Katherine Asiminaris, David Robinson: Some of the most shocking sex crimes in the Macarthur region
These are some of the most shocking sex crimes in Sydney’s southwest.
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Here are the sex crimes that have shocked southwest Sydney.
BLAKE ROSS
Registered child sex offender Blake Ross concealed his employment as an emergency medic from police for two years after he was convicted of having sexual relationships with 14 and 15-year-old girls when he was then 22.
Ross, now 27, was jailed for six months in 2017 and became a registered child sex offender but wound up in court again when police discovered he concealed his employment as an emergency medic in defiance of his conditions.
Ross worked at more than 140 events between June 2018 and June 2020 including music festivals and sporting events before police uncovered his deceit.
Most of these events were with Smeaton Grange-based company EMS Event Medical, while others were with Event Safety Services and Cronulla First Aid.
At Sutherland Local Court, his barrister Cathy Doosey conceded Ross deliberately withheld that information.
Ross pleaded guilty to 12 breaches of his conditions as a registered child sex offender, which in addition to his employment also included comparatively minor breaches related to social media use and car registration.
Magistrate Les Mabbutt convicted Ross and sentenced him to 12 months’ imprisonment with a nine-month non-parole period.
He was given convictions and no further penalties for breaching a 2016 community corrections order in relation to his initial sexual offences and a 2019 conditional release order for a prior breach where he failed to report to police for an annual check on time.
Mr Mabbutt granted Ross bail ahead of a planned appeal in Sydney District Court on July 7.
Ross will have to report to police daily, reside with his parents in Kirrawee and abstain from using a smartphone or working in the emergency medic field.
DANIEL WEBB
A giant of Australia’s ten pin bowling scene who used his status to prey on a teenage athlete, repeatedly offering oral sex and sending pictures of his penis, was last year jailed.
Former national ten pin bowling coach Daniel Richard Webb, 29, pleaded guilty to a series of child sex offences including indecent assault on a person under 16, with all offences taking place between September 2017 and May 2018.
In December 2020, Webb was sentenced to three years and six months prison, with a non-parole period of one year and nine months.
Documents tendered to the court reveal Webb, of Rosemeadow in southwest Sydney, once tried to entice the victim into his room by saying “you will have fun”, before his offer for oral sex was rejected.
On another occasion, Webb was asked to massage the shoulder of the teenager which led to the elite coach pulling down the athlete’s pants and rubbing his buttocks as it was “all connected”.
On a later date, Webb sent an explicit image of his penis to the victim on Snapchat and said “it’s here for you”.
DAVID ROBINSON
Teacher’s aide David Robinson, of St Andrews, preyed on a vulnerable teenage student in the hope of sexual gratification.
Robinson was sentenced at Campbelltown District Court in February for the single charge of grooming a child under 14 for unlawful sexual activity.
The 29-year-old took a shine to the teenage student who looked up to Robinson as a “big brother”, but his sinister actions were motivated by a mix of sexual desires and sympathy, the court heard.
The court heard the educator brought the teenage victim lunch daily from the school canteen, handed over his Netflix account details and would play Xbox with him each night.
Robinson even handed over his credit card details so the student could make an Xbox-related purchase, however the court heard the victim then spent about $1000 extra on items the St Andrews man didn’t know about.
On one occasion, the educator told the crying victim he “loved him” as a friend, the court heard.
Robinson’s barrister, John Stratton SC, told the court his client’s offending was on the “lower end of the scale”.
However, the court heard the former teacher and artist had sent a picture of his crotch to the teenage victim and engaged in calls that were of “inappropriate duration”.
During sentencing Judge Philip Ingram SC said Robinson was in a position of trust as a support teacher for the student.
“The breach of trust is a significant factor and the victim’s impact statement makes clear the breaches had significant impacts,” Judge Ingram said.
The judge noted there had been “grooming conduct and non-grooming conduct” and “even if it wasn’t grooming, it eventually fell into grooming behaviour”.
Despite the offence holding a maximum prison sentence for 10 years, Robinson avoided prison but was convicted and sentenced to a community corrections order for three years.
The St Andrews man will perform 500 hours of community service work and complete rehabilitation and treatment programs.
Judge Ingram told Robinson he was “fortunate” not to go to prison.
GRAEME MUNDINE
A former Marist brother who was released from jail in June last year on child-sex offences narrowly escaped going back into custody on a fresh charge.
Graeme Mundine, 60, pleaded guilty to a single charge of indecent assault on a person under authority in Campbelltown Local Court in October, and was sentenced in Campbelltown District Court by Judge Andrew Colefax in December.
According to facts read to the court by Judge Colefax, Mundine was a teacher at St Gregory’s College when the offending occurred in 1986.
He said Mundine had forced a student to sit a mathematics exam near his office, and sexually assaulted him when he was submitting his exam.
“You told him to sit on your lap, which he did,” Judge Colefax said.
“You then grabbed him around the chest and pulled him towards you. You rubbed his thighs and grabbed hold of his penis on the outside of his trousers.”
“Your face came in contact with his face and you manipulated his penis for about two minutes before releasing him.”
Mundine, the brother of former National President of the Australian Labor Party, Warren Mundine, gave evidence that he was first sentenced to 18 months of periodic detention in 1989 and was stood down from teaching as a result.
He was jailed again in 2018 over more indecent assaults from the 1980s and said his conduct was a “serious breach of trust” and he was sorry for his offending.
Judge Colefax sentenced Mundine to a three-year community corrections order with 500 hours of community service.
KATHERINE ASIMINARIS
Female prison guard Katherine Asiminaris was supposed to be supervising a juvenile prisoner, but instead sent him love letters and had sex with him inside his cell and was jailed for engaging in a sexual relationship with the 15-year-old at the youth prison.
Asiminaris was 23 at the time of the offending in which she sent the boy love letters calling him her “Romeo” and signed the letters with “Juliet” at the Reiby Youth Justice Centre, near Airds, in the late 1990s.
Asiminaris, now 46, was jailed in October for three years for two counts of sexual intercourse with a person aged 15-years-old, in circumstances of aggravation, namely that she worked as a youth officer at the prison, and one count of sexual intercourse with a person aged 15-years-old, which occurred after the boy’s release from juvenile detention.
The offending only came to light in June 2016, about 20 years later, following the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse, when the former-inmate of Reiby and victim of these proceedings, were contacted.
Asiminaris was studying a masters of developmental psychology when she took a job at the centre in 1996.
After working at Reiby for a month, Asiminaris instigated the relationship with the detainee by writing letters to him, either slipping them under the door or handing them to him, the court heard.
She signed off the letters as “Juliet” and he as “Romeo”, and the pair “expressed love for each other” and a “desire to be together”, the court heard.
In December 1996, when the boy was released on day-release for the first time, Asiminaris gave him her telephone number and told him to call her. She often picked up the boy from his mother’s home and took him for drives, the court heard.
One day she met him at a train station and the pair had sex in the back seat of a car. This happened numerous times, the court heard.
On numerous occasions, when the boy was living in a self-contained cell at Reiby nicknamed the “granny flat”, the pair had sex.
In May 1997, when the boy, still 15, was released from Reiby to his mother’s home, he stayed at Asiminaris ’ brother’s house overnight and the pair had sex.
Around the time of his 16th birthday, in 1997, Asiminaris and the boy moved into a house together. He soon found out Asiminaris was pregnant and while they never discussed who the father was the relationship ended soon after.
The court heard the boy consented to all sexual activity with Asiminaris and she was arrested and charged in May 2017, pleading not guilty to the offences.
Judge Sarah Huggett conceded that as an “intelligent person”, she would have known that the relationship was “completely prohibited”.
In a first trial, a jury could not agree on a verdict, resulting in a hung jury. A retrial was ordered and a new jury found Asiminaris guilty of the offences on August 10, 2020
Asiminaris was convicted and will be eligible for parole on June 5, 2022.
LUKE CAVALLARO
Luke Cavallaro was spared jail after he tried to procure a 14-year-old boy for oral sex and wanted him to wear his “lad gear” during an X-rated encounter in a series of sexually charged messages in 2018.
The only problem was, the person on the other end of the conversation was an undercover police detective from the child abuse squad.
Cavallaro, from Pleasure Point, was told numerous times by what he thought was a high school student about the boy’s sexual inexperience and age but continued to offer to fellate the teenager.
In one instance, the District Court heard, Cavallaro had asked the boy if he wanted to get “rough” but when the undercover detective feigned confusion, Cavallaro then sent a pornographic video of what he meant.
The conversations had begun after the transport consultant posted an ad on a classifieds website Locanto in 2018 looking for sexual favours from “eshay lads”.
The pair’s explicit conversations on Skype and Facebook over a three-month period included Cavallaro saying he got turned on by the idea of oral sex with “a lad”.
He pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 at Campbelltown Local Court last year and was sentenced in July 2020.
Judge Phillip Ingram convicted and sentenced him to 12 months jail, to be served in the community under a three year good behaviour bond and orders to see a counsellor.
JOHN WAFER
John Wafer worked as a gardener when he sexually attacked a woman diagnosed with multiple sclerosis by putting his hand down her top after playing her some porn.
The 61-year-old arrived at the victim’s home two hours early to complete a gardening job on October 10, 2019 and called for the victim to come outside, when he reached forward and grabbed her chest.
After she returned inside, Wafer asked to use the toilet and unzipped his fly in front of her before playing her a pornographic video.
The married man of 28 years was told to go outside, which he did, but on a later occasion he put his hand down her top, triggering the victim to say “don’t you touch me again”.
Magistrate George Breton said the man initially denied his criminal behaviour telling police he had fallen onto the woman as he walked backwards and that she was drunk.
He ultimately pleaded guilty to the charge of sexual touching without consent.
The court heard Wafer, who was convicted of indecent assault in the late 1980s, lost his job immediately following the incident.
“(Wafer) understands he has done something that is incorrect to him, to the victim and to society and he wishes to have a second chance to improve himself and deal with his psychological issues,” his lawyer said.
Mr Breton ruled Wafer didn’t genuinely believe his actions were “terribly wrong” and sentenced him to a 30-month community corrections order with conviction.
MANASA QORO
Manasa Qoro was sentenced in 2019 to violently raping a grandmother in a public reserve and callously congratulating her on a “good job” following the ordeal.
On November 12, 2017, Fijian-born Manasa Qoro followed the then 59-year-old woman to a ‘poorly-lit’ reserve near Moore St, Liverpool and struck her on the back of the head.
Forcing her to the ground and with her hand covering her mouth, Qoro said “I will f**king kill you” as she lay with her face in the grass.
He told her he was going to ‘blow’ in her mouth before he spat on her vagina and raped her.
When finished, Qoro wiped his penis on the victim’s jeans, told her “good job” and made a fist-pump gesture to her.
He pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault without consent and two counts of sexual intercourse without consent in Campbelltown Local Court. Charges of indecent assault and a further count of sexual intercourse without consent were factored into Qoro’s sentence.
Qoro was sentenced to an aggregate sentence of 11 and a half years with seven and a half years non parole.
He will be eligible to apply for parole on May 14, 2025.
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