Former Catholic teacher spared jail time over sexual assault of boy, 12

Former Catholic schoolteacher William John Obbens was spared being sent to prison after being sentenced for the historical sexual assault of a 12-year-old boy.

A former Catholic schoolteacher and dorm master has escaped jail time for a vile sexual assault on a boy, after a judge found he had already done his best to “rehabilitate” himself.

William John Obbens was sentenced on two counts of sexual assault of a person under 16 this week, after an attack on a 12-year-old boy in 1989 at St Patrick’s College Goulburn that left the student shaking in fear.

The victim came forward more than three decades later in 2020, just four years after Obbens, now 76, was jailed for three years for the abuse of another three homesick boys at the school between 1987 and 1989.

But Judge Mark Williams spared him jail for the assault of the fourth boy on Wednesday, instead sentencing him to an 18-month community corrections order, after he found Obbens demonstrated he could live a “law-abiding life”.

“I accept the evidence of good character in all other aspects of his life, but for these offences and those for which he was convicted, are powerful … and substantiates his low risk of reoffending and achievement of rehabilitation,” he said.

Former Christian brother William John Obbens was sentenced on two counts of sexual assault of a person under 16. Picture: Niki Iliagoueva

“He’s been prosecuted for crimes 33 years ago and has demonstrated his ability to comply with the law since that time.”

Some of that evidence of “good character” came from former NSW police commissioner Ken Moroney, who provided a reference to the court in support of Obbens.

Mr Moroney said he met Obbens in 2018, when he was appointed as the safeguarding officer of the Christian Brothers, which required him to work with members whose inappropriate conduct or behaviour had been subject to legal or congregational sanction.

In his reference to the court, Mr Moroney said he was “confident (Obbens) will continue to provide useful service as a Christian Brother”.

Despite assaulting several boys during his time as a teacher with the Christian Brothers, Obbens is still part of the congregation and, following his dismissal from teaching, was put in charge of the Order’s archives.

He is also a companion for an elderly Christian Brother and lives with him at Putney, providing him support and assistance with various medical conditions, the court heard.

A solicitor for the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions argued that a CCO would be in “complete disparity” with Obbens’s 2016 sentence, saying the crimes were “more serious” and “extremely predatory”.

“He used his position and good character to enable him to commit these offences,” the solicitor said.

“He doesn’t come before court with the benefit of good character … Had he been sentenced in 2016 … these offences have to be considered more serious than those he was sentenced for.”

The court heard the first incident related to the touching of the boy’s penis, which he was too scared to report for fear of getting in trouble or that it would happen again.

The second incident occurred when Obbens snuck into his room during the night and asked him to come to his room for a chat.

Not wanting to get in trouble, the boy complied and sat on Obbens’s bed. Obbens then put his hand down the front of the boy’s pyjamas and felt his penis and testicles.

The victim said he was fine and moved Obbens’s hand away, leaving the room to then sit in the dorm bathroom all night, as he felt it was the only place where he would be safe.

His lawyer Peter Skinner noted, however, that he had taken serious steps to rehabilitate, including a course in 1994 at the St Luke’s Institute in the US, where he underwent psychological therapy over a period of 10 months.

The court he had also completed “extensive sexual offender treatment” and was remorseful for his “compulsive and harmful offending”.

In sentencing Obbens, Judge Williams said it was his view “that if sentenced in 2016 there would be no greater sentence imposed than that imposed at the time”.

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