A father in Rockhampton could face rape charges, after being accused of forcing his 14 year old son to have sex with a prostitute because he feared he may be gay.

Rockhampton’s The Morning Bulletin reports that the incident happened after a family Christmas barbecue in 2007. The father allegedly called a prostitute, arranged to meet her at a local motel and took his son to the room. The father waited outside on the balcony, occasionally coming in to check on them, and said that he wanted to see a used condom as proof that they’d had sex. Afterwards the father took the son home.

Yesterday, during a committal hearing in Rockhampton Magistrates Court, a magistrate found that there was sufficient grounds for a rape trial.

During the hearing the victim’s mother told the Court that she had asked where the father had taken her son.

“First (he) didn’t want to say anything to me. Then he told me his father took him to a motel room and there was a prostitute there,” she said. “He wouldn’t talk, he just started crying.”

In May 2008 the father called the Child Protection Investigation Unit, and spoke to Detective Sergeant Christine Knapp. He said that police had not acted on his allegations that his 14-year-old son was “abusing” his younger brother. That’s when the father revealed what he’d done, in an effort to “sort it out himself”.

The prostitute in question has not been located but police have released a description and attempted to trace the call from the father’s mobile phone.

After ending the phone call with the father, Sergeant Knapp drove to the family home where she spoke to the child. She said he appeared to be quite embarrassed when he was asked by police about the rape.

A date is yet to be set for the trial.