The family of a German lorry driver breathed a sigh of relief yesterday as he was put behind bars for subjecting them to a reign of sexual abuse and terror that went undetected for two decades.

“I am happy that it is finally over, that we live freely at last,” said Bjoern, 28, stepson of Detlef Spies, who was jailed for 14 and a half years by a court in Koblenz, western Germany.

“We can be happy that the truth was victorious in the end.”

In a case that shocked the country and drew comparisons with that of infamous Austrian Josef Fritzl, Mr Spies put his family through an ordeal lasting more than 20 years in and around the tiny village of Fluterschen.

The court heard how he abused his daughter Jasmin and stepdaughter Natascha on a regular basis from their 12th birthdays onwards, raping his daughter for the first time in the back of his Toyota in a forest just before Christmas.

Mr Spies, 48, had admitted fathering eight children, one of whom died, with his stepdaughter, who is now 28. This was, however, not part of the trial.

He was also convicted of one count of sexually abusing his stepson.

“He treated his family as his own personal property to do with as he wished,” presiding judge Winfried Hetger told the packed courtroom. “He told his victims that what he was doing to them was ‘allowed’.”

Mr Spies also prostituted both girls out to two other men dozens of times either in their flats, in a shed or in the back room of one of the men’s Turkish donor kebab restaurant, the judge said.

Judge Hetger said that the first time, when Natascha was 12, Mr Spies told the other man: “Here, you can do whatever you like.”

“For days afterwards Natascha bled and was in pain,” he said.