A British man who fathered seven children by raping his two daughters was jailed for life.
The 56-year-old man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, made his daughters pregnant 19 times over a 25-year period of abuse.
He was jailed for life at Sheffield Crown Court in northern England and must serve a minimum of 19 and half years.
In court last month, the Sheffield man admitted 25 rapes and four indecent assaults.
He made his elder daughter pregnant seven times, fathering two surviving children by her.
Two other babies died the day they were born.
He made his younger daughter pregnant 12 times. She has five surviving children.
The case bears similarities to that of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who fathered seven children with his daughter, whom he kept locked up for 24 years, before being discovered in April.
After their father was sentenced, the daughters responded with a brief statement issued through the police.
'His detention in prison brings us only the knowledge that he cannot physically touch us again,' they said.
'The suffering he caused will continue for many years and we must now concentrate our thoughts on finding the strength to rebuild our lives.'
The court heard how the man, who refused to attend the hearing, took pleasure in fathering children by his daughters and threatened to beat them if they refused to have sex with him.
Prosecutor Nicholas Campbell told the court: 'All the defendant's children spoke of his domination over their family life... he liked to think that he was a hard man. All the family were frightened of him.'
The sexual abuse started in 1981, when the girls were between eight and ten years old, but they only realised the other was also being abused when they fell pregnant some years later, the court heard.
The man's wife left her husband during the early 1990s, but the girls and their brother continued to live with him.
In one incident, the man held a knife to his eldest daughter's throat, before claiming: 'It's never going to end. You have to do what you are told.'
When the girls were challenged about the father of their children, 'they would cover it up', the prosecutor said.
