- Victims cheer as abuser jailed
- By Dewi Cooke and Miki Perkins
- The Age
- 26/09/2008 Make a Comment
- Contributed by: The Rooster ( 264 articles in 2008 )
FORMER wards of the state are renewing their push for compensation after a 66-year-old Melbourne man was jailed for sexually abusing 12 children — five of them state wards.
John Maria Beyer was sentenced in the County Court yesterday to nine years and four months in prison with a non-parole period of six years.
He had pleaded guilty to 31 counts of sexual assault including unlawful and indecent assault of a male, gross indecency, indecent assault of a female, indecent assault, sexual penetration of a child between 10 and 16 and attempted buggery.
Victims and their families cheered when the sentence was read out, yelling "Was it worth it, John?" and "Rot in jail", as Beyer was led from the dock.
Outside court, two men who were abused as boys said they had waited a long time for justice. "To be listened to and believed is like … bricks off your back," one man said. "The abuse is something that you carry around for so long and it has the ability to squash you."
Judge Duncan Allen described a pattern of grooming and abuse meted out by Beyer from 1973 to 1985 against children as young as four.
People wept and some left the courtroom as Judge Allen described how some victims had later tried to commit suicide, haunted by their memories and unable to trust those close to them.
Beyer groomed his victims by inviting them into his family home to use the swimming pool, pool table and rumpus room, and offering them sweets and cigarettes if they remained silent.
He tempted the state wards with weekends away while volunteering at the Salvation Army's Bayswater Boys' Home and the Tally-Ho Boys' Home in Burwood.
"You had ingratiated yourself with the authorities at those homes, purporting to be ready and willing as a matter of kindness to assist the vulnerable wards of state," Judge Allen said. "This was a ruse. You, in fact, were a predator."
Beyer's seven other victims were friends of his own children or boys he had coached in basketball.
A psychiatrist's report found that while Beyer would have been diagnosed as a pedophile at the time of his offences, he was now fully rehabilitated and remorseful about his behaviour.
In sentencing, the judge said he took into account the large number and age of the victims, his grooming behaviour, and the additional vulnerability of those victims who were wards of the state.
In 1997, Beyer was sent to prison for two years after he pleaded guilty to sexual offences against three boys between 1986 and 1992.
The offences occurred after the ones for which he was sentenced yesterday.
Leonie Sheedy, spokeswoman for the Care Leavers of Australia Network, a support group for former wards of the state, said it was "wonderful" to see justice served for Beyer's victims. But she said a redress scheme similar to that in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania was needed to help all former state wards.
John Maria Beyer was sentenced in the County Court yesterday to nine years and four months in prison with a non-parole period of six years.
He had pleaded guilty to 31 counts of sexual assault including unlawful and indecent assault of a male, gross indecency, indecent assault of a female, indecent assault, sexual penetration of a child between 10 and 16 and attempted buggery.
Victims and their families cheered when the sentence was read out, yelling "Was it worth it, John?" and "Rot in jail", as Beyer was led from the dock.
Outside court, two men who were abused as boys said they had waited a long time for justice. "To be listened to and believed is like … bricks off your back," one man said. "The abuse is something that you carry around for so long and it has the ability to squash you."
Judge Duncan Allen described a pattern of grooming and abuse meted out by Beyer from 1973 to 1985 against children as young as four.
People wept and some left the courtroom as Judge Allen described how some victims had later tried to commit suicide, haunted by their memories and unable to trust those close to them.
Beyer groomed his victims by inviting them into his family home to use the swimming pool, pool table and rumpus room, and offering them sweets and cigarettes if they remained silent.
He tempted the state wards with weekends away while volunteering at the Salvation Army's Bayswater Boys' Home and the Tally-Ho Boys' Home in Burwood.
"You had ingratiated yourself with the authorities at those homes, purporting to be ready and willing as a matter of kindness to assist the vulnerable wards of state," Judge Allen said. "This was a ruse. You, in fact, were a predator."
Beyer's seven other victims were friends of his own children or boys he had coached in basketball.
A psychiatrist's report found that while Beyer would have been diagnosed as a pedophile at the time of his offences, he was now fully rehabilitated and remorseful about his behaviour.
In sentencing, the judge said he took into account the large number and age of the victims, his grooming behaviour, and the additional vulnerability of those victims who were wards of the state.
In 1997, Beyer was sent to prison for two years after he pleaded guilty to sexual offences against three boys between 1986 and 1992.
The offences occurred after the ones for which he was sentenced yesterday.
Leonie Sheedy, spokeswoman for the Care Leavers of Australia Network, a support group for former wards of the state, said it was "wonderful" to see justice served for Beyer's victims. But she said a redress scheme similar to that in Queensland, Western Australia and Tasmania was needed to help all former state wards.
Source: https://www.theage.com.au/national/victims-cheer-as-abuser-jailed-20080926-4ow0.html?page=-1
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