"You stole the joy that should come with a positive pregnancy test," a woman has told her rapist who assaulted her when she was 16.
"Instead of excitement, I felt shame, fear and disgust towards myself," she said during the man's sentencing hearing in the ACT Supreme Court on Wednesday, August 26.
"While most 16-year-olds worry about what to wear or what to do on the weekend, I was forced to decide if I should keep my daughter.
"You told me to abort her, but I reclaimed autonomy over my body."
The court heard the man, who was 44 at the time and has not been named to protect the identity of the victim, raped the teenager in August 2019 after she went to his home to smoke marijuana.
He pleaded not guilty to sexual intercourse without consent but was found guilty by an ACT Supreme Court jury.
Giving evidence at the man's trial, the woman said she had non-consensual sex with the man a further five times over two weeks after he threatened to tell her family and school about her drug use.
He was not charged over the additional alleged assaults.
Reading her victim impact statement on Wednesday, the woman detailed the immediate and lasting trauma of his actions, saying she scrubbed her skin until it burned on the day of the first sexual assault.
She described a difficult pregnancy and a traumatic labour at age 17, recalling finishing year 12 assessments with a baby on her lap and a laptop on the bed.
"The day I graduated year 12, I knew I was capable of anything," she said.
"I had my baby right there with me because I was not ashamed of her, and I will always be proud of her.
"She may carry your DNA, but she is not you, and she is not your crimes."
Addressing the rapist directly, she told him his actions were predatory and deliberate, but refused to let the trauma define her future.
"You tried to give me a life sentence and I carried it for seven years, but today when I leave this courtroom I return the guilt, shame, and fear back to you because it was never mine to carry," she said.
"I choose to forgive you - not because you deserve it, but because I deserve to be free from this trauma and painful memory."
The woman said she would advocate for sexual assault survivors for the rest of her life.
"You will remember that the girl you tried to break stood up, spoke out, and walked away stronger than you expected," she told him.
Crown prosecutor Nathan Deakes described the rape as a premeditated crime against a "very vulnerable" teenager.
The court heard that a pre-sentence report found the man demonstrated limited insight, and he had made false statements regarding the circumstances of the assault.
While the man's defence lawyer conceded his client's not-guilty plea showed a lack of remorse, he asked the court to consider a partially suspended jail sentence based on his personal background.
However, Mr Deakes said the crime warranted a jail sentence with a non-parole period set instead, so the Sentence Administration Board could decide when it was appropriate for the man to be released into the community.
Chief Justice Lucy McCallum will hand down the sentence in September.
