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A FORMER teacher described by a prosecutor as a "master pedophile" has been given a lighter jail sentence than his own barrister suggested. The former Brisbane music teacher was found guilty of 34 counts of indecent dealing with children, including his own infant children and two students, in the early 1980s. Judge Julie Ryrie said the man used his own children to help him commit indecent acts on two Brisbane private schoolboys. One student, 13, was given alcohol and pills before being sexually abused on a sailing trip to Lake Cootharaba on the Sunshine Coast. The man, then in his early 30s, had befriended the boys' mother. He used threats, gifts and emotional blackmail to help him abuse the children. Crown prosecutor Sal Vasta asked that the man be given a seven-year sentence and defence counsel John Fraser asked for a sentence of four to four-and-a-half years' jail. But on August 10 in the Brisbane District Court, Judge Ryrie sentenced the man, 54, to a maximum of three years. Judge Ryrie said she did not consider the man to be anywhere near within the worst category of offenders. Attorney-General Linda Lavarch will ask the Director of Public Prosecutions for a brief on the case so she can consider a possible appeal on the sentence. The man is appealing against the conviction. Mr Vasta had asked the judge to take into account submissions about the former music teacher's past conduct in South Australia and the Northern Territory. Before coming to Queensland, the man had been found guilty by a SA Education Department board of inquiry of offences including fondling students. He was allowed to resign and in 1980 gained a job with a Brisbane boys' school, where he was in charge of a dormitory. But after complaints that he allowed a boy to shower in his quarters and asked boys to wear towels around their necks, instead of their waists, when going to the showers, he was dismissed. The teacher then was given a job with a Brisbane Anglican school, despite the previous headmaster alerting the school's principal to the reason for his dismissal. "It truly displays the brazen nature of offending and shows that the prisoner was prepared to act dishonestly in order to obtain access to children at other institutions," Mr Vasta said. The teacher had then "picked his mark" at the second Queensland school. In 1994, the man served three years of an eight-year sentence after pleading guilty to 15 charges of sexually abusing six boys while he was a teacher in the Northern Territory. Mr Vasta rejected claims that he was now rehabilitated after doing a sex offenders' course in jail. But Judge Ryrie would not take into account his behaviour in South Australia, although she did note his similar offences in the Northern Territory. The Sunday Mail (Qld) (28-8-2005) Kay Dibben |
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