The court heard the man inappropriately touched and exposed himself to his partner’s children within a four year period. 

Crown prosecutor Edward Coker labelled the defendant’s crimes as “blatant and, at times, bold offending” and Judge Terry Martin said they had been “an enormous breach of trust”. 

“In my view given the persistence of the offending and that offending ceased with the complaints made and police intervention, you should not be released from prison until the completion of (the sex offender’s) program,” Judge Martin said to the defendant while passing sentence.

The defendant, who will not be identified due to risk of identifying the children, had served almost 10 months in custody. 

He had been given 11 separate prison sentences for unlawful and indecent dealings with children under 16, but all to be served at the same time within the longest sentence period of 2.5 years. The eligibility date for parole was June 3.  

The defendant had a criminal history of violence and had been jailed, but there was no history of sexual offences. The judge recognised the early pleas of guilt submitted by the defendant which saved child victims the ordeal of having to give further evidence.

But the defendant had been uncooperative with investigating police by refusing to be part of recorded interviews. 

“I don’t know if the pleas of guilt reflect remorse,” Judge Martin said.

“There were no expressions of remorse.” 

Barrister Claire Grant said the circumstances  in proportion to the defendant’s charges were “low level conduct on most of the occasions”. 

For most charges there was “no actual skin on skin touching”, she said. 

“The aggravating features were the number of complainants and age,” Ms Grant said.