What these sexual offenders have in common

EXCLUSIVE

A former champion water polo player who raped a woman in his Mosman apartment has dodged jail time after Judge John North noted the sex offender’s glowing family references and elite swimming career – having previously made the state Under 18 national water polo team.

In 2022, Boyd Kramer was sentenced to just 300 hours of community service for the rape of Madeline Lane, a decision which the victim described as “sickening and devastating”.

The case has sparked controversy, even earning comparisons with Stanford University’s Brock Turner, owing to the fact that both judges gave lenient sentences to the privileged young men who came from wealthy families and had elite swimming careers.

In 2016, Brock Turner sexually assaulted an unconscious woman, Chanel Miller, behind a dumpster on Stanford University campus. The case received international attention, after Turner was given just six months jail, eventually serving only three.

“My rapist didn’t even get one hour in jail,” says Madeline Lane, following a jury verdict of guilt in 2022.

Sign the petition and #TakeTheStand with us

“They say rape is one of the most heinous crimes, after murder. I will never understand how Judge John North could decide that community service was a fair sentence, as though that is all my body and soul is worth.”

Now, news.com.au can reveal that this is not the first time Judge North has attracted controversy over his lenient sentencing of a convicted sex offender.

A deep dive investigation as part of news.com.au’s exclusive Take The Stand campaign has also unearthed other soft sentences, all involving offenders who targeted children for sexual purposes.

The Dubbo case

In 2017, Judge North made front page news after he allowed a convicted pedophile, who raped and abused little girls in Dubbo, to walk free from the District Court without serving a single day in jail.

The pedophile – who cannot be named after Judge North extended him a special protection over his identity – had been head of a religious cult when he began attacking two girls, aged eight and ten, during the 1980s.

The 55-year-old pleaded guilty to 10 counts of child sexual abuse which occurred between 1980 and 1987.

In one case, when the victim was nine, the cult leader forced her to perform oral sex. He also raped the same victim at an orchard when she was 14.

Another victim was just 11 when the pedophile started taking her into a back room at his church to abuse her.

He was facing up to 54 years jail, but at sentencing in November 2017, Judge North gave a fully suspended sentence and good behaviour bond.

Judge North offered a series of bizarre reasons for his leniency, including that the rapist had high cholesterol, poor sleep patterns, type two diabetes and a farm which had experienced drought in 2012.

Judge North said the man was also entitled to “a discount” because the rapist was “sexually inexperienced” at the time of his attacks and, due to his conservative upbringing in the church, had not received sexual education classes in school.

He said the pedophile led “an exemplary life” after the years he spent abusing children and was entitled to a discount based on “good character”.

One of the victims, Louise Gass, told news.com.au that she feels that justice wasn’t served.

“The initial case took four years in court and they decided not to jail him. To have it so he can’t even be named is heartbreaking. This man has ruined my life and he completely gets away with it,” Ms Gass said.

The protective shield on the man’s identity was granted by Judge North after his lawyer claimed that media coverage would be “embarrassing” for the pedophile.

“I truly feel from my heart that they have failed me and that the system is protecting a pedophile,” Ms Gass said.

Another of his victims, Leanne Watson, said the sentence was a “slap in the face”.

“I want to speak out to warn others. I’m very concerned he is still accessing children in the church,” Ms Watson said.

She was just eight when the abuse started.

“There are other victims and they need to know about this case,” she said.

The church cannot be named because the non-publication order on the perpetrator’s name extends to any information that could identify him.

It is understood that since pleading guilty, the offender has continued to attend the same church where he abused young girls, along with conferences attended by hundreds of children.

Shortly after journalist Annabel Hennessy first broke the story in 2017, a third victim came forward.

That woman said she was sexually assaulted by the Dubbo offender over a three-year period, starting when she was 12 years old in 1987.

2GB host Ray Hadley lent public support to the victims and the case prompted the then NSW Attorney-General Mark Speakman to ban suspended sentences for convicted child sex offenders in NSW.

“The whole of Australia wants him to be named and shamed,” said survivor Ms Gass.

“I’m not embarrassed about what happened to me and have spoken out not just for myself but for all victims of sex abuse.”

Jay Anthony Beaton

In September 2023, Judge North agreed to quash the jail sentence of a man who had previously been ordered to spend 18 months behind bars for possession of 32 child abuse images and videos.

In July 2023, Magistrate Hugh Donnelly sentenced Jay Anthony Beaton, 21, to serve 18 months imprisonment with a non-parole period of 12 months, after Beaton was found with child abuse material and prohibited drugs at his mum’s home in Menai.

A police search warrant turned up 32 images and videos of adults raping children aged between five and 10, young girls with their genitalia exposed, and one video depicting bestiality involving a girl no older than 10.

Magistrate Donnelly said the categorisation of the images was “the worst of the worst”, and that there were 32 living victims, with actual children used in the production of the images and videos.

After pleading guilty to possessing the images and videos, Beaton, a former data administrator, then appealed the severity of the sentence.

Two months later, Judge North overturned the original sentence, agreeing to quash Beaton’s jail term and place him on a community-based order instead.

In reaching his decision, Judge North took into account factors including the 67 days Beaton served in custody, his age, chances of rehabilitation and “good character”, the lack of sophistication of the offending, Beaton’s loss of a job, friends, and the fact Beaton suffered from mental health issues including major depressive disorder and had engaged in counselling.

Eric Wong

In December 2022, Sydney high school teacher Eric Wong was led away in handcuffs after police uncovered 300 secretly recorded photos of female students, shot down their uniform blouses, or showing their buttocks, groin or breasts.

Officers also found 90 video recordings taken over two years on Wong’s personal computers that depicted the teacher approaching female students at Cammeraygal High School, often during science class.

“The accused walks up next to or behind the female student and whilst talking to them or observing them undertaking their science experiment the accused discreetly positions his mobile phone in position to film private parts (buttocks, anus, groin) underneath the female student’s pleated school dress,” the police facts said.

“In some video files, the accused can be seen talking to the female victims and then glance towards his mobile phone, the mobile phone is then repositioned making sure he is capturing the stated areas of the female body.”

In July 2023 in local court, Wong was sentenced to 14 months in jail with a six-month non-parole period. Magistrate Alexander Mijovich said the court was satisfied imprisonment was the only suitable punishment, and that “the threshold (for imprisonment) is well and truly crossed”.

“You abused a position of trust and authority of multiple victims,” he told Wong, adding that his actions required “a degree of planning”.

“As a teacher, you were taking photos of parts of their bodies close to them, under their dresses,” Magistrate Mijovich said.

“These occurred in the confines of a school, where the victims and families are entitled to feel safe from any predatory or other behaviour.”

But just hours later, Wong’s lawyer launched an appeal against the severity of his sentence and argued he should be able to serve his term out of prison due to his autism.

The appeal was heard by District Judge John North in September, who agreed to quash the jail sentence. Judge North then ordered him to serve a two-year intensive corrections order in the community, and the former teacher was released from custody.

Judge North described him as being of “exemplary character” prior to the offending, but conceded that using a camera to look up students’ dresses “must still rankle with those people who were affected by this”.

Joshua Daniel Perestrelo

In 2020, a Sydney rugby league coach who was facing up to 15 years behind bars for soliciting child abuse material, was able to dodge a jail call, despite pleading guilty to that and other crimes, including sending sexually explicit messages over social media to players aged as young as 13.

The offending occurred in April 2019 when Joshua Daniel Perestrelo was 25 and working at a Sydney rugby league club.

He targeted four young teen boys, urging them to send masturbation videos and asking seedy questions about sex, masturbation and penis measurements.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of using a carriage service to send indecent material, and using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material.

The prosecution pushed for a jail sentence saying it was “appropriate and expected” for offending of this type.

But District Court Judge John North disagreed with the prosecution, and gave a wholly suspended sentence telling the former coach he would have to be of good behaviour for three years.

Judge North said if Perestrelo saw a psychiatrist and took medication he was confident he would be of a low risk of reoffending.

He was ordered to pay $500.

Nina Funnell is Walkley Award winning journalist and the creator of the Take the Stand campaign run in exclusive partnership with news.com.au. Contact: ninafunnell@gmail.com