Greens deputy leadership candidate quits election race after father jailed for raping a child

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A candidate for the deputy leadership of the Green Party has pulled out after her father, who had served as her election agent, was jailed for raping and abusing a child.

Aimee Challenor was seen as one of the frontrunners for the position and has claimed she was unaware what her father had done.

The party’s equality spokeswoman and former parliamentary candidate had hired her father to run her campaigns even after he had been charged with the crimes, which were initially reported to police in late 2015.

David Challenor, 50, was jailed for 22 years for holding a 10-year-old girl captive in his “torture den” attic where he electrocuted her while playing out his sadomasochistic fantasies.

A court was told how he would dress up as a small girl in adult-sized baby dresses and nappies before carrying out the attacks at his home.

Challenor had “various sexual fetishes and fantasies” and when the victim was at his home he took her to the attic where he asked her “to do things to him” including performing oral sex.

Ms Challenor issued a statement on her website confirming she was withdrawing from the race and said she had, despite living in the family home, only recently heard about her father’s crimes.

“That might be hard for you to understand, or to believe, but it is the truth,” she said.

“I was taken into care a few years ago and have also lived in independent supported housing. There were sustained periods where I did not live in the family home.

“Yes, he was my election agent. This was one of a number of ways I was seeking to reconcile my relationship with my father after coming out of care. On reflection, I can understand that it was unacceptable for me to appoint my dad as my election agent when he had been arrested.”