Rodney Sippel, 64, jailed 30 years after abuse of girl, 8

A former Mid-North Coast man now living in western NSW has been jailed more than 30 years after he committed two acts of indecency against an underage girl.

A man has been jailed for two acts of historical child sex abuse which has left the woman, now 38, with a lifelong fear of affection from men.

Rodney Charles Sippel, 64, of Narromine, was sentenced in Kempsey Local Court on Monday more than 30 years after he committed an act of indecent assault on the girl, at a home on the Mid-North Coast.

The 64-year-old will be eligible for release on parole in February 2022. Pic Facebook

The court heard that Sippel, then 34, was in a relationship with the girl’s mother when he indecently assaulted the girl by touching her genitalia.

Two years later, when the girl was 10, he again put his hand inside her underwear while she slept, and touched her in circumstances of aggravation.

The court heard that when the girl woke, she was told by Sippel that she was having a dream.

“The victim believed that what the offender was doing was not right, but did not understand,” agreed facts state.

“From then on she slept with the light on.”

The victim lived with the “torturous” consequences of his offending for a period of time, before reporting it to her mother after spotting a government child sex abuse advertisement on a road side billboard.

When the question was put to Sippel by the mother, he denied the allegations, and the girl was forced to apologise to him.

A victim impact statement read out by the woman, who cannot be identified, detailed the horror of her night terrors through her adolescent and adult life which she can now only control with medication.

She also said she fears physical affection, such as hugging, from men.

A talented sportswoman who had the world at her feet, she said her childhood was ripped from her after she was shamed for making false accusations about what Sippel had done.

“The injury and emotional harm and damage caused to the victim is very significant,” Magistrate David O’Neill said.

“Ms [redacted] victim impact statement is moving and clearly sets out many of the impacts upon her, they are, what I would anticipate, to be the type of impacts [from such offending].

Kempsey Local Court House

“[She was put] in a horrendous position having to apologise to him for accusing him.

“But she was not a mere accuser, she was a victim telling the truth.

“Various people told her to get on with life, or that she wasn’t telling the truth or that it did not happen.”

The matter was not formally reported to police until 1997, when the then teenager mentioned it to a Mid-North Coast schoolteacher, who passed the information on to police.

No formal statement was made, until a year later when the victim told her then boyfriend.

Police attended and spoke with her, however, she was not in a position to continue with the investigation and it was suspended for about 19 years until the victim found Sippel on Facebook.

Private messages were exchanged about the offences, and the matter reported to Western Australian police, where the woman was living, before being transferred to NSW authorities to investigate.

Private messages where shared on Facebook between the offender and victim.

“The impact of what had happened had stayed with the victim,” Mr O’Neill said.

“Understandably this has been a very difficult matter … the tortuous effect it must have had on her over all those years.

“There’s nothing in the community so important as to our responsibility to children.

“Children should never be abused. People put in positions where there is a level of trust so that they can be with children should never abuse that trust by abusing children. They [children] are ill equipped to look after themselves.”

“[Victim] knew something was wrong, but it took her some years to comprehend what was wrong.

“It took information from other sources to educate her child’s mind as to the consequences of the wrongdoing.

“When she took up the courage, the offender lied, and she has had to take up the issue time and time again.

“In my view the offending crosses the threshold and no option other than full time imprisonment.”

Sippel will be eligible for parole in February 2022.