Melbourne, Mar 2 (ANI): A 55-year-old man has been sentenced to a 12-year jail term for cruel and despicable crimes against his daughters 20 years ago in Tasmania.

The child rapist, who has been living outside Tasmania since 1997, was arrested in New South Wales in June last year, reports News.com.au.

The offender cannot be named in order to protect his victims.

The man has pleaded guilty to having sex in Tasmania with one daughter between 1989 and 1994, when she was aged between three and eight years old.

He also admitted to abusing the second daughter in a similar way between 1990 and 1994, when she was aged between three and seven years old.

He moved interstate about 1997, the Tasmanian Supreme Court in Hobart was told.

Chief Justice Ewan Crawford said the man’s daughters had suffered terribly as a result of his actions.

“It seems to be a reasonably common feature of cases such as this one that the child abuser was himself abused as a child,” Justice Crawford said.

“If it was not for that common experience, it might have been thought that the abuser would have hated the abuse so much that he could not bear to inflict it on others.”

Justice Crawford said the father had expressed remorse and suffered a “low mood” in prison.

“The general rule to be applied when sentencing adults is that they must take responsibility for their actions. It will be applied today,” Justice Crawford said.

“These crimes were cruel and despicable. He owed a duty to his daughters to care, love and nurture them.”

The case maybe likened to that of Josef Fritzl, the 73-year-old Austrian who was sentenced to life imprisonment for raping and imprisoning his daughter for 24 years and fathering seven children with her. (ANI)