Paedophile father who raped daughter for more than a decade will most likely die in jail

A father who started raping his daughter when she was five-years-old and continued to abuse her for over a decade has been sentenced to a minimum 36 years behind bars.

The 59-year-old man, who cannot be identified, started raping his daughter when she was five-years-old and continued the abuse until she was 19, Judge Sarah Huggett told Sydney's District Court during a sentence hearing yesterday.

He was today sentenced to a maximum 48 years' jail with a non-parole period of 36 years, with the judge labelling his crimes as “selfish” and “sadistic”.

Judge Huggett said she had to suspend her natural feelings as a human when preparing sentences for the pair.

The girl's mother, who assisted in the abuse over an 11-year period, was sentenced to a maximum 16 years and minimum 11 years behind bars.

The court heard the 73 charges related to years of sexual torture and abuse.

The 14 years of abuse began in 1997, not long after the family moved to a rural property with a creek and a dilapidated shed.

The father, an elite sportsman, first walked into his daughter's room naked in February that year, while his wife was in hospital giving birth.

He forced his young daughter to perform oral sex on him.

Soon after the initial attack, the man dragged his daughter to the property's creek and held her head under the freezing water.

The girl was regularly sexually abused in the shed, where she was also detained with barbed wire and threatened with a machete.

On several occasions she was left in the shed overnight, wounded and in pain.

The brutal abuse involved the father using about five metal tools to rape his daughter, the court heard.

"The majority were relatively large and were not smooth edged," Judge Huggett said.

Sometimes the girl was bashed with the tools after her father had used them to abuse her.

During a sentence hearing Judge Huggett described the abuse as "profoundly disturbing".

"It is fortunately rare to see offending of this type," she said, during the day-long sentencing hearing.

Judge Huggett added she had to suspend her natural feelings as a human when preparing sentences for the pair.

The perpetrator will be 95 before he is eligible for release.