R v Wright
[2013] VCC 1300
•15 August 2013
| IN THE COUNTY COURT OF VICTORIA | Revised (Not) Restricted Suitable for Publication |
AT MELBOURNE
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Case No.
| DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS |
| v |
| ALLAN EDWARD WRIGHT |
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JUDGE: | HER HONOUR JUDGE GAYNOR | |
WHERE HELD: | Melbourne | |
DATE OF HEARING: | ||
DATE OF SENTENCE: | 15 August 2013 | |
CASE MAY BE CITED AS: | R v. Wright | |
MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2013] VCC 1300 | |
REASONS FOR SENTENCE
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APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
| For the DPP | Mr B. Stougiannos | |
| For the Accused | Ms J. Condon |
HER HONOUR:
1 Allan Edward Wright, a jury has found you guilty of seven charges of indecent assault, pursuant to s.55 of the Crimes Act; ten charges of indecent assault, pursuant to s.44(1) of the Crimes Act; one charge of gross indecency, pursuant to s.69(1) of the Crimes Act; one charge or attempted sexual penetration of child under ten, pursuant to s.47(2) of the Crimes Act; one charge of sexual penetration of a child under ten, pursuant to s.47(1) of the Crimes Act; five charges of sexual penetration of a child under sixteen, pursuant to s.41 of the Crimes Act; you have also pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault, pursuant to s.39(1) of the Crimes Act 1958, which are representative charges.
2 The offending to which I must sentence you spans a period commencing in 1966 or 67 and concluding 1998 or '99. In that time there were a series of amendments to the relevant sections of the Crimes Act 1958, reflected in the differing sections, for example, applicable to indecent assault under which you were charged, according to the time of the particular offence and effecting the maximum penalties. Thus the maximum penalty for the charge of indecent assault, pursuant to s.55(1) carries with it a maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment for charges 1, 3 and 4 on the indictment, those offences occurring prior to 8 November 1967, after which the maximum penalty was raised to a period of five years' imprisonment, that maximum, therefore, applying to charges 5, 6, 7 and 8 on the indictment. The maximum penalty for indecent assault, pursuant to s.44(1) relating to charges 9, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22 and 30 is five years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for the offence of gross indecency, pursuant to s.69(1) of the Crimes Act, is two years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for attempted sexual penetration of a child under ten, pursuant to s.47(2) of the Crimes Act relating to Charge 21 on the indictment, is ten years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for indecent act with a child under 16, pursuant to s.41 of the Crimes Act and relating to charges 23, 24, 27, 32, 33, 35, 36 and 37 is ten years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for the charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16, pursuant to s.45(1) of the Crimes Act relating to charges 25, 26, 28 and 29, is ten years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for the charge of sexual penetration of a child under 16, who is under the care, supervision or authority of the accused person, relating to Charge 34 on the indictment, is 15 years' imprisonment. The maximum penalty for the charges of sexual penetration of a child under ten years, pursuant to s.47(1) of the Crimes Act relating to Charge 31 on the indictment, is 20 years' imprisonment.
3 You were acquitted by direction of Charges 10, 11 and 12 on the indictment, they being one charge of gross indecency with a child under 16 years, pursuant to s.51 of the Crimes Act, and two charges of sexual penetration of a child under 10, contrary to s.47(1) of the Crimes Act 1958. The jury acquitted you of Charge 14 on the indictment, one charge of indecent assault, contrary to s.44(1) of the Crimes Act 1958.
4 I now turn to the circumstances underlying your offending which encompassed six complainants.
5 Charges 1 to 4 on the indictment involved your sister-in-law, A, then aged 11, and took place between 23 March 1965 and 22 March 1967, over a period of days after she came to stay with you and your wife, her elder sister, in country Victoria, which was closer to her school than her family home.
6 Charge 1, indecent assault, occurred one evening when you asked A to come to the wood shed with you to help get wood for the fire, and in the shed she turned and saw you with your erect penis out of your pants. You flopped your penis around her face and neck and tried to put it near her mouth and push it in, asking her if she wanted to touch it. The complainant grabbed the wood and fled inside.
7 Charge 2, gross indecency, occurred within days of Charge 1, when you again asked A to help you collect wood from the shed, she refusing but being ordered by her sister to go. Once inside the shed you pulled out your penis and tried to come near A, who picked up some wood and ran inside. Charge 3, indecent assault, occurred within a few days of Charge 2, when A awoke at night in her bedroom to find you kneeling by her bed with your hands under blankets and clothes and rubbing her vagina.
8 Charge 4, indecent assault, occurred on the same visit when A awoke early one morning to find you trying to get your hands inside her pants. She tried to push you away but you managed to get your hands in and tried to push your fingers into her vagina but A jumped up and got out of bed.
9 Charges 5 and 6 involve the complainant B, also the young sister of your wife and the younger sister of A, and occurred between 1 December 1970 and 28 February 1973. The offending against B began with an uncharged act which occurred between 1967 or '68 when she was about eight, and staying with you and your wife at your flat in country Victoria, when she went into the lounge room wearing only a towel after a bath. You gestured to her to open the towel, which she did, and you looked at her naked body.
10 Charge 5, indecent assault, occurred when B was about 12 and staying with you and your wife at your home in that area of country Victoria during Christmas school holidays. She shared a bedroom with your two daughters, who were then very little girls. B awoke one night to find you playing with her vagina under her underpants and when she screamed and your wife came in you told her B had had a nightmare.
11 Charge 6, indecent assault, occurred in the same set of holidays as Charge 5, when B was lying in bed but awake, heard you come in and pretended to be asleep. You then touched her on the vagina under her clothes, at which B groaned and rolled over. Your two small daughters were also asleep in the same room. In evidence, B said she stayed with you and your wife most years from the ages of 12 to 14 in school holidays, when you touched her on the vagina between 10 and 12 times, which comprised uncharged acts. You also touched her on the breasts and bottom at any opportunity when you could, when she stayed, on one occasion when she was 12, putting your hands over her breasts over her clothes, while she was in the hallway and rubbing against her back. This particular assault occurred many times. You have also on a few occasions, when B was between the ages of 12 and 14 and staying with you and your wife, come into the bathroom through an adjoining toilet door to look at her while she was naked in the shower.
12 Charges 7 and 8 relate to your daughter, C. B gave evidence she saw you often touch C's chest, saying, "You're growing boobies", and tickling her chest, comprising an uncharged act. I should indicate at this stage I am referring to the various victims by letter for non-identification purposes.
13 Between 1 January 1976 and 31 December 1977, when you were living at your home in country Victoria, and C was about 10 or 11, she was asleep on the top bunk of a bedroom she shared with her two sisters, when she was woken one morning by you touching her on the vagina under her clothes and putting your finger between the lips of her vagina, then in her vaginal passage. These actions underlie an indecent assault, the charge of sexual penetration later framed to encompass such offending not yet having been enacted.
14 Charge 8, indecent assault, occurred soon after the incident comprising Charge 7. On an evening when your wife was out you took C to the marital bedroom, removed her underclothes and licked her on the vagina, placing your tongue in her vaginal passage. The charge of sexual penetration relating to oral penetration had not yet been enacted, hence the charge of indecent assault. C gave evidence you would walk into the bathroom while she w naked in the bath and look at her when she was about 10 or 11, these actions comprising uncharged acts.
15 Charges 13 and 19 relate to the complainant, D, your foster child, who came to live with you and your wife with her older sister, E, when she was an infant. Charge 13, indecent assault, occurred when D was four or five, between 26 September 1989 and 26 September 1990. D was in the habit of climbing into bed between you and your wife after having a nightmare and on one occasion you rubbed her vagina under her clothes and woke her. She then moved up on to the pillows, putting her head on your pillow and her bottom near your wife's pillow and went back to sleep.
16 Charge 19 occurred between 26 September 1990 and 31 December 1991 when D was five or six. She fell asleep one night on the lounge room floor in front of the TV and awoke next morning to find you kneeling over her with your fingers in her vagina, which you then removed and went to the kitchen.
17 Charges 9, 15, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36 and 37 involved the complainant, E, the older sister of D, who was fostered by you and your wife after being removed from her parents by the Department of Human Services and placed in your home at age two. She lived with you at your home in country Victoria and referred to you and your wife as Mum and Dad.
18 Charge 9, indecent assault, occurred between 1 January 1988 and 15 January 1989 when E was five or six. She went into the lounge room of your home where you were watching the cricket on TV and sat on the ground with her back against the lounge. You then put on a pornographic video and sat on the ground next to her, rubbed her leg and put her hand on your penis under your shorts and got her to masturbate you, at the time putting a finger in her vagina. Again, the charge of sexual penetration had not been framed.
19 E gave evidence that over a period of two years, whenever your wife was out of the house, you would take her to the lounge room, play pornographic videos and with E, replicate what was occurring on the film. For example, you would get her to suck your penis, you would lick her vagina, digitally penetrate her vagina and get her to masturbate your penis. No penile/vaginal penetration occurred but this evidence comprises uncharged acts.
20 Charge 15, indecent assault, occurred between 1 and 31 December 1990, when D was in the bath with you, washing your back. When E came in you removed the wash cloth from your genital area and put E's hand on your penis.
21 Charge 16, indecent assault, occurred between 16 January 1990 and 31 December 1992 when you and E were travelling in the family van being driven by your wife. E was ordered to sit in the back seat of the van. You got in with her and placed a blanket over both your laps. You then rubbed her vagina under her clothes.
22 Charge 17, indecent assault, arises from the same occasion when you then touched E on the vagina under clothes and rubbed her clitoris.
23 Charge 18, indecent assault, also occurred on the same occasion when you then unzipped your pants, took out your penis and placed E's hand on it, making her move it up and down. E was aged between seven and nine at the time. She also gave evidence of an uncharged act between 1 January 1991 and 31 December 1992, when she was nine, got into her sister, D's bed when D was not there and woke to find you kneeling next to the bed with your hand under the blankets, touching her vagina over her underclothes.
24 Charge 20, indecent assault, arose from the same occasion, when you then put your hand inside E's underwear and rubbed her vagina. You then climbed into bed with her under the covers and continued rubbing her vagina before inserting your finger into it.
25 Charge 21 also arises from the same occasion when you then took off your clothes and rubbed your penis against E's vagina, asking if you could penetrate it but were not able to do so as it hurt her, and continued rubbing your penis against her vagina until you ejaculated.
26 Charge 22, indecent assault, occurred between 1 January 1991 and 31 December 1992, when E was aged eight or nine. You took E to your bedroom and showed her black and white photographs of men and women having sex, which you took out of a wooden box. You then undressed E, made her lie on the bed and put her hand on your penis, which you held there with your own hand, rubbing it up and down until you ejaculated on to her stomach.
27 Charge 23, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred between 16 January 1992 and 15 January 1993, when E was aged about ten. She was at home in bed, sick with a fever, and your mother was also present in the house. You came into E's bedroom, telling her your mother was there, and put your hands under the blanket and touched her vagina under the bed clothes.
28 Charge 24, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred between 16 January 1992 and 15 January 1994, when E was aged nine or ten. She had been taken by you to work and fell asleep on the floor of a tractor you were driving. You touched her on the vagina over her clothes, keeping one hand on the steering wheel as you did this.
29 Charges 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 arose from an occasion which occurred between 16 January 1992 and 16 January 1994, when E was age nine or ten and had come with you to where you were working on a farm with your son and some other young men. The group separated after lunch and E was sitting in the passenger seat of your truck, listening to music with the door open.
30 Charge 25, sexual penetration of a child under 16, occurred when you approached E and asked her for a "tickle", which she refused. You then turned her in the seat to face you and rubbed her vagina over her clothes and put your hands under her clothes and inserted your finger in her vagina.
31 Charge 26, sexual penetration of a child under 16, occurred when you then removed her underwear and licked her vagina, including her clitoris. Charge 27, indecent act with a child under 16, then occurred when you put E's hand on your penis and moved it up and down.
32 Charge 28, indecent act with a child under 16, then occurred when you put E's hand on your penis and moved it up and down. Charge 28, sexual penetration with a child under 16, occurred when you again inserted your finger into her vagina.
33 Charge 29, sexual penetration with a child under 16, occurred when you then asked E for a "headie" and inserted your penis into her mouth until you ejaculated, ordering E to swallow the ejaculate.
34 Charges 30 and 31 occurred on an occasion between 16 January 1991 and 16 January 1992, when E was eight or nine. You and she were in your bed, she lying on top of you. That action comprised an uncharged act. Charge 30, indecent assault, occurred when you licked E's vagina. Charge 31, sexual penetration with a child under 10, comprised you then making E suck your penis at the same time as you licked her vagina. You asked her to suck your scrotum and after she did this, said that your wife never did it and that it was "magic".
35 E gave evidence that you often used condoms because she hated you ejaculating in her mouth, so that you would then use them when penetrating her mouth with your penis. She said you would let her pick the condom you would use and this occurred on many occasions. She said on one occasion you got her attention as she sat in the lounge room and you were in the hallway, wrapped in a towel, which you then opened to show you had a blue condom on your erect penis. Those actions comprise uncharged acts. E gave evidence that you often watched her in the bath through a hole in the door where the lock had been removed. She said you once stuck your tongue through the hole in the bathroom door as she sat, naked, in the bath. Those actions also comprise uncharged acts.
36 D gave evidence that when she was six or seven she woke one night to get up and go to the toilet, having to walk through E's room to get there. She said she saw you in bed with E under the blankets, which were moving "like a rubbing movement" down near E's vaginal area. You yelled at D to "get back into fucking bed", which D did and went back to sleep.
37 Charges 32 and 33 arose from an incident which took place between 16 January 1994 and 15 January 1995, when E was about eleven and a half years old. She went to work with you to your shed near the showgrounds of the country town where it was located. Your son had been at work earlier that day but left and she was in the back of your panel van, which was parked inside the shed with its back doors open. Charge 32, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred when you touched E's leg, then took out your penis and got her to masturbate it. Charge 33, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred when you then climbed into the back of the utility with E, pulled off her underclothes and rubbed your penis against her vagina until you ejaculated on her stomach. E gave evidence that between December 1994 and January 1995, when she was nearly 12, you, your wife, she and D, visited Port Macquarie to stay with your daughter, C, for about a week. E woke to find you in her room, saying the others had gone out to play the pokies. You then touched E on her vagina, outside her pyjamas, then moved your hand under her pyjamas and inserted your finger into her vagina. You then got into bed with her, removing your own and her clothes, and suddenly rolled off on to the floor when D came in. E said that D told her she had heard a man and asked if E was "having sex with Dad", which E denied. D left the room. You got back into bed, touching E's breasts and vagina and forcing her to masturbate your penis. You left the bed when a car containing the other adult members of the family pulled up outside. As these matters occurred in Port Macquarie they were led as uncharged acts as they were outside the Victorian jurisdiction.
38 Charges 34 and 35 relate to an incident which occurred between 16 January 1996 and 16 January 1997, when E was age 13 and 14, had left your home and was living in Melbourne. She returned on a visit to see her sister, D, and was sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a spare room. Your wife and D were in the lounge room when you went into the room where E was and touched her on the breasts and vagina over her clothes, telling her how much you loved and missed her and that she was growing up.
39 Charge 34, sexual penetration of a child under the care, supervision or authority of the accused, occurred when you then put your hands under her clothes and inserted your finger in her vagina, getting her to masturbate your penis as you did this. Charge 35, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred whilst you were performing the acts underling Charge 34, that is, you were rubbing her breasts. You then ejaculated. You told E you would use the excuse that you were in her room, looking for the family dog, to explain your presence there.
40 Charge 36, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred between 15 and 17 December 1998 on another occasion when E was visiting your home to see her sister. E gave evidence that you would grab her on the vagina and breasts over her clothes whenever you could, charge 36, comprising the first of these occasions, the others comprising uncharged acts. E said during this visit you poked out your tongue at her and made sexual noises, grabbed her backside over her clothes and moved your hands around to the front, over her clothes.
41 Charge 37, indecent act with a child under 16, occurred on the second or third night of the same visit, when E was sleeping in her sister's bed and was awoken by you kissing her on the lips. You tried to grab her breasts over her clothes and touched her vagina and stomach over clothes. You said you wanted to kiss her and feel her tongue and that you wished you were her boyfriend. At this time you were over the complainant on your hands and knees but left the room when she said she did not want to do anything. You then returned into the room, wearing only your blue shorts, which you pulled down, showing her your erect penis and saying, "Look what you've done to me". You asked E to touch your penis but she turned her back and put her face in the pillow.
42 The charges comprising your offending against these five complainants were contained in indictment number B11594066.4A.
43 I now turn to the offences to which you have pleaded guilty. Two representative charges of indecent assault contained in indictment number B11594066.3B. The complainant in these matters was F, at the time the partner of your foster daughter, D, and the offending occurred between October 2008 and December 2009.
44 Charge 1 comprises a number of incidents, F in her statement saying that from the start you would pinch her bottom over her clothes in the office where she was working for you on a casual basis. She was then about 19. F said that she was embarrassed and initially put it down to your personality. She said on a number of occasions you would grab at her breasts over her clothes or try to kiss her on the mouth, these actions comprising uncharged acts.
45 Between 1 October and 31 December 2008 F was at home in the house she shared with D, babysitting two of your grandchildren. You came around and took F to McDonald's take-away in your car, you driving. You put your hand on F's leg before rubbing her on the vagina on the outside of her clothes. This conduct is part of the allegation contained in Charge 1. She pushed your hands away and you yelled at her, telling F that no one would find out, and asking her why she was so nervous. She said she was frightened by your yelling and anger.
46 Between 25 October and 10 November 2008 F was at work with you at your shed when you walked up behind her and tried to put your hands down her pants, only getting to the top of her knickers. She pushed both your hands away and at this point you put your hands on her breasts. This conduct is part of Charge 1.
47 F did not tell anyone because she did not want to break up the family and there was no one else around. Between 25 October 2008 and 30 March 2009 F was working in a portable office inside your factory at about 9 am when workers had just left to go on a job. You and she were in the office when you pulled down her top and bra, exposing her breasts and sucked on her right breast for a couple of seconds. At the same time F was trying to push you away. D and your wife pulled up in a car and you stopped and she left with them. These actions comprise part of Charge 2 on the indictment.
48 Between 23 and 31 January 2009 your wife, your daughter and her family, D, F and F's mother and cousin went camping on a family property for three or four days. There were two boats, you having one and your daughter's husband having the other, and that is your daughter, C. F, her mother and cousin were leaving early and you decided to take the cousin for a ride in your boat so D and F went with you. F sat next to you in the back of the boat and while you were driving it you rubbed her backside all over, these actions comprising an uncharged act.
49 The next incident, comprising part of Charge 2 on the indictment, occurred between 26 January and 31 December 2009 when you and the complainant were at work, about to leave and you pulled down her singlet and bra and sucked on her breast. She told you to stop it. Following the incident of 2009 there was an occasion when you tried to put your hand up the complainant's skirt when she was at home and her dog bit you on the arm, these actions comprising an uncharged act. F complained about your conduct to D whilst having dinner with you and other members of the family in March 2009, which had the ultimate effect of precipitating disclosures by other complainants in this matter. I now turn to your personal circumstances.
50 You are 67 years old, the youngest of four children, and grew up in Kilmore. Your father worked for the local shire. Your mother had the occupation of home duties. You told psychologist, Patrick Newton, whose report, dated 1 August 2013, was tendered on the plea, that you had a positive upbringing and enjoyed good relationships with your parents and siblings, who continue to support you and who have visited you since being placed in custody following the jury verdicts on 22 March this year.
51 You left school just before completing Year 8, working in a variety of factory and manual positions, then obtained work with the then State Rivers and Waterboard as a labourer, continuing with that organisation for the next 21 years until 1989, when you left to set up your own business as a private irrigation and drainage contractor.
52 You met your wife in 1964 and the two of you married in 1965, there being four children of the marriage, three daughters and a son. That relationship broke down in 2009 on the revelation of the sexual offending you had engaged in. You then moved briefly to Queensland but returned soon after, living in your office at work for about 12 months and since that time have enjoyed the support of one daughter and her children and your son, who lives in Queensland. You have also been supported by your mother, now aged 87.
53 In March or April of 2010 you went to live with an uncle and aunt, residing there until you were remanded in custody. The property settlement between yourself and your former wife took place in 2010 to 11, under which she retained the family home and you retained the business assets, which were subsequently sold, partly in order to pay legal fees.
54 During the trial, character evidence was called on your behalf from your accountant, and an agricultural consultant, who have known you over the years and you were described by each of them as an extremely hard working and honest man, and I accept that you enjoy a solid reputation as a highly regarded, reliable and conscientious worker.
55 I also received a reference from Darryl Smallman, a retired police sergeant, who has primarily known you through your mutual interest in wood chopping, and he spoke of the positive aspects of your personality that he observed over the years, describing you also as an honest and hard working man. You have no prior convictions.
56 You have some health problems, being diagnosed in February 2010 with prostate cancer and undergoing radical surgery for the total removal of your prostate gland. Regular check-ups with the urologist have not revealed any recurrence of the cancer. There have been some significant consequences to that operation, in particular, incontinence. You are required to wear pads and you feel that this condition has worsened in custody. I was referred to medical file notes from the prison, indicating a continuation of that difficulty and the requirement that you be provided with incontinence pads which, unfortunately, on one occasion were simply not available at prison. I note that this is a difficulty for you in gaol and that the medication you took to treat symptoms of an overactive bladder, caused an excessively dry throat, so that you ceased use of it but have plans to resume.
57 You also suffer from gastric reflux, for which you take the medication, Nexium. You have never previously been in gaol, which I accept is a particular difficulty for you at your age. However, you are visited by your mother, daughter and her family. There have been several visits from a brother, who lives in Queensland, from Mr Smallman and Mr Hendy, your former accountant. You also have contact from your son so you are not isolated in prison.
58 There has been quite some delay in this matter. A complained to police of your sexual abuse in 1994 but was advised then that a case would be unlikely to be successfully prosecuted without the participation of other complainants, should they exist, and the matter was not persisted with.
59 In 2000 E made a statement to police but the investigation was not continued due to statements from your then wife and D, which contradicted E's statement, and the investigation, of which you made aware, did not continue.
60 The matter was renewed as of March 2009 when revelations were made by the various complainants over a period of time in that year and police were involved in June 2010. Statements were thereafter obtained up until November 2010 and you were finally charged, in June 2011.
61 The plea of guilty in relation to F came at a late stage following the guilty verdict returned in the trial involving the other five complainants on 22 March 2013. At that time a trial involving F was to be held but then a plea of guilty was entered by you. A contested committal was held in which each of the complainant's gave evidence and were cross-examined. It is clear from Mr Newton's report, and your instructions to counsel, that the issue of remorse by you has no part to play in the sentencing exercise before me, you continuing to deny having committed the vast bulk of these offences.
62 All in all, however, as is so often the situation in cases of this kind, you have lived otherwise an ordinary, hard working and praiseworthy life, and prior to these matters being raised, had never come before a court of law charged with any criminal offence. In fact, of course, you have been a criminal for well over four decades. You have sexually marauded one young female member of your family after another. You began with your 11 sister, A, who, in her victim impact statement, said she was so excited to come and live with you and your wife because on the birth of your daughter, C, she had become an aunty, and so wanted to spend time with her little niece.
63 You then went on to abuse a second sister-in-law, B, also a little girl sent to you by her unsuspecting parents, to stay with her big sister and be with her nieces. Then your own daughter, C, whom you sexually abused in a most blatant and degrading way.
64 By far the most extensive and sustained offending involved your victim, E, a particularly vulnerable little girl, who had been removed from the care of her mentally unwell mother by the Department of Human Services and sent to you and your wife at the age of two. The tenor of E's evidence, which was clearly accepted by the jury, was that you regarded her as your sexual plaything. From the time she was a very little girl you exposed her to pornographic films which you made her imitate with you. You penetrated her digitally and orally on countless occasions. You ejaculated on her body and in her mouth. You subjected her to years and years of the most degrading sexual abuse. From her early childhood through to her adolescence she was the constant subject of your perverted lust. Nor did her little sister. D, who arrived at your home as an infant, escape your sexual attentions, although your offending in relation to her, whilst serious, was far more limited, possibly because it would appear, from the evidence, she was your wife's favourite, and possibly because so much of your attention was turned towards E.
65 Those complainants who read their statements out in court understandably demonstrated the deepest distress. Overall, the victim impact statements made for the most distressing and heart rending reading. Unsurprisingly, you have wreaked havoc in the lives of those little girls whom you exploited, who were dependent upon you, who were children, who were living in your home and who were part of your family. You robbed each of the children you sexually abused of their innocence, their childhood and their trust of the world they lived in. Each, by virtue of their age and relationship with you, felt unable to tell anyone about the abuse they suffered. A passage from B's victim impact statement gives a shattering insight into the emotional turmoil experienced by these young victims of sexual abuse.
66 She stated, "You know when you're a kid and a family member is touching you and you believe that he has done it because of something you have done. You learn real quick to blame yourself for everything. You lose the ability to trust. You learn to do everything, anything to please everyone. You also learn to hide everything that happens along the way because you always keep finding reasons to blame yourself. I must have looked at him in a certain way. I must have smiled when you know you are crying but I must have smiled at him. I must have asked him in some way to come and touch me, and it just goes on and on and the more it happens the better you become at hiding it".
67 By the time she was 15 B had already tried to kill herself twice. All complainants went on to develop significant difficulties in relationships with men, based on fear and mistrust, aversion to sexual relationships, and those that then had children became hyper-vigilant and over protective. They mourn in their victim impact statements the effect this had on their children, who were not allowed to have sleepovers with other children, who were subjected to anxious mothers, terrified of a repetition of the sexual abuse you inflicted upon them and who felt compelled to curtail their children's normal childhood activities because of the terrible fears they harboured.
68 There is also a devastating flow on effect in that your sexual abuse of these little girls caused major and longstanding interruption with their own families and extended families. A stated that because you were in the family and some of her siblings did not know what you had done and were friends with you, that meant she did not want to have anything to do with you so that it was "best to stay away from everyone so I did pretty much", and this went on for many years.
69 In particular, A mourns over the lost relationship with her sister, B, "to whom in the real world I should have been very close with and wasn't. I should have been there for and I wasn't". She says, "I've only had a relationship with B since 2010 and realised what I missed out on. What saddens me is I am 58 now and have only just got to know, and am getting to know, my precious sister, B. I missed out on her life and children and I'm sure her with mine".
70 You continue to be supported by one of your daughters and this, of course, has had a terrible effect on C and her relationship with her own siblings. As a result of your criminal behaviour she was denied a true relationship with her aunts, A and B. She remains angry, as so many victims of sexual abuse do, with her mother, who failed to protect her. The fact that these deeply wronged women have managed to come together and forge a relationship against a background of such misery and betrayal, is an extraordinary credit to them all.
71 The victim impact statement of E was an extraordinary document compiled by a woman who, of course, continues to struggle with the utter sexual exploitation she suffered at your hands for so many years, with enormous courage. She stated, "I have come to accept my childhood as a very long, painful chapter of my life, which has provided me with the potential for my own healing, self development and capacity to have compassion and empathy to assist the healing of others on their own personal journey". She correctly states, "I was used like a piece of meat to his perverse sexual needs". E continues to have involuntary, traumatic memories and flashbacks on a constant basis which, as she states, "evokes physical sensations with the emotion and force of the original experience. It feels like it's occurring in the present moment. This can send me into hyper-vigilance and overwhelming distress. This can be triggered when I encounter situations, words, sights, smells, sounds, objects or experiences which are connected to my childhood abuse. These intense feelings of violation, guilt, shame, grief, anger and powerlessness can make my day life unpredictable and exhausting". She continues with the utmost courage, the ongoing therapy and counselling that she requires.
72 Each of your victims went on to develop troubled relationships with men. E says she cannot have relationships with men. The same applies to her sister, D, now 28, who, in her victim impact statement, which was tendered at a later stage, talks of the fact that she has no self-esteem, depression, anxiety, and does not trust any males, does not like going out as she gets nervous, "and think everyone is looking at me".
73 Heartbreakingly, she writes, "I used tattoos to make me look ugly, as he hated tattoos. I feel terrible that I didn't stand up for my sister, E, as a younger person. I didn't want to be taken away from my mum, as she was the only mum that I knew".
74 A wrote of her enormous difficulties sexually and emotionally with men over the years, particularly in her adolescence. B has endured two unsuccessful marriages which she, in my view, quite correctly attributes to the enormous damage wreaked on her by you when she was a child.
75 All your victims continue to suffer hyper-vigilance. C wrote particularly movingly about this, speaking of the grief she feels over the effect this had on her children who, as I have said, were curtailed in their day to day activity by the entirely understandable over protection felt and practised by C and the other victims who are now mothers. There are continuing problems of grief, of trauma, of anxiety, of depression, of fear and anger that bedevil them to this very day.
76 F, whom I have no doubt you regarded as some sort of family member because of the relationship she had with D, and hence a fitting subject for your unwanted sexual advances, also suffered greatly, longing to be, and then feeling as if she was part, of D's family, feeling beholden to you financially and emotionally, and in that context having to endure sexual abuse at your hands. The material, in my view, reveals almost an anger by you at the notion that she might not submit to your desires. You have wreaked incalculable damage on the lives of these little girls and young women upon whom you sexually preyed. You have drastically affected and reduced the quality of their lives, and this has had a flow on effect to their own partners and children.
77 The case against you was, in my view, an overwhelming one. In the face of it you have not shown one shred of remorse. Each of your victims has been subjected to cross-examination at both committal and trial. Each has had to relive the trauma of their childhood abuse and you continue to deny what you have done.
78 The prosecution correctly, in my view, described your offending as predatory, brazen, persistent, opportunistic and longstanding. It has also had an effect on your former wife, who writes in her victim impact statement, that as a result of your revelations she lost “everything”. She states, "Since then I have lost my home, my family and my confidence. I have anxiety, depression and don't want to keep going. He has stolen my life. I love my children, my foster children and also my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, my siblings, my mother-in-law. I have lost everything. My home, my independence, my trust in men". She also states, "I have no one to visit me because they are all angry with me. I feel so bad for them all. I love them and I will never forgive him for what he has done to them".
79 The prosecution also correctly described your offending as a fundamental and serious breach of trust within familial relationship which has caused significant serious consequences and harm to your victims. By the time you came to sexually abuse F I am satisfied the material shows you seem to have developed some sense of right to do as you did, hence the angry response described by her to her protests and rebuffs.
80 In my view, in the face of this wholesale exploitation of young female members of your immediate and extended family, and I include F to that, to some extent your previous good history and professional reputation are of negligible weight.
81 Insofar as the range, the situations attached to childhood sexual abuse are concerned, I regard your case as falling into a most serious category by virtue of the number of complainants, their age, their relationships to you, the breach of trust, the exploitation and the extended period of time over which this appalling offending continued. In my view, principles of general deterrence, denunciation of your conduct, which can only be described as monstrous, and just punishment, utterly dominate the sentencing exercise before me. In sentencing you I do take into account your age and health problems that have been outlined to me by your counsel in her most capable plea, including the prospect that you may not live to serve your sentence.
82 I therefore sentence you as follows. Could you stand up, please. Charge 1, you are sentenced to eight months' imprisonment; Charge 2, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 3, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 4, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 5, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 6, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 7, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 8, 14 months' imprisonment; Charge 9, 14 months' imprisonment; Charge 13, six months' imprisonment; Charge 15, six months' imprisonment; Charge 16, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 17, 10 months' imprisonment; Charge 18, 10 months' imprisonment; Charge 19, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 20, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 21, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 22, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 23, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 24, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 25, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 26, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 27, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 18, 18 months' imprisonment; Charge 29, two years' imprisonment; Charge 30, 20 months' imprisonment; Charge 31, 20 months' imprisonment; Charge 32, 20 months' imprisonment; Charge 33, 20 months' imprisonment; Charge 34, 12 months' imprisonment; Charge 35, four months' imprisonment; Charge 36, eight months' imprisonment; Charge 37, six months' imprisonment.
83 The sentencing will be cumulated as follows:
84 The base sentence will be the sentence imposed on Charge 29, two years. In relation to Charge 1, I order that three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 1, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2, five months of the sentence imposed on Charge 3, five months of the sentence imposed on Charge 4, five months of the sentence imposed on Charge 5, five months of the sentence imposed on Charge 6, five months of the sentence imposed on Charge 7, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 8, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 9, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 13, one month of the sentence imposed on Charge 15, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 16, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 17, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 18, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 19, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 20, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 21, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 22, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 23, three months of the sentence imposed on Charge 24, six months of the sentence imposed on charge 25, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 26, four months of the sentence imposed on Charge 27, six months of the sentence imposed on Charge 28, eight months of the sentence imposed on Charges 30, 31, 32, 33 and 34, one month of the sentence imposed on Charge 35, two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 36 and one month of the sentence imposed on Charge 37 be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed on Charge 29, giving a total effective sentence in relation to that indictment of 14 years and two months.
85 In relation to the second indictment I order that you be sentenced to 10 months on each charge and order that five months in relation to each of those charges be served - I have to do it separately I beg your pardon. I sentence you to 10 months in relation to each of Charges 1 and 2 on the indictment involving F. I order that two months of the sentence imposed on Charge 2 be served cumulatively. I need your assistance here. I want to add 10 months of that sentence to the 14 years and two months.
86 MR STOUGIANNOS: Your Honour ought to stage the sentences for the individual counts and just accumulate what you want to accumulate.
87 HER HONOUR: Do I need to cumulate them as per the indictment?
88 MR STOUGIANNOS: Your Honour can say in relation to the second indictment 10 months on each count.
89 HER HONOUR: Yes.
90 MR STOUGIANNOS: And you will make an order that so many months, five months per count be cumulated with the sentence for the other indictment.
91 HER HONOUR: That's the way I will do it.
92 You are sentenced to 10 months on each of the charges contained in the second indictment. Five months on each of those charges will be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed in Indictment - so that a total of five months of each of the imposed in relation to each of the charges on Indictment B11594066.3B will be served cumulatively to the sentence imposed in Indictment B11594006.4A, giving a total effective sentence of 15 years' imprisonment.
93 I order that you serve 12 years before becoming eligible for parole.
94 Pursuant to s.6AAA I declare that had you not pleaded guilty in relation to the charges contained in Indictment B11594066.3B, I would have sentenced you to a term of imprisonment of 15 months in relation to each of those charges and ordered that a total of 15 months from that indictment be served cumulatively to the sentence I have imposed in relation to Indictment B11594066.4A.
95 Have a seat, please.
96 MR STOUGIANNOS: Your Honour is required to state whether you are sentencing Mr Wright as a serious sex offender. I think I indicated once you've sentenced him to gaol for the first two counts, what then follows is the serious sex offence provisions apply.
97 HER HONOUR: Yes. I declare that from Charges 3 onwards, and on Indictment B1194066.4A and for the two offences contained in B11594066.3B, I sentence you as a serious sexual offender. I note that the prosecution does not, however, require that I sentence you in a way which disregards the principles of totality.
98 MR STOUGIANNOS: Yes, thank you, Your Honour. There's also the Sex Offender Registration order.
99 HER HONOUR: You will be placed on the Sex Offender Register, the provisions of which will be explained to you by your counsel, for life.
100 MR STOUGIANNOS: And the final order, there was an application for a forensic sample, I think that wasn't opposed on the last occasion, Your Honour.
101 HER HONOUR: Yes. I order that you undergo a forensic procedure, which will be the swabbing of your mouth for saliva. I need to tell you that if you refuse to allow such a sample to be given, police may use reasonable force in order to obtain it. Have a seat, thank you.
102 MR STOUGIANNOS: The other matter, Your Honour, that arises is the PSD. On the last occasion that was 136 days. That was up till 4 August, so we've got another 11 days, so it should be 147 days have already been served.
103 HER HONOUR: Does that include today?
104 MR STOUGIANNOS: Yes.
105 HER HONOUR: I declare that 147 days have already been served by way of presentence detention. Yes, thank you. Take the prisoner down, please. I would ask counsel to check my maths. Never my strongpoint. I think it is right. A calculator may be needed. If there's any problems, please let me know immediately. Thank you very much.
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