Suffering of Sex Abuse Victims Won’t End after Paedophile Dies

By Patrick Billings
The Mercury
July 19, 2016

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/scales-of-justice/suffering-of-sex-abuse-victims-wont-end-after-paedophile-dies/news-story/f794874b66d18abf4bd28dbbff4c9527

ONE of Tasmania’s most notorious paedophiles has died in Tanzania but the suffering of his many victims will never end, abuse advocates say.

Paul Ronald Goldsmith was jailed for abusing 20 teenage boys and fled to Africa after his release from prison in 2010.

It is not clear how he died. Consular staff said Goldsmith was “sick” while an unconfirmed report suggested he died from complications from a broken leg two months ago.

Beyond Abuse spokesman Steve Fisher said the 71-year-old left a trail of destroyed lives.

“I hope Goldsmith suffered as much as his victims,’’ Mr Fisher said.

“They are still suffering. It will never end for them.”

Hobart-born Goldsmith trained as a Catholic priest and, despite never being ordained, had a long association with the church.

He began a decade-long campaign of sexual abuse in 1974 while coaching athletics at Marist Regional College in Burnie.

He prayed with his victims before violating them and played strip poker with boys as young as 13.

Goldsmith retired in 2000 a stalwart of the community, a senior figure in the Lions club and a national executive of the Life Underwriters Association.

The false veneer might have persisted if not for the brave victims who came forward decades later.

A lack of evidence frustrated early attempts to bring him to justice but a hotline set up by Beyond Abuse helped with a prosecution.

“Once we went to Richard McCreadie, the police commissioner, he had two detectives working full time on it,’’ Mr Fisher said.

“These detectives were nothing short of brilliant.’’

In 2004, the detectives nabbed Goldsmith in Perth as he was about to leave for Tanzania. Extradited home, he faced 62 charges including the use of drugs to facilitate his crimes and possessing child pornography but those charges were dropped when he changed his plea to guilty on 42 sexual assaults.

Goldsmith’s lawyer held up his client’s good standing and charitable deeds but Justice Peter Evans deemed his good repute had “exacerbated the harm you caused”.

Jailed for six and a half years, Goldsmith launched an unsuccessful appeal in 2006. In 2012 after he was released from jail — where he was learning Swahili — Goldsmith fled to Tanzania, sparking concerns for potential victims and outrage from survivor groups.

The then Hobart Archbishop Adrian Doyle took the unusual step of alerting Tanzanian bishops.

Yesterday, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed an “Australian man” had died in Tanzania in May.