Dad would wait until daughter was 'on brink of sleep' every day before raping her

Brave Emma Burt, from Newtown, Powys, has waived her right to anonymity to speak out about the two years of abuse she suffered at the hands of her biological father.


Rebellious Emma went to live with her dad, Christopher Wayne Edwards, in December 2012 – after an argument with her mum, with whom he had a rocky on-off relationship.
Sick Christopher groomed Emma into becoming his ‘wife’, and she claims he would ‘punish’ her if she tried to escape – making the scared schoolgirl convinced he was capable of killing.
By the time she finally got out Emma, who is now 19, was addicted to cocaine and amphetamines – which Christopher had given the teen to keep her in his clasp.
The mum-of-one has a three-week-old baby, but is not in contact with baby David’s dad

Emma said: “I was 15 when I went to live with him, and within the space of a month he started to touch me up.
“In the first two months of his abusing me, he would never talk about how he raped me. He just would wait until I was asleep or close to sleeping.
“And then it got to the point where he was giving me drugs constantly to try and keep me under the thumb.

“I was dependent on the drugs. The more I took, the more I could ignore what was going on.
“But then I realised how bad I looked because of the drugs. Reality started to hit me. I had to get out.”


Christopher began his sequence of abuse by feeding Emma cannabis joints, and sexually abusing her as she passed out.
Within a short amount of time, this spiralled into him raping Emma every single day – despite her still being of school age.

Emma added: “He’d want me at home. I hardly went to school once I lived with him.
“I was going quite regularly before that and then it literally dropped to, maybe if I was lucky, once a week.
“It definitely has (affected me). I have no trust in men whatsoever.
“If your dad can do something like that, a person you’re supposed to trust the most, then anyone can.
“I have serious mental health issues because of it which I’m slowly overcoming.
“I can’t look at the world the same. Something so innocent to look at – you see a man in the street and he kisses his child on the forehead or something.
“And then you start to think, is that something more? You shouldn’t look at it like that, but I do.”

Emma, who is 15 in this picture, said she could see how the drugs were affecting her
Sick Christopher was jailed for 12 years
Even after escaping, Emma was plagued by shame and guilt – unable to talk about what had happened.
She said: “On December 14 2014 I jumped off a 40 foot bridge, into the River Severn in Newtown.
“I had a psychotic episode. The only bit I remember was a little bit in the water, and when I was in the ambulance.
“It was horrible. I was lucky, I only had a few scratches. I’d managed to keep myself against a pillar.
“I don’t know how I did it but the river banks had burst as well, which was quite shocking that I managed to not be dragged along the river.
“That’s when I thought ‘now I need to say something’.”

Emma says the ordeal has brought her family closer together… although she admits it has been tough
Emma told her family about her ordeal, and a police investigation was launched.
Christopher was jailed for 12 years in April, by a judge at Mold Crown Court.
She said: “It’s been a huge sigh of relief. Because before he was only 14 miles away, and he was regularly seen in the area.
“I felt he was capable of murder, so it was me looking over my shoulder all the time.
“It’s made me realise that life’s too short and you’ve got to value it. Because if you can come through it and change your life, you can accomplish everything.

“I’ve completely quit all the drugs. I’ve got my own home. I can actually pay my bills. I’ve just had my baby 3 weeks ago. It’s a really big change now. I can actually have my life, my normal life.”

She finally feels happy again… and able to have a ‘normal’ life
Now Emma hopes her story will help others. She said: “I want people to be able to speak out, because I know for a long time I felt ashamed.
“And the last couple of months, where I’ve started to sort my life out, I’ve realised it’s not the victim that is to blame.

“There are so many people out there that have had it happen and you don’t realise, because you don’t hear about it.
“I didn’t believe that actually happened until it happened to me. It is isolating, you feel like your whole world’s caving in on you.”
Of her parents’ relationship, she added: “They’d split up a few months before I went to live with him, but they’d always had a rocky relationship.
“For 15 years of my life they were on and off. He got my mum pregnant when she was 14 as well, with me. He was 22, so obviously he had a bit of a pattern.
“It’s made my family a lot closer because we’re all a lot stronger now, from having to use each other as support. It’s not been easy though.”

Emma’s dad was ordered to register as a sex offender for life and a sexual harm prevention order was made.
Christopher admitted sexual offences of the most serious kind, incest, and deliberately prolonged grooming by supplying Emma with hard drugs.
He pleaded guilty to rape, four charges of sexual activity with a child family member, one charge of possessing an indecent photograph of a child and three charges of taking indecent photographs, and supplying her with drugs.

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