Former Bega Cheese boss and paedophile Maurice Van Ryn loses appeal for rehabilitation

DISGRACED former Bega Cheese boss and convicted paedophile Maurice Van Ryn has lost his bid to appeal to the High Court on the basis it was more important to rehabilitate him than to punish him.

Maurice Van Ryn has lost a bid to appeal to the High Court.

DISGRACED former Bega cheese boss and convicted paedophile Maurice Van Ryn has lost his bid to appeal to the High Court on the basis it was more important to rehabilitate him than to punish him.

The court threw out that argument today but has allowed him special leave to appeal on a technicality when he was dealt with under a slightly wrong section of the child sexual assault laws.

Maurice Van Ryn pleaded guilty to 17 child sex offences.

Legal experts said today even if he won, it would only mean a month or up to six months or so difference to his jail sentence of 18 years with a non-parole period of 13 years six months.

Some of the parents of his nine young victims spoke of their relief outside court.

Van Ryn, 61, the father of three adult children and a grandparent, pleaded guilty to 17 child sex offences over an 11-year period from 2003 to 2014.

He had been sentenced in the District Court by Judge Clive Jeffreys on September 9, 2015 to an aggregate term of imprisonment of 13 years with a non-parole period of seven years.

The minimum term was almost doubled on appeal by the Court of Criminal Appeal, which said Judge Jeffreys’ sentence was manifestly inadequate.

Counsel for Van Ryn, Stephen Odgers SC, argued in the High Court sitting in Sydney today that Van Ryn was taking anti-libidinal drugs for his “paraphiliac disorder” and it had been a “revelation” to Van Ryn that he no longer had these sexual urges towards children.

He said that the court should look more at rehabilitation in this case, rather than retribution.

Van Ryn, head of the cheese company for 15 years, admitted to raping a 15-year-old boy, repeatedly performing oral sex on another and molesting other children, often after grooming them with gifts and sweets.

His appeal over the section of the law under which he was charged will be heard next year.

“We hope that even if it would mean a month or six months off his sentence that it is rejected by the court because that would mean a victory for Van Ryn which would be wrong,” the spokesman for the families said outside court.

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