How Could You? Hall of Shame-Australia-Foster Teen

This will be an archive of heinous actions by those involved in child welfare, foster care and adoption. We forewarn you that these are deeply disturbing stories that may involve sex abuse, murder, kidnapping and other horrendous actions.

From Victoria, Australia, foster father,51, “a married father of two young children, was found guilty by a jury of six counts of sexual penetration of a child under 16, and five counts of committing an indecent act with or in the presence of a child under 16.”

“Having preyed on a young girl from the age of 13 when she was living in foster care, a man told his victim years later during a secretly recorded phone conversation: ‘‘I’ve been worried for many years about bloody cops knocking on my door’’.

‘‘You told (the victim) that you had thought of the activity as consenting, as fun or a fun thing,’’ County Court Judge Felicity Hampel told the man when jailing him for six-and-a-half-years with a non-parole period of four years.

‘‘You told her you had feelings for her, affection and sexual.

‘‘You told her you thought that she was looking for love.

When she asked what it was for you, you said affection, a sexual thing, teaching her, and the danger.

‘‘You apologised to (the victim) for having caused her … pain and distress.’’

The judge said when police played him the secretly recorded phone conversation where he admitted sexually abusing the victim, he was visibly shocked but tried to downplay his actions.

Judge Hampel said the victim had been under the guardianship of the Department of Human Services since her early childhood before she was removed from the home of her aunt in early 1995.

Some months later, in May 1995, at about the time that she turned 13, she was placed with foster parents in a family group home.

She remained in that home with her foster parents, their own children and three other foster children, until her guardianship expired when she turned 18.

The offender came into contact with the victim when his wife was hired to provide respite care for the girl and the other three foster children.

When the foster parents went on holidays, the man, his wife and two sons would move into the family group home which was where the sexual abuse began.

The victim went to the police to complain in October 2012 when she was 30 and the man was arrested.

‘‘Towards the end of your police interview, you were asked what the family group home rules were in relation to sexual activity with children in care. You said,  ‘It’s moral rules, it’s general rules, you just don’t. It doesn’t happen. We were there to help and protect them, not to do what I did.’’’

The judge accepted the victim’s evidence that the man told her during the abuse that no-one would believe her if she revealed what he had done and she would be removed from the family group home and the care of her foster parents.

‘‘I also accept her evidence that she had or believed she had, for the first time in her life a safe haven when she was fostered and placed in that family group home, that she came to love and trust her foster parents and wanted very much to be and remain part of that family.

‘‘That was a much greater thing for her because of the disadvantage and deprivation that she had suffered in her earlier childhood.

‘‘Whether you had feelings of love for this child as she then was, as you told her, or whether, as you told the police, it was just lust or a fun thing, is not to the point.  You took gross advantage of a vulnerable child and you used her for your own selfish sexual pleasure.’’”

Man jailed for abusing girl while she was in foster care[The Age 7/11/14 by Mark Russell]

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