Inside the unmasking of monster paedophile Maurice Van Ryn

THE charmed run through the justice system is finally over for the Big Cheese. Former Bega CEO Maurice Van Ryn’s child abuse sentenced has been extended.

Maurice Van Ryn, Bega Cheese CEO has numerous Pedophile charges against him.

THE charmed run through the justice system is finally over for the Big Cheese.

When I first heard about a rural child rapist we didn’t know his name.

Oddly, it had been suppressed by the local magistrate. Offender’s names are usually only suppressed when they are related to their victims. It’s a protection the justice system provides to safeguard the innocent. So why then was a sick paedophile sheltering in anonymity he didn’t deserve?

The 2GB broadcaster and Telegraph columnist Ray Hadley was the first to expose this anomaly.

After media inquiries to the Attorney-General’s Department in Sydney, the suppression order was lifted and this monster’s identity revealed: Maurice Van Ryn.

Maurice Van Ryn, former Bega Cheese CEO.

For 15 years he was CEO of Bega Cheese.

Over the course of a decade, Van Ryn would abuse nine children, aged eight to 15. The most serious offence was “persistent sexual abuse of a child” which occurred over a five-year period with an 11-year-old boy.

Van Ryn’s evil world came crashing down when an eight-year-old girl told her parents about her abuse. He was charged by police and released on bail.

More victims came forward and Van Ryn continued offending. Yet somehow his bail was continued.

He then pleaded guilty to all charges and was facing a maximum 25 years in jail but Local Magistrate Doug Dick continued his bail.

It was a mere coincidence the Big Cheese wanted to attend his daughter’s wedding a few weeks later.

I first confronted Maurice Van Ryn while he was reporting for bail at Merimbula Police Station. He wasn’t happy to have an A Current Affair crew in his face. This was a man used to getting things his way.

The Attorney-General ordered a review and bail was revoked. Van Ryn never made that wedding but his lucky run through the justice system wasn’t over.

District Court Judge Clive Jeffreys heard his case last year and handed down a sentence of 13 years with a non-parole period of seven years.

The real tragedy is that monsters like Maurice Van Ryn think they can get away with destroying the lives of our children.

He noted Van Ryn’s “deep contrition”, ADHD diagnosis and intense media scrutiny as mitigating factors.

The victims and their families were appalled. They’d been forced to listen to this egomaniac thunder from the dock that prison was “absolute hell” and the abuse from fellow inmates had almost pushed him “over the edge”.

Yesterday a three-judge appeal panel of justices Leeming, Johnson and Hulme found the original sentence was so “manifestly inadequate” it was “an affront to the administration of justice”.

If there is a more scathing assessment of a sentence, I certainly haven’t read it.

The appeal judges almost doubled his non-parole period from seven years to 13.5 years. The victims’ families were ecstatic.

No sentence will ever be enough for the damage caused to their innocent children but they hope this now sets precedence for similar predators.

The Big Cheese will no doubt be screaming injustice from his jail cell today. He was disgusted at his original sentence, which he deemed too harsh. The day he took the stand, he bleated about the lack of education regarding drugs to control paedophilia.

“That’s the real tragedy of this,” he said. “I’ve never seen an advertisement on television about this kind of treatment (for paedophilia).”

No Maurice. The real tragedy is that monsters like you think they can get away with destroying the lives of our children. Thank God justice has prevailed.

Dan Nolan is a reporter for A Current Affair