Ken Slayton has never met his daughter Jaycee Lee Dugard — the victim of Phillip Garrido — but he hates her alleged rapist and kidnapper with a terrible passion.

“I’m old school,” he said. “I just want to rip his face off.”

Mr Slayton attended the latest court appearance of Mr Garrido and his wife, Nancy, yesterday to plead — via the media — with Ms Dugard’s mother to be allowed to see Jaycee and, after 30 years, to be the father to her he has never been.

Mr Slayton, a Vietnam veteran who won a Purple Heart, had a brief relationship with Ms Dugard’s mother, Terry Susan Probyn, in the summer of 1979. They split up and although he knew she had become pregnant, he played no further part in her life.

He says he did not even know for sure he was the father until the FBI came calling 11 years later in 1991 when Jaycee disappeared — kidnapped by Mr Garrido — to tell him that he had a daughter and that she was missing.

Ms Dugard, who was freed from 18 years of captivity in August after giving birth to two daughters fathered by Mr Garrido, is being looked after by her mother in a secure, private location in northern California.

Mr Slayton, 63, who went on to marry and have a family of his own, told The Times that he just wanted to be there for Ms Dugard and his grandchildren.

Phillip and Nancy Garrido made a brief joint appearance in court in Placerville, El Dorado County, California, to hear a judge postpone the hearing until December. They are charged with 29 counts, including kidnapping, rape and false imprisonment. They have pleaded not guilty.

They were dressed in red regulation prison uniforms and handcuffed. Neither spoke as they sat with their lawyers, watched intently by Mr Slayton and more than 30 members of the media.

Afterwards Mr Slayton, who lives in Los Angeles, said: “I just want to rip this guy’s head right off. Being in the same room as him, I just wanted to go over and take care of business. What he did to my daughter and grandchildren ... I saw what you all saw in there — Garrido’s nothing, he’s a sack of garbage.”

He said he was confident that he was Ms Dugard’s biological father but had had no contact with her or her mother, despite an appeal to them last month. “I want her to know that our hearts are open to her and we long to be the loving, supportive and normal family to her and her children that she has not had for 18 years and that her children have never known.

“I am so pleased she is back. She needs a lot of help and I want to be a part of that help.”

Filled with guilt at not doing more to contact Jaycee’s mother after she was born, he said he was keen to be a positive male role model to Ms Dugard and her children, to make up for the negative role played in their lives by “that predator Garrido”.

Ms Dugard’s mother later married Carl Probyn, who became Ms Dugard’s stepfather, but the couple later split up. In the days after her release he acted as a family spokesman.

Mr Slayton, who has retained Gloria Allred, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, to press his case, said that he wanted nothing from Ms Dugard but to support her. He vowed when she went missing, he said, to try to be a part of her life if she was ever found.

He has two grown-up daughters with his wife. Jaime. “I am a good man and a great father. I am here for you, Jaycee — it is never too late to be a father,” he said.

This month the first pictures of Ms Dugard since she gained her freedom were published. Now 29, she told People magazine that she and her daughters Angel, 15, and Starlit, 11, were happy and enjoyed horse-riding. The Dugard family have established a trust fund for the daughters and are exploring the possibility of a book deal.

Also in court was the woman kidnapped and raped by Mr Garrido 33 years ago. Katie Callaway Hall was snatched by Mr Garrido in 1976 and taken to a storage unit in Reno where she was raped by him for hours until a police officer came upon the scene. Mr Garrido served 11 years for the crime and shortly after his release is alleged to have kidnapped Ms Dugard from near her home in South Lake Tahoe.

Ms Hall said she wanted to attend every court appearance to make sure that he did not ever get out of prison again. “He looked right at me and I just glared right back. It was intensely emotional. The same old fears came back,” she said. Of Ms Dugard, she said: “I just want to give her a hug.”

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