A 47-YEAR-OLD man has denied carrying out sustained violent and sexual assaults on a Weston mother and her five-year-old daughter.

The Birmingham man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his accusers, is accused of rape, assault, sexual assault and rape of a child under the age of 13.

At Bristol Crown Court on Tuesday, prosecuting counsel Ian Dixey QC said the alleged attacks occurred when the man was in a relationship with the mother-of-three for 18 months until the spring of 2004.

Among the alleged abuse, some of which the prosecution says happened in front of the children, he is accused of pouring gin on the mother and threatening to set her alight, as well as hitting her head against a radiator.

One of the woman’s daughters also claims the same man raped and sexually assaulted her several times when she was just five years old.

Mr Dixey said: “In the autumn of 2013, a girl who was then 15 revealed to a teacher at her school that when she was younger she had been the subject of sexual abuse by a man with whom her mother had been in a relationship. The police were informed and eventually arrangements were made for her to be interviewed in October 2013.

“In the meantime, about a week before, her mother had been interviewed. She too described a history of physical and sexual abuse at the hands of the same person, this defendant.”

Mr Dixey went on to say the couple met in the autumn of 2002, and said: “It is interesting that both she and the children accept that when he was first on the scene he was a charming man.

“She said that he was kind, complimentary, but unfortunately that changed and she describes how he had a drink problem, and when he was in drink he was violent and used to physically assault her in a number of ways, to the extent that she changed in her personality from somebody who was confident to somebody who was unable to stand up to this man in a number of physical altercations which took place in front of the children.”

The abuse began about halfway through the relationship, according to the prosecution. The mother claimed her then-partner would return home drunk late at night and demand sex, and if she would not consent he would rape her.

Mr Dixey said it was some months after her mother was first abused that he moved onto the daughter.

During her police interview, which was viewed by the court, the daughter said: “He chucked me on the floor like I was nothing.

“It really hurt, it was the worst pain, I’ve never felt anything else like it. He would just say ‘shut up, don’t make a noise or I will kill your mum’.”

Kate Brunner QC, defending, will begin the defence case next week.