked up for five years and Breakspear was sentenced to eight years in prison.
Speaking with our sister title the Sunday Mirror, Daniel said: “It was Dad’s job to protect me. They stole my innocence and ruined my childhood. I can never get past that.”
He will never forget the day the abuse began. It was a Sunday afternoon. Dowling and Breakspear were playing board game Frustration with Daniel at home in Bracknell, Berks.
Daniel, who is a fashion retail manager, added: “Dad told me we were going to try something different – to take our clothes off whenever someone lost. By the end of the game Annette was completely naked.
“They instructed me to touch and kiss her breasts. Dad was encouraging me to do it so I thought it was okay. I think that night was a tester of how I’d react because intercourse started after that.”
Dowling had met former carer Breakspear through a lonely hearts ad after splitting from Daniel's mum.
Once, he was picked up by his dad from Scouts, taken home and told to “give Breakspear a goodnight kiss”.
Daniel said: “I went into their room and she was handcuffed to the bed naked.
“I gave her a kiss and went to leave but she asked me to touch her and to untie one of her hands. We had intercourse and Dad came and joined in.”
Another time, he was made to view porn before his dad had oral sex with Breakspear and said: “That’s how you do it.”
In another sickening incident Daniel was called in to find them naked and engaged in a sex act. Breakspear then had sex with Daniel.
He said: “We’d watch porn in bed together and then we’d have threesomes. She’d instruct me on what to do. Sometimes when Dad wasn’t there she’d ask me into her room for fondling and intercourse.
“I was an only child and I spent a lot of time playing Lego but she’d come in and ask me to do things to her.”
Daniel, who is gay but currently single, said: “I was sexualised at such a young age that sex means nothing to me now.
“The few positive memories of my childhood are tarnished by memories of the abuse. When I smell someone wearing her perfume, or see that board game in a shop or on TV, it brings the memories back.”
In a sickening attempt to explain his depravity in his trial at Reading Crown Court, Daniel’s father claimed he abused his son “to try and steer him in the right direction and not to go to the way of being gay, because there was like, sort of, tendencies for him to be gay”.
He added: “All I ever wanted was for him to turn out the right way.”
Daniel said: “Dad said that he did it to stop me being gay because I showed feminine traits as a child.
“One day we were at a car boot sale and my neighbour saw me wrestling an old lady for a handbag.
“She told my dad, ‘Your Dan’s going to bat for the other side’. And Dad said ‘No son of mine will be gay.’ I think the abuse started after that.
It only stopped when Dowling and Breakspear split up around 1996. He claimed he broke up with her because she told him she’d had sex with Daniel and his grandad on the same day.
The teenager and his father moved to Weymouth, Dorset. But Daniel, then 16, was targeted by another paedophile.
Police raided the pervert’s home and found naked pictures of Daniel.
It was then, as he was being interviewed by a child psychologist, that Daniel revealed the years of abuse from his dad and stepmum.
Dowling was quizzed but claimed his son was an “attention seeking” liar. Daniel believes Breakspear was not questioned and there were no arrests.
The despairing youngster later tried to kill himself. When the case finally came to trial in May this year it was claimed police treated him “shoddily” at his 1998 video interview – and that one constable even mocked him.
Daniel says it was left to him, some 17 years later, to finally get justice. On September 6, 2015, he secretly recorded a phone conversation in which his father admitted the abuse.
Two days later Daniel walked into Staines police station, Surrey, with the recording – and he said that this time the police took him seriously.
He said: “I don’t know if training has improved or if I was just unlucky the first time, but I would definitely encourage other victims of historic abuse to come forward and report it now.”
Daniel’s dad admitted to police that he and Breakspear carried out “sordid and deplorable” abuse and that he felt ashamed and disgusted.
In court he claimed the abuse was to prevent Daniel “turning gay”, to “protect him from paedophiles so he would know what was right and wrong” – and to educate him about how he should treat women.
He blamed his actions on “undiagnosed depression” and said he fell under the influence of Breakspear – who he labelled “a Jekyll and Hyde character”.
Breakspear was found guilty of three counts of indecent assault.
Dowling admitted one count of cruelty to a child and two counts relating to sexual offences involving a child. He was found not guilty of one count of indecent assault.
Judge Maria Lamb told Dowling: “Your warped sense of right and wrong allowed him to be exploited by your then partner not just once but again and again. You’ve failed to protect him from the sexually predatory behaviour of your co-defendant.
“The damage is incalculable. The abuse of trust is monstrous and the reality is that one of you was involved in active sexual abuse and the other connived at it.”
The judge told Breakspear: “For your own perverted sexual gratification you initiated this boy into a world far beyond anything to which he should ever have had to be introduced at those tender years.”
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Daniel, who has not spoken to his father for over two years, said: “Dad threw me under the bus instead of admit his guilt. He is dead to me now.”
Det Supt Fiona Grant, of Dorset Police, responded to criticism over the 1998 video interview.
Praising Daniel for his courage, she said: “The video met all necessary guidelines and was accepted as evidence during the trial at Reading.
“We conducted multi-agency professionals meetings with regards to his ongoing safeguarding.
“Dorset Police takes sexual assault extremely seriously. Do not suffer in silence, come forward and report it.”
