Australian Child Rapist Jailed For 26 Years

A 58-year-old Australian, condemned as a most unregenerate rapist, has been jailed for 26 years. The sentence is also the highest for child-sex-offenders in the history of Victoria. Dennis Alfred Goudge pleaded guilty to 58 charges involving the sexual abuse of 18 children aged between three and 16 between 1970 and 1994. Some were girls and some boys.

Eight counts of rape; 19 counts of sexual penetration of a child under 10; 20 counts of indecent assault; six charges of sexual penetration of a child under 16; one count of unlawful assault of a girl; two counts of procuring a child for sexual penetration; and two counts of carnal knowledge, with one relating to a girl under the age of 10, it makes a ghastly reading. 

Many of the incidents occurred in a backyard shed on his family farm.

A 14-year-old intellectually disabled girl was impregnated by Goudge in 1985 following seven years of sexual abuse.

He later married the girl when she fell pregnant a second time at age 18, the Victorian County Court heard.

They then had a further two children.

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"Over the twenty five year period of his offending, Goudge continually placed himself in a position of trust with people who had children.He was able to lure the children away from their parents under guises such as listening to music, playing common children's games, photographic portraiture of children, or providing singing, music or driving lessons,” Crown prosecutor Kieran Gilligan said.

Goudge told one of his victims she would get into trouble, and threatened to come back and shoot her family if she told anyone.

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On another occasion, he sexually assaulted a girl as she slept and later told her to keep it a secret because ``we don't want anybody to think you're a dirty little girl".

Goudge sexually assaulted another victim while saying: "I want you to enjoy your birthday present."

Judge James Montgomery said Goudge's crimes involved a gross breach of trust and he had shown no remorse.

And his victims were extremely vulnerable and deserved a level of love and protection that he had breached.

"Your behaviour, because it involved serious and sustained offending ... warrants its place in the category of the worst type of offending," Judge Montgomery said.

"The misery and profound trauma you have caused the victims is objectively appalling and evil."

Goudge was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years before being eligible for parole. Goudge didnt seem to wince when the judgement was pronounced.

The state's longest sentence for child-sex offences was imposed earlier this year by Justice Paul Coughlan, who jailed Colin Harold Doo for 25 years and seven months.

Source-Medindia