Former Liberal party staffer spared prison for historic child abuse
A former staffer in the NSW government will not go to prison after pleading guilty to historic child abuse when he was a teenager, a judge has ruled.
Police & Courts
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A former staffer of the NSW Liberal government will not spend time behind bars after a judge sentenced him for child abuse that took place while he was a teenager.
The man, who cannot be identified, pleaded guilty to six charges including aggravated indecency with a victim under 16 and aggravated indecent assault with a victim under authority in the NSW District Court.
The offender, aged in his 40s, was charged in 2020 after a young man came forward alleging he and a girl had been abused by their babysitter in the mid-1990s in Sydney.
The abuser was aged 14 to 16 at the time of the abuse and his victims were aged eight to 11-years-old.
“He was in the position of a babysitter, he was trusted by both parents in that role,” Judge John Pickering SC said on Tuesday.
“He was significantly more mature, physically and mentally, in relation to two children.”
The court heard confronting details about the “games” the then-teenager played with the children including “tickling” and touching each others’ genitalia or laying atop each of her naked.
The survivors of his abuse had read victim impact statements to their abuser last month outlining the catastrophic damage he had done to their own relationships, careers and sexuality.
“One of the first persons they began to trust in life, such as you (offender), a babysitter, a neighbour… that breach of trust, that early manipulation of them — it has a lasting impact they outlined to you,” the Judge said.
“I’m hoping they had a real impact on you, they certainly had an impact on me.”
The court heard the survivors may never fully recover and neither will their abuser — whose career was “destroyed” by the media storm that followed the charges.
The offender was underage at the time of the abuse making it illegal to name or identify him in any way.
The Judge puzzled over one blog’s choice to allegedly break that rule and identify the offender and the numerous reports that linked him to the former Premier Gladys Berejiklian’s government.
He found the coverage amounted to additional punishment.
The former staffer shows no risk of reoffending and has lived a productive life, despite the damage he caused, the judge found.
As he committed the offences as a child he was to be sentenced as the minor he was at the time.
The judge sentenced him to a two year community corrections order meaning he must be of good behaviour but will not be locked up.
He will be supervised, the court ordered, but that supervision is likely to be suspended almost immediately.
He will not be registered as a child sex offender.
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