Summary
More info coming soon.
Facts
Sources
-
1. Former Mormon Sunday school teacher jailed for years of depravity against two girls he raped and horrifically abused
A MORMON teacher created his own sick “harem” with his wife and two vulnerable teens and behaved like a “medieval despot”, in a case labelled by a senior judge as the worst case of sexual abuse he had seen.
District Court judge Wayne Chivell this week jailed the 47-year-old, who cannot be named, for almost 20 years.
Judge Chivell said he had been shocked by the “revolting” crimes, which only ended when his two victims finally escaped his clutches and went to police in August 2016.
“I have never seen, nor heard of, a case of sexual abuse of children ... more serious than this ... it is difficult to imagine a case more serious than this,” Judge Chivell said.
The victims, known only as A and B, were 14 years old when the man took them into his home as foster children in 1995 and 1999. B’s parents had hired him as a security guard to stop her running away.
But for years, he used intimidation and violence to detain the girls and his own wife as virtual sex slaves in South Australia, Queensland and Victoria. The man fathered at least five children with his victims and punched them in the stomach in a bid to cause miscarriages.
He lied that he had murdered A’s mother and sister, which she continued to believe for many years.
Judge Chivell said the man had ostracised the girls from their families and had “terrorised both victims into submission” to the point of being “your slaves”. “The sexual abuse was accompanied by degradation, humiliation, violence, threats, drugs, sadism, filth and deprivation,” he said.
“By the time they escaped from you, they had no skills to equip them for modern life. You rendered them completely dependent on you.”
The man, who met the girls when teaching Mormon Sunday school, told them he had murdered and raped backpackers, was in the mafia, and became paranoid after believing he had foreseen the impending apocalypse.
“You talked to them about the ‘end of days’, the sort of claptrap that other megalomaniacs use to bend people to their wills,” Judge Chivell said.
The older victim was forced to live in squalid conditions on a mouldy mattress, was choked, punched, urinated on and had refused the man’s demand she have sex with a German shepherd. He told B that the mafia had killed one of her friends and he had buried her head in a nearby paddock.
Later, he claimed to have received a “message from God” that the three women were all his wives, and should not leave the home without wearing a hijab.
Judge Chivell said it was difficult to emphasise the depravity the victims endured.
“The way I have attempted to describe it does not come close to conveying the seriousness of it or the extent of its effect on the victims,” he said.
“You corrupted and ruined the childhood of each of them when you had a responsibility as a parent. B called you ‘dad’.”
Judge Chivell said he had considered not imposing a non-parole period until the man wrote a letter admitting his crimes were “to feed my own sexual appetite”.
Judge Chivell said he hoped the letter of apology was genuine and that the man would change his ways while serving his 13-year non-parole period.
Documents
Have documents, information or corrections? Add information