Daryl Dixon pleads guilty to more than 40 sexual abuse charges

A man abused three young children on 32 different occasions over 14 years in a horrific case detailed to the Ballarat County Court.

A court has heard of the ongoing emotional trauma and physical impacts experienced by victim-survivors subjected to horrific sexual abuse as young children.

Daryl Dixon, 55, faced the Ballarat County Court via video link from Ravenhall Prison on Tuesday, where he pleaded guilty to dozens of offences on a lengthy charge sheet.

The court heard Dixon was aged between 16 and 30 when he abused three young children aged between four and 17 from the early 1980s.

The prosecutor told the court the 40 charges, which included some rolled up charges, related to 32 different occasions of sexual offending at 10 different locations over a 14-year period.

The charges include 17 of indecent assault, five of indecent acts with children under 16, 13 of sexual penetration of a child under 16, two of sexual penetration of a child between 10 and 16 and three of sexual penetration of a child aged under 10.

The court heard the offending ranged from forcible kissing and sexual touching to penetration.

Some of the early offending was committed under the guise of “games”.

On one occasion he took the boy to a park, pulled him into the bushes and forced him to perform a lewd act.

In another incident he invited a complainant to play a game of hide and seek, before he laid her down on a bed and assaulted her.

The court heard of another incident during which he straddled the complainant, rubbed himself against her and forced her to perform a lewd act.

Another time Dixon pulled his and the complainant’s underwear down before directing her to perform horrific acts. The complainant was aged under 10 at the time.

On another occasion he told the complainant how sad he was feeling and that her touching him would make him “feel better”.

Other incidents involved Dixon abusing a female after leading her to isolated areas.

On Tuesday the court heard emotional impact statements from two of the victim-survivors.

One of the women said she believed life was about choices and so was paedophilia.

“I was a trusting, innocent child. His choices had nothing to do with him being born sick — he chose to act on his thoughts and fantasies.

“In doing so a paedophile chooses to cause harm and give victims a life sentence — for me it’s a never ending cycle of shame, guilt, confusion and grief.”

Noting she didn’t have “the words to describe” the abuse, she said she could now tell herself she was a child at the time and the shame was not hers.

She detailed the lingering and profound impacts of the abuse, which lasted for her “whole childhood”.

“I will never understand how an adult who knows it will cause absolute undoable hurt, pain and harm can choose to abuse a child.”

She said the accused must have known his actions were harmful as he tried to hide it when he acted on his “sick desires” rather than seeking help.

Another complainant described the long-lasting physical and psychological impacts of the offending and associated trauma on her life and how it had “devastated” her and the life she thought she would lead as a child.

The complainants disclosed the child sexual abuse to police in mid-2020 and the court heard Dixon made “extensive admissions” about the offending to police.

Judge Daniel Holding was not convinced of the defence’s submission that he should rely upon Dixon’s diagnosis of a paedophilic disorder or a psychologist’s report that a brain injury just prior to the offending had contributed to it.

He ordered a psychiatrist review the report and make their own findings.

Dixon will remain in custody and will return to court in September.