Druggie who raped 92yo Sydney woman jailed; court hears his dad is a paedophile

A man who raped an elderly woman in a violent attack has been jailed for at least nine years after a Sydney court heard he reminds his own family of his paedophile father.

Police arrest Craig Anthony Wheatman after he raped a 92-year-old woman.

Craig Anthony Wheatman shocked Sydney when he broke into a 92-year-old woman’s home and raped her at scissorpoint. Now the twisted predator has been sentenced over the “violent, degrading and frightening” attack.

It’s also been revealed Wheatman is the son of one of South Australia’s worst paedophiles — and even Wheatman’s own family thought he was like his father.

The NSW District Court sentenced the 29-year-old Wheatman on Thursday to 14 years in prison.

He remained impassive as the court heard his twisted path through life — including his prison sentence — mirrored that of his father, Anthony James Wheatman, who’s crimes shocked Adelaide in the early 2000s.

Police arrest Craig Anthony Wheatman at Homebush in relation to the horrific attack.

Anthony Wheatman, now 54, was locked up for 16 years for sexual attacks on multiple children in 2000, court documents show.

He spent his sentence scribbling detailed fantasies about abusing young boys in his Port Lincoln prison cell until one of his profane stories was found in a killer’s cell.

The killer told the court he had no interest in Wheatman’s awful fantasies, he just kept them in a sealed envelope to “protect himself” against the paedophile, a South Australian court later heard.

As Anthony Wheatman’s crimes were splashed through the newspapers, his son Craig was growing into a troubled young man in frequent contact with drugs, violence and South Australia Police.

NSW District Court Judge Donna Woodburne SC on Thursday said the younger Wheatman had a troubled relationship with his alcoholic mother, and siblings who said he “reminded them of their father”.

Wheatman has been jailed until 2030.

Wheatman left South Australia in 2020 and went to Sydney in an attempt to “break the cycle” of drugs and hardship, the court heard.

He struggled to find work and wound up squatting in homes in Sydney’s west, falling deeper into drugs and delusion.

Within weeks Wheatman was shooting up meth and having hallucinations — he had eight phones, 15 email accounts, took notes of cars he thought was following him, and thought the television was making threats.

“At the time of the offending he was living an isolated and chaotic existence,” Judge Woodburne said.

Wheatman crawled from an abandoned home late at night on January 22 and wandered into the nearby suburb of Concord armed with a pair of shears.

He cut through a window screen and attacked the elderly woman, telling her “cut” while pointing the shears at his victim.

The “deplorable” details of his attack, aired in court, are too confronting to repeat.

“(The attack was) extremely serious offending, committed on an elderly woman at night in her own home in a place where she was entitled to be safe from the horrific and degrading attack perpetrated on her by (Wheatman),” the judge said.

When he was finished, Wheatman forced the woman into her shower before running piping hot water over her and pouring Dettol, oil and vinegar over her head in an attempt to cover up the crime.

“Money, money” Wheatman grunted at his victim before making off with her bracelet, $400 and items of her clothing, all of which he discarded in a drain nearby.

The injured woman’s phone lines had been slashed, but Wheatman did not elude police for long and was arrested.

“I had this gut feeling I was running from something more than stealing from someone. I’m not a thief but this was something worse. I was scared,” he told police after his arrest.

“The fact she’d been basically shoved in the shower, what was I trying to wash away?”

Wheatman pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault, and break and enter committing a serious, indictable offence with aggravation.

Judge Woodburne said Wheatman was entitled to “special circumstances” and a lengthy “but not crushing” sentence.

She found he has “bleak” prospects of rehabilitation.

Wheatman will be 38 when he is first eligible for parole in 2030.