Jail for child sex offender who blames five-year-old victim

A child sex offender who molested his friend’s daughter from when she was five years old could be out of jail in just over two years – and “appears to lay the blame” on the victim.

A CHILD molester who blames his victim for her “sexualised conduct”, following years of abuse starting when she was five, could be out of jail in a little over two years.

The Tasmanian man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, met the girl about 2011 when she was about four years old and he was 45 and living next door to her father.

The abuse stopped in August 2014 when the girl was eight – and the man became a Family Law Court-appointed supervisor to facilitate contact between the girl and her father.

The Supreme Court of Tasmania heard this week that the man exposed himself to the girl in the “games room” of his home when he was play wrestling with her.

On the next occasion, he molested her after he’d held a barbecue for the girl and her father, abusing her in her Dora the Explorer pyjamas.

He also abused the child on other occasions including twice more in his games room and another time while he was babysitting her.

“The complainant disclosed that there were other occasions, but she is unable to give any further detail,” Justice Stephen Estcourt said while sentencing.

The man initially pleaded not guilty to all charges, but later confessed to one count of maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person under 17.

“I accept that he recognises the harm he caused and that he feels shame, although his decision that it was only wrongful to continue after he was appointed by the Family Law Court as a ‘responsible’ adult in 2014 I find quite odd,” Justice Estcourt said.

“I also find troubling that he appears to lay blame at the complainant’s feet because of alleged sexualised conduct on her part.”

The girl, now 14, previously told the court she has “ceaseless nightmares”, feels used and “really depressed” most of the time, has felt suicidal and self-harms “because she feels she deserves the pain”.

The man was convicted and jailed to four-and-a-half years’ jail, with a non-parole period of two years and three months.

His name was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for eight years upon his release from prison.