In 2019, the Offender Database reported that Elliott Appleyard, the Denby Dale Paedophile Child Molester, a father who saw his teenage daughter as his “wife”, had been convicted of sexually assaulting her in the 1980s.
Elliott Appleyard sexually assaulted Carol Higgins “three or four times a week” at their residence in West Yorkshire when she was between the ages of 13 and 15, a court was informed.
Ms Higgins, having relinquished her legal right to confidentiality, initially reported the incident to the police in 1985, but was advised that pursuing the matter would “blacken her name.”
Elliott Appleyard was found guilty of 15 offences, including rape and indecent assault.
The jury reached its unanimous verdicts in about two hours, with a sobbing Ms Higgins embracing her family as she exited the courthouse.
In the Leeds Crown Court trial, the prosecution asserted that Elliott Appleyard, then 71, of Gilthwaites Crescent, Denby Dale, Huddersfield, dominated the home via aggression and threats of physical assault.
His wife was threatened with a machete for having a “sex dream” and had a shotgun pointed at her head, the jury heard.
Ms Higgins, now 49, approached the police again in 2015 and informed authorities that Appleyard had taken her to a tattoo shop in Barnsley to have a vow of love inscribed on her shoulder.
The court was informed that he placed his wife’s engagement ring on his daughter’s finger and took a photograph of her wearing her undergarments.
The trial included testimony from Paul Appleyard, the son of the defendant, who stated that he had witnessed his father engaging in intimate behaviour with his sister in the kitchen of their residence.
He remembered a moment when he arrived home early from a football match and observed his sister in her father’s bedroom window, clad in her pants, with the house doors secured.
Ms Higgins stated that she was also raped by Elliott Appleyard in a cabin while aboard a Scandinavian cruise ship.
Jurors were shown a recorded police interview with Mrs Higgins where she told officers her father “wanted to treat me like a wife” and would “live together happily ever after”.
“He’d try to make me feel like it was normal, he said other friends did it with their fathers,” she said.
Peter Hampton, prosecuting, said the abuse had “destroyed all of her adult life” and she had received counselling for many years.
Elliott Appleyard was remanded in custody and is due to be sentenced on Friday.
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