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A Filipino immigrant paedophile has been jailed for repeatedly raping a seven-year-old girl in the loungeroom of his wife’s home-based daycare business in Point Cook, Melbourne.
The now-50-year-old, who came to Australia with his wife in 2002 and cannot be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of two charges of sexual penetration of a child under 12 in February, and was sentenced to 15.5 years’ jail with a nine year and nine month non-parole period in the County Court of Victoria in June.
The victim was once the man’s goddaughter and regularly attended the family daycare business, which was run out of the man’s home where he lived with his wife, his daughter and his mother-in-law, sometimes staying overnight.
The jury found that the paedophile vaginally and anally raped the young girl multiple times in 2021 and 2022, and made her believe that his wife knew what was going on as the assaults were committed in front of a camera attached to her computer.
The horrific attacks were discovered when the girl complained to her older sister about genital pain, and was taken to hospital and interviewed by police. She told police he would ask “if she liked it” and had a “weird smile”.
In her sentencing decision, which was published this week, Judge Robyn Harper described the man’s offending as “abhorrent … humiliating, demeaning and objectifying”.
“You breached the trust of your victim and her family and led her to believe your wife knew of the offending so it was alright. Your offending was opportunistic, committed on occasions where your wife was not in the vicinity,” she said.
She noted that the victim now suffers from nightmares, is afraid of the dark and has difficulties at school, and insists on having a camera in her room for safety, and did not read the girl’s victim impact statement to the court but stated the impact of the offending was “ongoing”.
But Judge Harper also took a bundle of character references and his previous good character into account in sentencing, noted he had been attacked in jail and was now in protective custody, and spoke positively about rehabilitation.
“While I have not received a professional risk assessment as to your risk of recidivism, I do consider your prospects of rehabilitation to be good. You will spend a significant period of time in custody and will be required to do a sex offenders treatment program,” she said.
She determined that the offences fell within the mid to high range of seriousness for their type, and said that although each charge carried a standard sentence of 10 years’ jail she imposed partially concurrent sentences as the offending was “similar in nature”.
The family daycare business has been banned from operating, and it is not known whether the paedophile had a Working With Children Check.
The court heard that the sex predator worked as a laboratory assistant in a paint company in the Philippines before moving to Australia, and then worked as a personal care assistant and a nurse before injuring his back and getting a lab job at agricultural chemical company Nufarm.
Header image: County Court of Victoria (By Canley – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link).
