A teenager has told of the horror of being drugged, raped and indecently photographed by her own DAD – who called her “my wife”.
Emma Burt, 19, suffered two years of hell at the hands of her biological father Christopher Wayne Edwards, 40.
She went to live with him in December 2012 aged 15 after a row with her mum.
Edwards abused Emma within a month of her moving in before attacking her daily after feeding her cannabis until she passed out.
By the time she escaped, Emma was addicted to amphetamines and cocaine that her father supplied her, and she claims he raped her every single day.
In a sick twist Emma said Edwards used to even call her “his wife” before she escaped aged 17.
Brave Emma has waived her right to anonymity to speak out after Edwards was jailed for 12 years for rape and four charges of sexual activity with a child family member.
He also admitted one charge of possessing an indecent photograph of a child and three charges of taking indecent photographs, and supplying her with drugs.
Mother-of-one Emma, from Powys, Wales, who is now free from drugs, said: “He was in and out of my life for a number of years but I was 15 when I moved in with him and the abuse started around a month or so in.
“In the first two months of his abusing me, he would never talk about how he raped me.
“He just would sort of wait until I was asleep or close to sleeping, then the drugs came into it from about three months onwards.
“”It got to the point where I was dependent on the drugs. I didn’t have any understanding of what was going on because I was too spaced out.
“Being so reliant on the drugs caused multiple issues when I left, I’ve never told anyone but people started to notice that I was weird or different.”
“He used to jokingly call me his wife. I was practically a wife.”
Emma’s father started by sending her countless text messages in the early stages of grooming her.
In April this year, Mold Crown Court heard how Edwards would first give his daughter cannabis, then introduced her to harder class A and B drugs.
This would then maintain Emma’s stupefied condition in which she was raped and had indecent photographs taken of her.
Emma said: “I had this way of coping with the drugs which was like another persona.
“The more drugs I took, the more I could ignore what was going on.”
Her severe mental health issues led Emma to jump off a bridge in December 2014, to “put an end to all of the pain”.
Emma added: “That’s when I thought ‘now I need to say something’.”
She escaped aged 17 after she broke down at a family party and her relatives called the police.
Emma, who plans to set up her own business, hopes that sharing her story encourages other victims of sexual abuse to come forward.
Emma said: “That’s what I am hoping by revealing everything he has done – for this to save another girl.
“I could have a daughter, and I want to speak out for a child like her and let her know that she doesn’t need to go through the pain that I did.”
Edwards pleaded guilty to rape, four charges of sexual activity, one charge of possessing an indecent photograph and three charges of taking indecent photographs, and supplying her with drugs.
He was ordered to register as a sex offender for life and a sexual harm prevention order was made.
Judge Niclas Parry told the court: “She became utterly reliant upon your drugs.
“You used drugs to facilitate the offences and took the most appalling images of her.
Myles Wilson, mitigating, said Edwards’ guilty pleas had prevented the victim the trauma of giving evidence.
