Melbourne sex creeps of the east: Davoud Kaivan, Sean Kerry Tuting, Kenneth Palliser
A man printed out and secretly stashed hundreds of child porn images into Christmas presents at several shopping centres, where they were found by kids as young as 10. And he’s not the only creep in Melbourne’s outer east you need to know about.
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There are plenty of creeps around Melbourne’s outer east. They range from a peeping tom who spied on his tenants, a father who lived under a bridge but groomed a teen online, a creep who flashed a fast food worker in the drive-thru, and the man who stashed photos of naked children in potential Christmas presents.
Landlord turns peeping Tom
An Iranian migrant escaped jail despite being convicted of installing hidden surveillance cameras to spy on tenants living in his Boronia house.
Davoud Kaivan pleaded guilty in 2012 to installing surveillance devices in his home to spy on the tenants in their bedrooms, while watching what they got up to on a television in his bedroom.
Kaivan, a painter and decorator, bought a unit in Dorset Rd in late 2008 and set up the cameras in the two spare bedrooms when he redecorated the property.
Two hidden cameras were discovered by a tenant in September 2011, which prompted the boarder to contact police.
From late 2008 until September 2011, eight tenants — including men, women and couples — rented out the two rooms from Kaivan.
The court was told a police investigation of the house found the hidden cameras were connected to wires that snaked through the roof.
The wires led to Kaivan’s bedroom, where they were connected to a television.
Ringwood Magistrate Nunzio La Rosa said there was no evidence Kaivan had been driven by sexual or voyeuristic motives, and fined him $3000. The magistrate also ordered the CCTV equipment be forfeited and destroyed.
Fast food flasher
A creep flashed a Ferntree Gully McDonald’s staff member when she was serving him at the Burwood Highway drive-thru.
The poor woman got a fright when she realised the man was exposing himself on June 12 in 2018.
The employee reported the incident immediately to her manager, who then took the order out to the man’s car, when the man exposed himself again.
A 45-year-old Narre Warren was arrested and charged with exposure offences on June 18 in 2018.
Disgusting dad
A father of four, who had been living under a bridge, was jailed for grooming a 13-year-old for sex.
Sean Kerry Tuting, 38, was carrying a bag with condoms, a sleeping bag and toothbrush when he was arrested on his way to meet the girl in the grounds of a primary school on December 13, 2015.
Tuting, who was living under a bridge in the CBD at the time, was caught by police after the victim’s mother found the messages on her daughter’s phone two days earlier and alerted Knox police.
When Tuting was interviewed by the Knox sexual offences and child abuse investigation team, he admitted to police: “I was coming here to have sexual relations with an underage girl”.
He confessed to having sent “hundreds” of explicit messages to the girl in the previous four days, including photos of his genitalia.
Tuting found the girl’s profile through a social network website for teenagers called ‘MyLOL’ and repeatedly asked her to sneak out of the house to meet him.
Tuting pleaded guilty to one charge of grooming for sexual conduct a child under the age of 16 years and was sentenced in the County Court on May 8 to three years in prison, with a minimum 15 months’ non-parole.
Historical paedophile
An elderly paedophile who molested four boys more than 40 years ago was jailed for almost eight years.
The 77-year-old from Melbourne’s east was sentenced at the County Court by Judge Paul Higham to seven years and nine months, with a minimum of four years and nine months, after pleading guilty to four charges of indecent assault on a male on February 16, 2018.
Harry Finlay, not the man’s real name, assaulted the young boys, aged between 11 and 14, during a nine-year period, from 1972 to 1980, at his butcher’s shop and holiday house.
Mr Finlay, who was in his 30s at the time, employed three of the victims as wash up boys at the shop, while the fourth was a friend’s child.
Court documents reveal Mr Finlay gained the boys trust before the assaults, and even plied some with alcohol.
Mr Finlay performed sex acts on some of the boys and asked them to do the same to him.
An impact statement from one of the victims said: “I feel I lost my innocence along with my teenage years”.
“It also affected my understanding of sexual behaviour.”
The documents said Mr Finlay was also sexually abused as a young boy.
But Judge Higham said Mr Finlay was driven by desire for his own sexual satisfaction and when seduction techniques did not work he was prepared to be “persistent, insistent and quite forceful”.
Loo lurker
A Wantirna fast food restaurant customer discovered a creep had hidden a secret camera in the venue’s toilet and reported it to police.
The man allegedly placed the camera on the ground of the toilets to film people on September 15, 2017.
Police put a call out to speak to a man described as caucasian, aged in his mid-20s, unshaven, with nose and lip piercings.
Bearded bike rider
A BMX-riding creep with a red beard rode slowly past his victims while exposing himself.
The red-bearded serial sex pest was believed to be responsible for at least four instances in Melbourne’s east in 2015.
All victims said the man, who wore dark-coloured hoodies with the hood pulled over his head, rode past them slowly on a BMX bike and exposed himself along the Dandenong Creek Trail and in Croydon.
Detective John Wheatley said the offender was described as caucasian, mid-20s or early 30s with a slim build and a red beard.
“I’m sure there are other incidents that we have not been made aware of,” he said.
“The Dandenong Creek Trail seems to be his location of choice, so we are appealing to anyone who may have been a victim of this fellow to contact police.”
Senior sicko
A flasher allegedly exposed himself to an elderly woman by knocking on her retirement village unit window to gain her attention.
Knox Sexual Offences and Child Abuse unit investigated the incident at a home in Wantirna South at 7.30pm on May 16, 2012.
Detective Senior Constable Alison Oldfield said the man was in the woman’s back garden when he knocked on her windows to get her attention.
Sen-Constable Oldfield said the man then allegedly exposed himself, looking at the woman for a couple of minutes before leaving.
Christmas present sicko stasher
A Mitcham man who hid 450 child pornography pictures among Christmas gifts at eastern suburban shopping centres walked from court with a suspended sentence.
A magistrate heard Kenneth Palliser had been suffering stress over his job and a cancer scare when he planted pictures of naked boys and girls in soft toys, clothing, cards and gift boxes at Forest Hill Chase, Doncaster, Eastland and Knox shopping centres in 2006.
Palliser, 54, was convicted of all charges, including one count each of theft and making child pornography, 15 counts of knowingly possessing child pornography, and 13 counts of contaminating goods in July 2007.
Magistrate Sarah Dawes sentenced Palliser to one year imprisonment wholly suspended for two years for the contamination of goods, and making and knowingly possessing pornography.
On a charge of theft of girls’ bathers from K mart at Forest Hill Chase he was convicted and put on two years’ good behaviour, conditional on continued treatment with a psychologist.
The court had heard Palliser downloaded the pictures from the internet and added the words, “Merry Christmas”.
He cut the images into different sizes and secretly stashed them at retail outlets.
Palliser told police he intended the pictures to be found by adult men.
Ms Dawes told Palliser she had taken into account favourable character evidence given by his neighbours, and a doctor’s report which declared Palliser did not fit the profile of a paedophile.
The pictures were found by staff and customers, some as young as 10, at stores including Myer, K mart, Big W, Payless Shoes and Dymocks Books.
Predator paedophile
A Ferntree Gully predator has been jailed for at least three years for historic sex offences against vulnerable young boys.
In 2013, Kenneth Charles Marshall was jailed for five years and 10 months with a minimum non-parole period of three years and three months after a jury found him guilty of numerous charges of sexual penetration and indecent acts with a child under 16.
The court heard one of Marshall’s victims saw him as a pseudo guardian because of the boy’s troubled home life while the other, who met Marshall at a pool hall, was intellectually disabled.
Marshall, 62, has continued to deny offending against the first boy and Judge Allen said he showed little insight into the impact of his offending.
In an emotional victim impact statement, one devastated victim said he’d moved in with Marshall as a boy, believing life would be “easy” once he escaped his troubled home life.
“I’ve been angry for a long time,” he told County Court Judge Duncan Allen.
“I feel angry I wasn’t protected by the adults around me. I feel angry he was allowed out on bail even after the trial. I haven’t been able to trust anyone.”
Earlier that year (2013) Marshall was found guilty of numerous counts of sexual penetration and indecent assault against the boy.
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