Bigamist married stepdaughter sees son jailed for child sex abuse
Published: 12:46 GMT, 13 February 2025
The son of a convicted bigamist who fathered his own stepdaughter's children has been jailed for sexually abusing two children - just weeks after his father was spared prison.
Joshua Ingram, 24, stood in the dock at the same court his father John Ingram had appeared in last month after admitting to illegally marrying his stepdaughter while still wed to her mother.
But though his father was spared a prison term for illegally marrying his 16-year-old stepdaughter, 24-year-old Joshua Ingram was sent to jail as his dad watched on from the public gallery.
Maidstone Crown Crown heard Ingram, from Sheerness on Kent's Isle of Sheppey, was a teenager himself when he subjected his victims to abuse and threats of violence if they revealed their ordeals.
His warped criminal conduct included showing one victim a pornographic video on his phone and then ordering them to perform the sex act they'd just seen.
He also crudely told the child he wanted to 'f***' them and demanded they had 'better keep their mouth shut' about his depravity.
On another occasion, Ingram threatened to kill a victim if they didn't comply with his demands and dragged them by the leg, putting his hand over their mouth.
Ingram admitted to a total of 13 offences - 12 of sexual activity with a child and one of causing a child to watch pornography - dating back to 2015.
At his sentence, Judge Philip St John-Stevens told Ingram, who was seen at times wiping his eyes with a tissue, that the abuse had had a 'devastating and distorting' impact on his victims.
Referring to their statements read to the court at an earlier hearing he remarked: 'They said you took their childhood away. The impact upon them - the depression, the anguish, not wishing to carry on with life... leaving them scared that someone would find out.
'The court can only reflect on the strength of those two individuals that they have shown and hope, in some way in concluding this case, they can start on that path to some rehabilitation.
'But of course that is not easy.'
The judge also said the sentence imposed was not to be seen as a 'crude measure' of the harm caused to them.
'What they must understand, whatever sentence this court passes, as much as the court would wish, it cannot turn the clock back,' he continued.
'No sentence can give back those two victims their childhood. It is not a crude measure of the pain they have felt and continue to feel.'
Judge St John-Stevens said he was required by law to pass a sentence according to Ingram's age when the offences were committed, meaning he faced a maximum term of five years as opposed to one of 14 had he been over 18 at the time.