Christopher Coleborn fronts court for molesting young boy twice

He was the kindly church minister by day who turned into a vile sex offender at night, abusing his young victim and then claiming “even adults make mistakes”.

Former Cohuna Evangelical Presbyterian Church minister Christopher Francis Coleborn, 75, has been jailed for a minimum of 23 months.

A pedophile former church minister who admitted to a young parishioner victim that he “had a real problem” after he abused him for the second time has been jailed.

Christopher Coleborn, 76, who had earlier pleaded guilty to sexual penetration of a child under 16 and indecent assault was on Friday jailed for three years and eight months in the County Court.

The first offence occurred at the former Cohuna Evangelical Presbyterian Church minister’s

Burkes Bridge home on the Victorian/NSW border, when he crept into a bedroom where the boy, then 13, was sleeping, in the late 90s and early 2000s.

The little boy “pretended to be asleep” during the first assault, and the next day was playing with Lego when the minister told him, “Even adults make mistakes, and if I have done something to hurt you, I am sorry”.

Christopher Coleborn is a former church minister.

But on the second occasion, the boy, then 18, punched Coleborn in the face, then hunted him down and found him walking outside in the dead of night.

“Once can be a mistake, but twice is an addiction,” the boy told the minister, then aged 58, who replied that he “had a real problem” and started seeing a psychologist after the first offence.

“It has long been established that sexual offending against children is serious because it entails a gross breach of trust,” Judge Simon Moglia said during sentencing.

“The fact there is physical and psychological harm that follows from such offending to young victims is often appalling, severe and long lasting.

“Children must be protected from the harm that results from premature sexual activity and adults must be deterred from even thinking about sexual activity with a child.”

Coleborn confessed to his church in September 2020 after his victim came forward and also resigned as a member the same month, stating his crimes were not due to him “being a minor”, rather that, “I have had struggles with sexual matters since my earliest memories”.

Coleborn was arrested on August 18, 2022 in Tasmania where he was living and extradited to Victoria where a magistrate granted him bail.

Christopher Coleborn was sentenced in the County Court for three years and eight months. Picture: Liam Beatty/ NewsWire.

He was committed for trial but pleaded guilty in September this year.

At a previous court appearance, Judge Moglia said it was “perhaps unsurprising” that a church minister committed his crime as he was “doctrinally prohibited from exploring his sexuality in a safe way”.

Coleborn suffers from chronic fatigue, ongoing bronchitis, asthma and an enlarged prostate.

Judge Moglia said Coleborn’s culpability was high because he was about 40 years older than the victim who, at the time of the first incident, was just 13.

“The offending, I find, was more than a mere slip. It represented purposive conduct on your part.

“It would not be accurate to call your offending protracted but offending against the same person, even after five years, makes the second incident more serious,” the judge said.

A psychologist did not consider Coleborn to have a pedophilic disorder, or have an anti-social orientation.

Coleborn will be eligible for parole after serving 23 months.