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Teen Jumps From 40-Foot Bridge To ‘Put An End To All Of The Pain’ After Father Drugged And Raped Her For Years

By Angelica N. Sumter
Published on: 07:29 PST, Sep 13, 2016

After years of being drugged and raped by her own father, Emma Burt, now 19, of Powys, Wales, in the United Kingdom, wanted to “put an end to all of the pain” and jumped from a 40-foot bridge, according to the Mirror.

Fortunately, the teen survived the suicide attempt and has since gone public with her story.

In December, 2012, at the age of 15, Burt moved in with her 40-year-old father, Christopher Wayne Edwards, after a disagreement with her mother. Just a month after settling in, the teen’s father began sending text messages, grooming her before the abuse.

Edwards would reportedly wait until the teen was “asleep or close to sleeping” to slip her drugs until she passed out and would take indecent photographs of her and afterward, he would rape his own daughter.

The teen stated that he would also call her “his wife.”

After a while, Burt became addicted to “amphetamines and cocaine” and “didn’t have any understanding of what was going on because I was too spaced out.”

“Being so reliant on the drugs caused multiple issues when I left, I’ve never told anyone, but people started to notice that I was weird or different.”

Burt added that she “had this way of coping with the drugs which were like another persona.”

“The more drugs I took, the more I could ignore what was going on.”

However, on December 14, 2014, Burt wanted to end it all, jumping from a 40-foot bridge and into the River Severn in Newtown but she somehow survived her suicide attempt.

“I had a psychotic episode,” Burt said. “The only bit I remember was when I was in the water, and when I was in the ambulance. It was horrible. I was lucky, I only had a few scratches. I’d managed to keep myself against a pillar.”

“I don’t know how I did it but the river banks had burst as well, which was quite shocking that I managed to not be dragged along the river.

“That’s when I thought ‘now I need to say something.'”

Burt managed to escape at the age of 18 and confided in relatives about the years of abuse.

Police were notified, and they conducted an investigation.

Afterward, Edwards was arrested.

Judge Niclas Parry sentenced the teen’s father to 12 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to “rape, four charges of sexual activity, one charge of possessing an indecent photograph and three charges of taking indecent photographs, and supplying her with drugs.”

Edwards was ordered to register as a sex offender for life.

Before Edwards sentencing, the judge told the court that “she became utterly reliant upon your drugs.”

“You used drugs to facilitate the offenses and took the most appalling images of her.”

Burt hopes that her story will encourage other “victims of sexual abuse to come forward,” according to the Daily Mail.

“That’s what I am hoping by revealing everything he has done – for this to save another girl.

“I could have a daughter, and I want to speak out for a child like her and let her know that she doesn’t need to go through the pain that I did.”

Burt is now free of drugs and plans to open her own business. Three weeks ago, she gave birth to a baby boy but says she is still having trouble trusting men and can’t “look at the world the same anymore.”

Three weeks ago, she gave birth to a baby boy but says she is still having trouble trusting men and can’t “look at the world the same anymore.”

“It has definitely affected me,” said Burt. “He’d want me at home. I hardly went to school once I lived with him.”

“I was going quite regularly before that and then it literally dropped to, maybe if I was lucky, once a week.”

Burt added that “if your Dad can do something like that, a person you’re supposed to trust the most, then anyone can. Something so innocent to look at – you see a man in the street and he kisses his child on the forehead or something.”

“And then you start to think, ‘Is there something more?’ You shouldn’t look at it like that, but I do.”

[Image via iStock Photo]

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