Chris Cranny: Teen fronts cricket coach in court
A cricket coach sobbed with his head in his hands after his victim confronted him in court, saying he will ‘never forgive him’.
Illawarra Star
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A teen boy has told an Illawarra cricket coach and primary school teacher that he will “never forgive him”, after he was groomed by the 31-year-old who has admitted he had a “disorder” related to underage boys.
Chris Cranny put his head in his hands and sobbed as one of his teenage victims addressed a Wollongong courtroom on Friday, telling Magistrate Claire Girotto Cranny had “broken” him.
“I wasn’t the first person you did this too but I was the first person who came out about it,” he said.
“The effects of what you have done are still there and they won’t go away any time soon …. I admit you broke me but you didn’t win. You chose the wrong kid and you didn’t win”.
Cranny was due to be sentence on 11 charges, including three counts of groom child over under 16 for unlawful sexual activity, two counts of aggravated indecent victim under 16 and six counts of committing aggravated sexual act child between 10 and 16, after he was arrested from his Gwynneville home in January by the Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Squad.
In his own letter addressed to the community, Cranny said he wished he’d “never been born” and that he was afraid to go to jail.
“I only wish that I had never been born and this had never happened to the people who put their trust in me and had relied on me,” he wrote.
“I never wanted to be a sex offender. I’ve lived with this horror of myself, this constant fear, this reality that my life is empty and terrible.”
An agreed set of facts tendered to the court revealed that after his arrest, Cranny admitted he had a “disorder” related to adolescent boys from the ages of 14 to 17.
He told police that while he didn’t want to have sex with them, he did sexualise them “in a way that he gets curious about seeing them naked”.
The 31-year-old told police that he had been fighting “urges” for years, and that he had rationalised his behaviour as “being okay” because he didn’t physically touch them.
While the nature of many of the charges are too graphic to repeat, Cranny admitted to supplying two of the boys with alcohol, showing three of them pornographic material and discussing highly sexual topics with them.
He also admitted he became “obsessive” over one of the boys, and became jealous and possessive when he got a girlfriend.
After his arrest, Cranny told police he was “ashamed, remorseful” and acknowledged he needed help.
Magistrate Girotto adjourned the matter to deliberate on the sentence. Cranny will remain on bail until he returns to court later this month.
