Puffing Billy pedophile Robert Whitehead dies in Victorian jail

UPDATE: AN evil child molester who preyed on victims through their love of Melbourne’s iconic Puffing Billy steam train has died in jail.

Please note, this case is currently supressed. This image has been ID-ed by Wayne Flower. Bob Whitehead leaves Magistrates Court after appearing for a case relating to child sex offences on Friday, April 17, 2015, in Melbourne, Australia. Picture: Hamish Blair

AN evil child molester who preyed on victims through their love of Melbourne’s iconic Puffing Billy steam train has died in jail.

Former Puffing Billy volunteer Robert Whitehead, 84, died on the weekend, two months after he was jailed for sexually assaulting six boys between the 1960s, 70s and 1980s.

“An 84-year-old man passed away of what is suspected to be natural causes,” a Department of Corrections spokesman said.

Whitehead, who was in a wheechair, preyed upon young children who shared his love of trains, after he pleaded guilty to 24 child sex offences.

He was expected to die behind bars for his despicable crimes against children, and was serving eight years for the “unforgivable” acts.

Whitehead had to serve at least four-and-a-half years before becoming eligible for parole.

During court proceedings, his defence had argued Whitehead — a former Victorian rail official and prominant historian — was too ill to be locked up and called for him to be placed on a community corrections order.

But County Court Judge Michael Tinney said jail was “absolutely inevitable” and “absolutely required”.

Whitehead used his position to lure kids on the iconic steam train Puffing Billy.

All but one of his six victims were in court to hear the depraved acts they endured at Whiteheads hands.

Whitehead was head controller at Melbourne’s Spencer Street station and was most recently associated with the Seymour Historic Rail Society.

The court heard Whitehead, who lost his job with the railways for six months in 1959 when he was convicted of two other indecent assaults on Scouts, hid within the regional rail operator V/Line where he worked with one of his victims.

The victim, who was subjected to sickening abuse by the paedophile as a 14-year old, went on to work with Whitehead at V/Line.

The man, whom Whitehead raped with a garden hose, told the court Whitehead was part of a paedophile ring and had friends in high places.

He said he repeatedly tried to alert other railway organisations and his employer of Whitehead’s abuse “to (his) own detriment”.

”When I alerted my own V/Line manager, I was the one threatened with the sack,’’ he said. “Such was your hold over these people.’’

Other victims described Whitehead as a predator who masterfully groomed them through their mutual love of the railways.

Nearly all of the victims were told they needed to be “initiated’’ into the railways by agreeing to his grubby demands.

The court heard one boy was forced to sign a lewd questionnaire with his own blood before being tied naked to a ladder.

“You look like Jesus on the cross,’’ Whitehead told the boy before leaving him trapped for 90 terrifying minutes.

The court heard his victims thought they would be killed and were told by Whitehead not to tell their parents because they would not be believed.

The court heard Whitehead eventually came unstuck when more victims came forward during the recent Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

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