Melbourne doctor Pradeep Dissanayake led highly disturbing religious cult

A doctor located in Melbourne’s southeast led a sinister religious cult in which his followers called him “God” and he raped and sexually abused their children in secret.

The Director of Public Prosecutions fought for Pradeep Dissanayake’s maximum eight year prison term to be increased.

A Melbourne doctor led a highly disturbing religious cult in which his followers called him ‘God’ and he raped and sexually abused their children in secret.

Sickening crimes were committed by Dr Pradeep Dissanayake, founder of Melbourne Medical Skin Clinic, during his reign as leader of a strict Buddhist-Christian sect where members had to text him hourly praise, get permission to leave their homes or shower and give him money for being “God”.

While practising medicine from his Windsor clinic, the disgraced doctor would take pre-pubescent girls from their families under the guise of sect activities and rape or sexually assault them in hotel rooms or the back of his car up until early 2022.

The 52-year-old maintained until well after he was charged that he raped and assaulted the children to teach them how to “respect the lord” and that his offending was a “reward for (their) hard work and devotion” to the religious sect, court documents reveal.

Their blindsided parents said he “preached morality and yet behaved with gross immorality”.

Sickening crimes were committed by Dr Pradeep Dissanayake during his reign as leader of a strict Buddhist-Christian sect.

Such was the depravity of the doctor’s crimes, the Director of Public Prosecutions fought for his maximum eight year prison term to be increased, arguing it was manifestly inadequate and that his prospects for rehabilitation were worse than originally determined.

In late December, three Court of Appeal judges ruled his sexual crimes as “disgusting and shameless” and increased his sentence to 10 years and 10 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of eight years.

“Apart from the significant age difference between (Dissanayake) and the complainants and the obvious power imbalance between him and them, (Dissanayake) was able to emotionally manipulate them due to his godlike status as the leader of the sect,” the judges said.

“The proposition advanced by (Dissanayake) to the psychologists that he raped and assaulted these young girls in order to teach them how to ‘respect the lord’ and that he did not derive any sexual satisfaction from it is both delusional and chilling.

“He used his position and influence to facilitate access to the complainants and exert influence over them to commit the crimes. The offending was predatory and of a disgusting and shameless kind.”

Born in Sri Lanka, Dissanayake migrated to Australia with his wife and two sons in 2006 and was recognised as an accredited skin cancer doctor by Skin Cancer College of Australasia.

Three Court of Appeal judges ruled his sexual crimes as “disgusting and shameless”. Picture: iStock

Court documents reveal in 2016 the doctor travelled to his home county to meet with Buddhist monks forming his own ultra-strict religious sect in the suburbs of Melbourne the following year.

As leader of the cult, he required his followers to kneel when he entered their home, for men and women to live in separate homes and parents to relinquish responsibility of their own children.

There were also strict rules related to consumption of food, what women and girls could wear and what children could watch on their phones.

In December 2021, while sect members were painting a property in Melton, Dissanayake took a 12-year-old girl to Bunnings under the guise of purchasing painting supplies.

Court documents reveal he bought her a hot chocolate, drove her to a back road, ordered she remove her clothes and raped her.

“He exhorted her to ‘give me all the love’ and succeeded in penetrating her vagina with his penis,” a court summary read.

Dissanayake raped the girl another five times including inside hotel rooms and carparks and on one occasion took her back to his Windsor medical clinic and asked whether she had gotten her period yet.

“(She) told him she had not. (Dissanayake) told her that this meant he did not need to use a condom,” the summary read.

Dissanayake raped the girl another five times including inside hotel rooms and carparks. Picture: iStock

Dissanayake preyed upon another 12-year-old girl whose mother was told she was accompanying the cult leader on Bunnings trips.

The girl was assaulted by Dissanayake in his car and in hotel rooms and on one occasion when she pushed him away, he became angry and prohibited her from eating, the court summary states.

He also slapped her across the face after searching her phone internet history and finding she had watched a YouTube clip in defiance of his rules, and bought her deodorant, perfume and a mobile phone when she broke down in tears at him undressing her in a hotel room.

“(She) feared that she could not indefinitely stave off being raped by the respondent. The first complainant, of course, experienced that horror from the outset,” the summary states.

Psychologists who assessed Dissanayake found he had exhibited a narcissistic belief that he is “extraordinary and exceptional” and held a “grandiose logic of self-importance and fixation with fantasies of control and idyllic love”.

Dissanayake preyed upon another 12-year-old girl whose mother was told she was accompanying the cult leader on Bunnings trips. Picture: iStock

The Court of Appeal judges cast doubt over the remorse expressed by Dissanayake the day of his sentencing and that his rehabilitation prospects were less certain than originally believed.

“While the judge saw this expression of remorse as ‘genuine’, we consider it to have been too little too late. We cannot excuse his conduct as a product of a mind distorted by religious fervour,” the judges ruled.

“We do not regard his prospects of rehabilitation as positively as the judge’s conclusion suggests, given that the psychological reports showed him to have been at least ambivalent about whether his offending was morally reprehensible at that time.

“Until at least April 2023, he was peddling the explanation that he had been doing the complainants some kind of favour.”

Dissanayake’s medical license was suspended by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency in April 2022 after charges were laid against him.