The NSW men convicted of degrading sexual assaults against women
Parliament House sex assault claims have been a catalyst for conversation, but the problem is much wider. Here are some of NSW’s worst offenders.
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It only takes one look at any online news site, or to open a paper, to see just how prevalent sexual assault is within society.
Recent figures from the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research showed sexual assaults were the only major offence category to increase in the calendar year to December 2020, up 10.1 per cent on the year prior.
During that period, 6989 sexual assaults were reported to NSW Police.
Half of those were in Greater Sydney.
Just over 8000 indecent assaults and other sexual offences were reported – slightly lower than in 2019.
According to Rape and Domestic Violence Services Australia, 17 per cent of women nationwide experience sexual violence.
For women with a disability, that number is higher at 25 per cent.
Sixteen per cent of women experience sexual violence by a man they know.
Recent allegations of sexual assault in Parliament House have been a catalyst for conversation around the country.
Earlier this month tens of thousands of women took to the streets, protesting sexual abuse and harassment.
But while recent conversation has been focused on Canberra, sexual assault is a much wider problem.
Here are some of the state’s worst offenders, convicted for their assaults on women.
BENJAMIN STEED
Dural masseuse Benjamin Steed used a client for his own sexual gratification, but had intended to go even further when he touched the woman’s genitalia in November last year.
The client had booked a remedial massage to treat her sore back, neck and shoulders at Simply Health and Wellness, but became uncomfortable when, during the massage, Steed told her: “I’m thinking of something dirty which I should not say.”
According to court documents, 33-year-old Steed “continued to graze over the front of the victim’s underwear while he massaged her thigh, then he started to breathe heavily’’ and told her “I’m being unprofessional’’.
As the victim froze in fear, Steed slid his hands under her underwear and to her pubic area four times before telling her “I’m gonna make it up to you’’ as he stroked her genitalia under her underwear.
Steed apologised to his victim but, in a later interview with police, admitted he got “gratification from sexually touching the victim and furthermore he stated he had intended on digitally penetrating the victim ‘until she orgasmed’ however the victim ‘closed her legs’”.
In court, Steed’s lawyer Fahim Khan said he was anxious and depressed at the time of the assault.
“Mr Steed didn’t pre-plan to do it, it was spontaneous,” Mr Khan said.
“Already Mr Steed realises the impact of his conduct and plans to seek treatment.”
But Magistrate David Price told Steed he wasn’t suffering nearly as much as the victim.
“This conduct evidently would cause significant physical, mental and emotional stress and harm to the victim,” Mr Price said.
Steed pleaded guilty to sexually touching a person without consent.
He was convicted and sentenced to a 15-month jail term to be served in the community as an intensive correction order.
ADAM HALL
Hunter Valley man Adam Robert Hall hogtied, tortured and repeatedly raped a woman he met on a dating site, where he used his profile to describe himself as “alpha male, dominant, polyamorous”.
The 50-year-old from Woodberry, near Maitland, had been seeing the woman he met on Plenty of Fish for about 14 months when an argument erupted while they were house-sitting at MacMasters Beach on the Central Coast on February 10, 2019.
According to court documents, Hall took the woman upstairs where he collected a knife from the kitchen, before pushing her down the stairs.
As she got up he punched her in the face and dragged her into the study where he used the knife to cut an 8cm long wound to her upper right thigh.
Over the next 12-and-a-half hours, Hall subjected the woman to what District Court Judge Tanya Bright described as “humiliating and degrading sexual acts”.
The court heard Hall continued the abuse while he watched pornography and on at least two occasions filmed the woman on his mobile phone.
At one point during the ordeal Hall dragged the woman into the garage where he collected tools and told her if she did not comply with his specific demands, he would pull out her teeth with pliers or break her toes with a hammer.
Eventually, after Hall fell asleep, the victim was able to flee wearing only a jumper and raise the alarm.
Hall pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual intercourse without consent and aggravated sexual intercourse while threatening with a weapon, as well as a further seven counts of aggravated sexual intercourse causing actual bodily harm and maliciously damaging property, after the homeowner had to have the house “forensically cleaned” of all the blood stains.
Judge Bright sentenced Hall to 22 years behind bars with a non-parole period of 16 years and six months.
VAUGHAN HILDEBRAND
A Campbelltown former NSW Police officer sexually abused and menaced 15 women including vulnerable teens, fellow police officers, friends and girlfriends for more than a decade.
Vaughan Mark Hildebrand, now 33, has been in jail since 2017 but his victims’ stories have only just been told as their perpetrator awaits re-sentencing due to an error in the judge’s initial decision.
Four victims — including two who were only 16 — were sexually assaulted, and five female police officers, including one who was his sexual partner, were menaced during his reign of terror.
One woman was subjected to 10 years of torment after a brief relationship with Hildebrand, which resulted in her being forced into public and private sex acts to prevent him distributing her naked images.
Hildebrand was a serving NSW Police officer during the latter years of his offending.
In September 2019 he was sentenced to at least 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to 44 charges, including 11 counts of sexual intercourse without consent relating to the rape of four women.
Hildebrand also admitted to 10 counts of using a carriage service to menace or harass and one count of soliciting child abuse material.
During sentencing, Judge Robyn Tupman told Hildebrand he had “failed as a human”.
“He abused his position as a police officer, he abused the trust of his friends, he abused the trust of his partner,” Ms Tupman said.
However, the District Court will have to re-sentence Hildebrand after the Court of Criminal Appeal found Judge Tupman had made an error in coupling state and Commonwealth offences.
WARREN MCCORRISTON
Former Belmont man Warren McCorriston was last year arrested on the Gold Coast and charged with 28 offences relating to the historic indecent assault and rapes of three Hunter women as far back as four decades ago.
According to court documents, McCorriston, now 59, stalked his first victim in 1980, tracking down where she lived and twice grabbing her from behind.
The following year he met a woman at Newcastle Beach and they began dating.
McCorriston repeatedly raped the woman and, on one occasion, bit her.
He followed the woman after she moved to Queensland but was arrested and jailed for stealing a car.
A third woman, who he began dating upon his release, was repeatedly raped and once threatened with a knife.
McCorriston returned to Queensland and worked various hospitality roles at a number of premier hotels and resorts before his arrest.
In December, McCorriston pleaded guilty to inflicting actual bodily harm with intent to have sexual intercourse with a victim; sexual assault inflicting actual bodily harm; sexual assault knowing no consent given; maliciously inflicting actual bodily harm and common assault.
A further five charges will be taken into account upon sentencing in May.
Other charges against McCorriston were dismissed.
ARON GOODREM
A sadistic monster detained, bashed, raped and tortured six women in Sydney and on the Central Coast over a decade.
Penrith landscaper and wannabe outlaw bikie Aron Goodrem shifted his abusive behaviour from woman to woman from age 19.
A court heard Goodrem, now 28, controlled all aspects of his victims’ lives, including bank accounts, mobile phones and when they could shower.
On one occasion, he tied his pregnant partner to the stairs and repeatedly stubbed a cigarette on her chest.
On another occasion he held a machete to her throat and threatened to kill her.
On a third occasion the victim was forced to apologise for police arresting Goodrem, by stripping down and performing a sex act on him.
The court heard Goodrem raped three more of his partners, abused another, and kept a final victim detained at a Blue Mountains home.
Goodrem pleaded guilty to 16 charges including sexual intercourse without consent; assault occasioning actual bodily harm; common assault and intimidation.
He was sentenced to 20 years in jail, with 13 years non-parole.
During sentencing in October last year, Judge John Pickering called out dating app Tinder, where Goodrem met at least two of his victims.
“It seems extraordinary to me that someone like Mr Goodrem was able to meet through Tinder, and they make money from it,” Mr Pickering said.
“Those who meet people on Tinder have to be careful about who they are meeting because Tinder will show no responsibility.”
GRAHAM SALES
A sexual sadist from Bateau Bay raped and tortured women for 20 years.
A court heard while many of the offences happened in the 1980s and 90s, his victims had initially been too afraid to come forward and lived in fear for much of their adult lives.
It wasn’t until Sales, now 57, was locked up in 2014 for an unrelated matter that the women reported their assaults to police.
The court heard Sales hit one pregnant partner in the stomach, causing her to give birth five weeks early, because he’d wanted the child born on his birthday.
Sales forced another woman’s daughter to stab her in the head with a fork, then sexually assaulted the daughter.
He made another woman stand on thumb tacks and sleep in the laundry.
“I’m your king,” Sales told the woman after raping her.
“You are my slave, you’re never going anywhere. You’ll never escape me.”
Sales pleaded guilty in 2018 to six counts of sexual and aggravated sexual assault, kidnapping, common assault and two counts of threatening the officer in charge.
He had already been found guilty of 21 offences, many depraved and sadistic in nature, including raping women with household objects, forcing them to eat their dinner off the floor and hogtying them facedown in the bath.
Sales was sentenced to a further four years’ jail, on top of his existing 36 year sentence with a non-parole period of 27 years.
RUHI DAGDANASAR
A Glenwood man raped a teenager for more than 12 hours after she was lured to what she thought was her Uber, while waiting outside a train station.
The Year 12 student had been on her way home from a school formal afterparty on November 9, 2016.
Ruhi Dagdanasar, 50, was among three men – one cannot be named for legal reasons and the other is on the run – who drugged the girl with GBH and ice as they raped her three times at a Glenwood home.
At one point when forcing her to take the drugs one of the men said, “this stuff makes you so horny, we are all so horny”.
As the drugs wore off the court heard the girl messaged a friend: “OMFG – I got raped last night. So scared. Dude how am I going to get out of here?”
She was able to escape about 6pm – almost 15 hours after she’d been taken.
In court the men’s defence team used video taken of the horrific assault to argue it was consensual, but a jury disagreed.
Having been found guilty, Dagdanasar was sentenced to 24 years behind bars, with a non-parole period of 16 years.
His 40-year-old co-accused was sentenced to at least 18 years’ jail.
Mustafa Yucebasoglu fled to Turkey and has not faced prosecution.
The two convicted rapists this month appealed their sentences, claiming they were “manifestly excessive”.
“My client’s sentence is the most severe sentence of anyone who’s been prosecuted for offences of this type,” defence barrister Philip Boulten SC said.
Judge Helen Wilson reserved judgment on the matter.
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