A depraved homosexual paedophile couple have both had their jail sentences reduced in a Victorian court, and one could now spend just five and a half years behind bars.
Benjamin Heels, 36 who was a music teacher at Fountain Gate Secondary College in Melbourne and a private tutor, and his sex partner Tristan Cullinan-Smayle, a chef, pleaded guilty to 51 sex offences in the County Court of Victoria in March 2023, and were jailed for 11 years and 10 years respectively.
Both were aged 32 and had valid Working With Children checks at the time of their offending, were part of the performing arts scene in Melbourne’s southeast, committed many of their crimes together including fantasising about raping Heels’ students, and after their arrests were given a shared jail cell.
Heels, who pleaded guilty to 28 charges including multiple counts of sexual assault of a child under 16, sexual activity in the presence of a child under 16 and transmitting child abuse material, was given a non-parole period of seven years and three months.
Cullinan-Smayle was given a non-parole period of six years and seven months for 23 offences including procuring a child for sexual activity and transmitting child abuse material.
In June 2024 Heels successfully appealed his sentence, getting it reduced to eight years with 5.5-year non-parole period after arguing it was “manifestly excessive”.
And in May this year Cullinan-Smayle won his own appeal after successfully arguing that his sentence was also manifestly excessive and that there was now a lack of parity with Heels’ jail term, and was re-sentenced to nine years’ jail with a six-year non-parole period.
The Court of Appeal judges noted that Cullinan-Smayle would serve a longer non-parole period than Heels even though only the music teacher was found guilty of sexually assaulting children.
However, they found Cullinan-Smayle’s offending on the child abuse material charges was “significantly graver” than Heels’, and that he was the instigator of the crimes.
Heels also made “full and candid admissions to the police” whereas Cullinan-Smayle did not.
The original sentencing judge described the couple’s offending as “seriously depraved” and noted that their child abuse material was of the worst kind and included victims aged as young as two months old.
Both Heels and Cullinan-Smyth have been in jail since their arrests in May 2021 and will be on the sex offenders registry for the rest of their lives.
Header image: Left, Tristan Cullinan-Smayle and Benjamin Heels. Right, Benjamin Heels (Facebook).
