Court hears bid to revoke Robert Van Gestel’s bail before paedophile ‘concocts’ reasons to avoid jail
The prosecution has finally gotten tough over the state’s strict new bail laws after being criticised by the Attorney-General for going soft and believing what they were told by a convicted paedophile.
Police & Courts
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A judge has been urged to revoke the bail of child sex abuser Robert Van Gestel before he has the opportunity to “concoct” reasons why he should not go to jail after he turned up at court with an alleged heart condition.
The prosecution finally got tough over the state’s strict new bail laws after being criticised by the Attorney-General last week for going soft on another convicted paedophile, Neil Duncan, instead of challenging his claims of needing treatment for prostate cancer and possible bowel cancer.
Attorney-General Mark Speakman chided the prosecution for not pointing out that pony club predator Duncan, like other inmates, could get the medical treatment he needed behind bars through Justice Health. However his bail was continued until he can be sentenced next month.
Father-of-four Van Gestel, 78, is the third and final case of convicted paedophiles being granted bail pending sentences that led the government to rush through new laws to allow bail only in exceptional circumstances.
Crown prosecutor Rossi Kotsis turned up at the Supreme Court on Thursday to make a detention application for Van Gestel armed with evidence about the Justice Health network and questioned why he had only recently made an appointment with a cardiologist after his conviction for eight courts of child sex abuse.
Van Gestel’s lawyers said he should not be jailed pending his sentencing date in October because he was the sole carer for his wife Margaret, who also claimed to have medical issues. He also had his affairs to get in order.
Mr Kotsis forced Ms Van Gestel to go into the witness box to be cross-examined.
The prosecutor said it was inevitable that Van Gestel would be jailed and asked his wife what arrangements she had made so far knowing this would happen.
She said she had made no arrangements and she would die without him.
“I don’t know what I will do. I can’t manage without him,” she said.
Mr Kotsis said the defence had produced no medical reports about Van Gestel’s heart condition and there was no evidence of him seeking medical treatment before his trial.
He said that knowing he would be spending much of the “rest of his natural life” in jail would motivate Van Gestel to either flee or concoct circumstances to remain on remand.
He said Van Gestel’s case came firmly under the new bail laws and that it was up to his defence to show “special or exceptional” circumstances as to why his bail should be continued. He was convicted on June 9 of eight charges dating back to the 1970s, including five counts of committing acts of indecency on three girls aged as young as four.
Van Gestel’s counsel Scott Shaudin said that Van Gestel did have an appointment with a heart specialist.
He said special circumstance under the law included if imprisonment would cause hardship to other people which it would in this case for his wife of 50 years who had said “she would die without him”.
As two Corrective Services officers waited in the back of the court incase Van Gestel had his bail revoked, Justice Peter Garling adjourned the case to Thursday and continued bail.
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