Yoga teacher Chandra Bhoga loses appeal after assaulting teen

A Tarneit yoga teacher sexually assaulted a young girl next to her mother, performing a sick act straight after violating the teenager.

Child sex offender Chandra Bhoga has lost his appeal for a shorter sentence.

A yoga teacher who sexually assaulted a teenage girl while her mother was in the class a metre away has lost in his bid to have his jail term reduced.

Spiritual guru Chandra Bhoga was last year sentenced to a minimum 19 months’ behind bars for his sickening acts during an early-morning yoga class at his Tarneit home in 2018.

The 15-year-old girl attended the yoga practice with her mother and told Bhoga, 48, that she was struggling with her breathing and felt congested.

Bhoga said he would help and over the next 30 minutes he repeatedly put his hands under her bra and inside her underwear and sexually assaulted her.

He licked his fingers and hands after the assault.

The girl’s mother was sitting on a mat parallel to her daughter at the time, but was unaware of the assault until after the teen went to school that day and cried as she told two friends what had happened.

In August last year, Bhoga was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment with a non-parole period of 19 months after he pleaded guilty to two counts of intentionally sexually touching a child under the age of 16.

The yoga teacher sexually assaulted a teen girl.

He appealed the sentence in Victoria’s Court of Appeal, arguing the sentence was manifestly excessive.

“When regard is had to appropriate comparable cases — of which there appear to be none — it is submitted that the sentence imposed is manifestly excessive,” Bhoga said in his written submission.

But last Tuesday, appeal Judge Chris Maxwell dismissed the “puzzling” argument, noting there was a similar case involving a single act of sexual assault that saw a prison sentence of four years and four months imposed.

“(That) creates obvious difficulties for the applicant’s contention that the individual sentences of four years in the present case are outside the range,” Judge Maxwell said.

Judge Maxwell said Bhoga’s offending involved multiple instances of sexual assault that were rolled up into two charges which “operates to the benefit of the defence”.

He also noted the serious harm Bhoga’s sickening assault had on the girl.

Last year, the girl’s mother told the County Court that her daughter had lost “sleep and serenity”, trust and confidence, and had trouble building relationships due to the yoga teacher’s assault.

Bhoga will be eligible for parole early next year.