Teh One Who Knocks
03-14-2017, 11:45 AM
By Heat Street Staff
http://i.imgur.com/JAprLrah.jpg
A tennis coach “obsessed” with turning his two daughters into Wimbledon superstars is accused of subjecting them to years of physical and emotional abuse, including marking one of them with an ‘L’ (for ‘loser’) on her forehead when she was only nine years old, a court has heard.
The father, John De’Viana, 55, entertained an unhealthy obsession with the Williams sisters — Venus and Serena — and wanted his own girls to become tennis champions from an early age, his ex-wife told jurors.
De’Viana subjected his daughters, Moanei and Nephe, to an intense training regime that started at 5.30am every morning and carried on until the girls fell into bed, exhausted, the jury was told.
He even ended up taking them out of secondary school — at age 11 —to make more time for training.
When the girls underperformed, he would allegedly humiliate them, calling them “fat, lazy c**ts,” spitting in their faces, depriving them of food and kicking them, prosecutor David Povall told the Snaresbrook Crown Court in London.
Monaei, now 21, recalled in front of the jury one instance when her father wrote a giant L in permanent marker on her forehead, before locking her up in a caravan because he was unhappy with her performance. She was nine years old at the time.
He then allegedly bought dinner for himself but threw his daughter’s away, leaving her to starve.
Her sister Nephe, now 19, also recounted getting “kicked and punched” by her father with his hand over her mouth to stop her from yelling because she was not trying hard enough.
“It is the Crown’s case that, over a period of years, he made the lives of his two daughters miserable in a variety of different ways, but primarily around his ambition that they should be rich, famous and successful tennis players,” Mr Povall said, according to a report published in the Telegraph.
De’Viana is now facing two charges of cruelty to a person under the age of 16.
“John De’Viana behaved in a way that went so far as child cruelty as the law defines it, that is, he assaulted or ill-treated his children over time so as that the cumulative effect was likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
“He did that, on the Crown’s case, by way of physical assaults and mental abuse of those girls, relentlessly over a period of years.”
Ms Horne, Nephe and Monaei’s mother and Mr De’Viana’ s ex wife, told Snaresbrook crown court that Monaei was only five when he first hit her in the face after a training session.
Monaei told police that her and her sister have always hated their father: “Tournaments were the worst because there was so much pressure to win. He said, ‘You’ll thank me one day because you’ll be rich’. He just really wanted us to be famous and make money.”
The trial continues.
http://i.imgur.com/JAprLrah.jpg
A tennis coach “obsessed” with turning his two daughters into Wimbledon superstars is accused of subjecting them to years of physical and emotional abuse, including marking one of them with an ‘L’ (for ‘loser’) on her forehead when she was only nine years old, a court has heard.
The father, John De’Viana, 55, entertained an unhealthy obsession with the Williams sisters — Venus and Serena — and wanted his own girls to become tennis champions from an early age, his ex-wife told jurors.
De’Viana subjected his daughters, Moanei and Nephe, to an intense training regime that started at 5.30am every morning and carried on until the girls fell into bed, exhausted, the jury was told.
He even ended up taking them out of secondary school — at age 11 —to make more time for training.
When the girls underperformed, he would allegedly humiliate them, calling them “fat, lazy c**ts,” spitting in their faces, depriving them of food and kicking them, prosecutor David Povall told the Snaresbrook Crown Court in London.
Monaei, now 21, recalled in front of the jury one instance when her father wrote a giant L in permanent marker on her forehead, before locking her up in a caravan because he was unhappy with her performance. She was nine years old at the time.
He then allegedly bought dinner for himself but threw his daughter’s away, leaving her to starve.
Her sister Nephe, now 19, also recounted getting “kicked and punched” by her father with his hand over her mouth to stop her from yelling because she was not trying hard enough.
“It is the Crown’s case that, over a period of years, he made the lives of his two daughters miserable in a variety of different ways, but primarily around his ambition that they should be rich, famous and successful tennis players,” Mr Povall said, according to a report published in the Telegraph.
De’Viana is now facing two charges of cruelty to a person under the age of 16.
“John De’Viana behaved in a way that went so far as child cruelty as the law defines it, that is, he assaulted or ill-treated his children over time so as that the cumulative effect was likely to cause them unnecessary suffering or injury to health.
“He did that, on the Crown’s case, by way of physical assaults and mental abuse of those girls, relentlessly over a period of years.”
Ms Horne, Nephe and Monaei’s mother and Mr De’Viana’ s ex wife, told Snaresbrook crown court that Monaei was only five when he first hit her in the face after a training session.
Monaei told police that her and her sister have always hated their father: “Tournaments were the worst because there was so much pressure to win. He said, ‘You’ll thank me one day because you’ll be rich’. He just really wanted us to be famous and make money.”
The trial continues.