‘Camouflage rapist’ pleads guilty to schoolgirl assault
A father of three dubbed the camouflage rapist has pleaded guilty to the harrowing hour-long sexual assault and abduction of a schoolgirl on the Central Coast. GRAPHIC WARNING.
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Wearing a ghillie suit he used for pig hunting as camouflage, the NBN contractor hid beside a bush track planning an early morning rape of a young girl before going to work building the broadband network.
The place he chose for his attack, he later told a friend according to court documents, was “a good spot because lots of kids walk past”.
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The victim he chose was a 12-year-old girl who at 7.45am on that day, May 15, 2017, was walking to school at Narrara on the Central Coast.
The 33-year-old NBN drilling worker, a married father of three, grabbed her, threatened her with a large stick, tied her to a tree for an hour and subjected her to an attack so horrific the details have been suppressed by the courts.
But the agreed statement of facts tendered at Gosford Court yesterday when the man pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault and intercourse with a minor was disturbing enough.
“She said ‘stop, stop stop,’ she was telling him not to hurt her with the stick,” the documents said.
“He forced her into the bush saying, ‘don’t scream, or I will hurt you’.”
The offender ordered her to lie on the ground before using cable ties to bind her hands and feet and placing duct tape over her mouth.
After the attack the traumatised child ran to school crying and told a family friend in the canteen what happened.
“She was dirty and dishevelled … she was crying and shaking … she had swollen marks on her wrists and ankles,” court documents said. She is now undergoing extensive trauma counselling.
Documents allege the man later confessed to a school friend, saying “I’m a pervert.”
The court heard between August 11, 2016 and between and January 1, 2017 he also committed an act of indecency against an 11-year-old girl and two counts of exposing her to indecent material.
Appearing via video link in prison greens yesterday the man, whose name is also suppressed, struggled at times to grunt the word “guilty” as 10 charges were read out.
Crown prosecutor Heidi Cantor told The Daily Telegraph while the families of the two girls were “relieved” details of the sexual acts would not be made public they wanted the rapist’s name published.
Police arrested the former mechanic at his Woongarrah home in August, 2017. The statement of facts said officers found a “rape kit” in the garage including hunting knives and camouflage gear.
The man’s wife previously told the Telegraph she had helped stitch his camouflage suit and believed he was innocent. An NBN spokesman said the company was “appalled “ at the actions of the subcontractor for one of its delivery partners. The man will be sentenced on April 17.
Originally published as ‘Camouflage rapist’ pleads guilty to schoolgirl assault