Disgraced Dominic College priest and paedophile David Edwin Rapson returned to prison

Defrocked priest, serial paedophile and child rapist David Edwin Rapson has been returned to jail, this time for sexually abusing three Tasmanian boys in the 1980s.

Defrocked priest, serial paedophile and child rapist David Edwin Rapson has been returned to jail, this time for sexually abusing three Tasmanian boys in the 1980s.

Rapson, who was working at Glenorchy’s Dominic College at the time, has been sentenced to another three years in jail, with a non-parole period of 18 months.

The 69-year-old was already serving a long sentence in a Victorian prison – for five counts of rape and six counts of indecent assault against six boys – when he was charged with the historic Tasmanian crimes.

The Tasmanian case was drawn out for years, with a number of attempts made to facilitate his extradition back to Tasmania until the Attorneys-General of both states intervened.

In his newly-published comments on passing sentence, Supreme Court acting judge David Porter said Rapson pleaded guilty to three counts of indecent assault between 1983 and 1986.

The first boy was 14 or 15 when he was groomed and abused by Rapson, who spent time with the teen outside school, showing him adult pornography and giving him beer and cigarettes.

Rapson would take the boy away for weekends, supplying him with alcohol and telling him he loved him – before sexually abusing him in 1984.

When the victim became aware of Rapson’s offences in Victoria during the 1990s, he contacted him, and asked him why.

“(Rapson) replied that he loved him, that he was different, one of a kind and special,” Acting Justice Porter said.

A photo of defrocked priest and child rapist David Rapson, who taught at Glenorchy’s Dominic College in the 1980s.

The second boy, 15, went on a trip to the Derwent Valley with Rapson and other students in 1985 to act as an altar boy, with Rapson providing them with cigarettes and alcohol.

During the night, the boy woke to Rapson abusing him.

The third boy, 14, got the impression that Rapson was “sympathetic and offered him a degree of solace support” when he was abused in 1983.

Rapson provided the boy with pornographic videos and magazines before abusing him in his office.

The former priest was identified as a possible perpetrator by the federal child sexual abuse royal commission, and has a long history of child abuse offences.

Acting Justice Porter said Rapson was jailed twice in Melbourne, during 1992 and 1993, for child sexual abuse – and then again in 2015.

He said all of the offending arose out of incidents where Rapson taught and was responsible for the pastoral care of male students at schools.

Rapson is still subject to his Victorian incarceration, with his sentence expiring in April 2026.

He became eligible to apply for parole in March this year, but that process has been held off because of the new Tasmanian charges.

Acting Justice Porter has backdated his Tasmanian prison term to March, when his Victorian parole period began.

Rapson, a former Salesian order priest, was defrocked in 2004.

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