Who was Tim Colt? Man ran incest farm, raped own daughters and fathered their kids
In June 2020, a court in Australia found Frank Colt guilty of sexually assaulting a then-17-year-old relative in 2010. The case has not just put the spotlight on Frank, but also his father Tim Colt was the head of an "incest farm" and the patriarch of the "world's most inbred family". Even though Tim died in 2009, his actions continue to have an effect on the Colt family, as Frank's trial revealed.
The 38-member Colt clan was found living in squalor in 2012 by police in a bush camp in the Australian outback. Since then, investigations have shown that at least 14 of the children born, were the result of parents related to each other. Many of the children were malnourished and illiterate, and police also found several second and third-generation Colts, who were by then adults. Frank is believed to be one of those second-generation Colts, born to Tim and his wife June.
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Frank was arrested after one of his relatives, given the pseudonym Petra told cops she was living in a cult where "all my aunts, uncles and cousins have been sleeping together." She also claimed she was "legally blind and was physically abused by members of her family." Her testimony in a New South Wales district court helped seal Frank's fate, with the judge noting her
"simply and matter-of-factly put" testimony.
Who was Tim Colt?
Frank's actions would likely not have taken place had it not been for his father, Tim. The matriarch of the family emigrated from New Zealand with his wife in the 1970s and moved between South Australia, Western Australia, and Victoria. Usually living in remote rural communities, he fathered six children - Rhonda, Charlie, Cherry, Betty, Frank, Paula, and Martha. None of their actual names (including that of Tim and June) are known, they were all given pseudonyms (including their surname) by government agencies.
June passed away in 2001, so it is unclear just how much she knew about what was going on, but it certainly appears as if she was deeply involved. Betty had 13 children, all fathered by either Tim or one of her brothers. Testing revealed that all of Tim's children had children in similar situations, and continued to breed within the family, Interviews indicate that it was a "virtual sexual free-for-all", where they all had sex with each other.
On the outside though, things were very different. The family reportedly kept mostly to themselves, only driving into town on rare occasions. Tim, along with Charlie and Martha also occasionally performed in public. After his death in 2009, the family bought a property for $100,000 near the Australian capital of Canberra. That move proved to be their undoing, as the children's rare attendance at school prompted multiple visits from the authorities between 2010 and 2012. Eventually, in 2012 police raided the farm and took 12 children away, who were later placed with foster families.
Frank's arrest and trial
Even before the police raided the Colt property, several members of the family fled for other parts of Australia, with police attempting to round them up since. Frank was one of those members who didn't live at the farm but visited sometime in 2010 when he raped Petra. She claimed that during that visit, Frank raped her in the backseat of his car. Petra is believed to be the daughter of Betty, fathered by Tim.
Petra came forward in 2013 to tell police about the incident, leading to Frank's arrest in April 2018. He was found guilty in June 2020 of incestuous rape. Along with Frank, all his siblings are also in legal trouble and facing a myriad number of charges, from sexual intercourse with a child to perjury. It's unclear how long Frank was sentenced to. The Australian government tried to deport Betty to New Zealand, but she successfully fought that case and now resides in South Australia.