A YOUNG girl thought she was going on a trip to a safari park, but instead her mother’s partner raped her as part of a pattern of aggression and violence towards them, a court has heard.

The Bolton man, who cannot be named as it could identify his victims, allegedly raped and abused the mother and her nine-year-old daughter over a three year period.

“It is a history of sexual abuse, aggression, violence and control,” Colin Buckle, prosecuting, told a jury at Bolton Crown Court.

The court heard how the 26-year-old mother went to the police after a series of incidents in which the 28-year-old forced her to have sex.

On one occasion the man is said to have told her: “I am going to show you who is the boss” but denied he had raped her, telling her “it’s not like that — you are my girlfriend”.

On another occasion he tried to strangle her and assaulted her so badly that she had to wear three layers of make up to disguise the bruises.

After a further rape the woman fled, in her underwear, to a neighbour’s house and police were called.

But the woman decided not to go ahead with supporting a prosecution and within months the man was back in her life.

However, after the woman’s young daughter came home from school one day and revealed her mum’s boyfriend had been doing “rude things” to her, the mother went to the police again.

Mr Buckle told how, one day, the man had offered to take the nine-year-old girl on a trip to Knowsley Safari Park, staying the night before at a relative’s house.

But during the night he woke her, took her to the sofa and showed her a porn video he was watching.

“The defendant told her that this was what he wanted her to do and that if she did, she could play Minecraft of his XBox," said Mr Buckle. He then raped her, something he repeated on a further occasion.

Another time the man told the girl he was taking her to Toys R Us to buy her a bike. But instead, he drove her to a graveyard where he sexually assaulted her in the car.

“They didn’t go to Toys R Us in the end. They came back and and an excuse was made as to why the bike hadn’t been purchased in the same way as an excuse was made as to why she never made it to Knowsley Safari Park,” said Mr Buckle.

When arrested, the man claimed the girl was lying, possibly because she was jealous of time he spent with a sibling.

He denies three counts of raping the mother and causing actual bodily harm and two counts of raping the girl, one of digital penetration, causing a child to engage in sexual activity and causing her to watch a sexual act.

The trial continues.