Bundaberg farmer appeals against child sex abuse conviction

A Bundaberg farmer’s appeal against a conviction for sexually abusing children has been decided. See what the court said about his 12-year jail term.

The child abuser is pictured outside the Bundaberg Court House on a break during his trial in 2021.

A Bundaberg man found guilty of 10 counts of sexual abuse against children as young as eight has had an appeal against his conviction dismissed in the Supreme Court of Queensland.

The man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of his victims, appealed a conviction handed down after a jury found him guilty in a lengthy trial in the District Court of Bundaberg on September 28, 2021.

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The appeal was lodged on the grounds that a miscarriage of justice had come about after the Crown had failed to disclose a victim impact statement until the final summing up of the case and after final addresses had been made.

The accused also lodged his appeal on the grounds that “the verdicts were unreasonable and not supported by the evidence”.

The crimes the accused was found guilty of included maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with a child under 12 during the mid-90s, with the abuse continuing into the early 2000s.

He was also accused of maintaining an unlawful sexual relationship with another child, aged under 16, also from the mid-90s to early 2000s, and that he had raped the child in that time.

Bundaberg Court House heard the abuser’s case.

The court had heard from one victim that the man had convinced his victims that what had been doing was “normal and natural”.

The Counsel for the accused focused their contentions on several pieces of information contained within the victim impact statement.

However, analysis of these points in the process of the appeal were not found to provide grounds for dismissing the offender's conviction.

Likewise, the court found no evidence that the verdict in the trial had been unreasonable.

“...the suggested weaknesses in the evidence have not been demonstrated to have reduced the probative value of the evidence in such a way that this court ought to conclude that, even making full allowances for the advantages enjoyed by the jury, there is a significant possibility that an innocent person has been convicted,” a document from the appeal hearing stated.

“This ground fails.”

On February 3, 2022, the man‘s appeal was dismissed before Justices Mullins, Morrison and Williams.

The man continues to serve his 12-year sentence, of which he must serve 80 per cent.