An English man has admitted to forcing his 11-year-old son to have sex with the boy’s own stepmom, justifying it by saying it was to prevent the boy from becoming gay, according to the UK’s Daily Mirror.

The appropriately named Warped Dowling is 62 years old, but he was 38 when he began abusing his own son and forcing him into sex with his stepmom, Annette Breakspear. It reportedly began after Daniel, who is now 36, started exhibiting “feminine” traits.

Daniel will never forget the day the abuse began. It was a Sunday afternoon. Dowling and Breakspear were playing board game Frustration with Daniel at home in Bracknell, Berks. Fashion retail manager Daniel, who now lives in Surrey, recalls: “Dad told me we were going to try something different — to take our clothes off whenever someone lost. By the end of the game Annette was completely naked. “They instructed me to touch and kiss her breasts. Dad was encouraging me to do it so I thought it was okay. I think that night was a tester of how I’d react because intercourse started after that…” In a sickening attempt to explain his depravity in his trial at Reading Crown Court, Daniel’s father claimed he abused his son “to try and steer him in the right direction and not to go to the way of being gay, because there was like, sort of, tendencies for him to be gay”. He added: “All I ever wanted was for him to turn out the right way.”

Child abuse is obviously unacceptable. But child abuse rationalized by internal bigotry? Somehow, this man found a way to make abuse even more heinous.

Daniel remembers the incident that first gave his dad the idea.

“One day we were at a car boot sale and my neighbour saw me wrestling an old lady for a handbag. “She told my dad, ‘Your Dan’s going to bat for the other side’. And Dad said ‘No son of mine will be gay.’ I think the abuse started after that.”

Daniel’s dad clearly has his own issues to work out…

Take all of this with a grain of salt since the Mirror is known for sensationalizing stories. That said, if there’s truth to this story, you would have to believe the homophobia is rooted in religion even if it’s not explicitly stated in the piece.

Daniel had to wait years to get justice, and he secretly recorded his father admitting the childhood abuse in order to take it to court, but the good news is that he finally found closure. Breakspear received eight years in prison, while Dowling was sentenced to five years.

