Ex-catholic Priest Adrian Van Klooster Jailed over Child Sex Abuse Drawings

By Tim Clarke
Western Australian
September 8, 2017

https://thewest.com.au/news/crime/ex-catholic-priest-adrian-van-klooster-jailed-over-child-sex-abuse-drawings-ng-b88593879z

Adrian Van Klooster.

A retired Catholic priest, with a past history of sex abuse against children, has been jailed for a year after disturbing illustrations of children being abused by adults and other children were found on a CD at his home.

Adrian Van Klooster, 75, was already a reportable sex offender and on the national paedophile register after being jailed for eight years in 2003 for the abuse of a group of children who were staying overnight at his parish house in Australind.

Today, in Perth’s District Court, he was returned to prison for another year after pleading guilty to possession of the child exploitation material discovered by police at his Maddington home last November.

The court was told that after failing to notify authorities about his internet use on a Twitter account – a condition of his reportable offender status – police raided his house, and found the CD.

On it were two detailed illustrated stories depicting incest and sexual abuse, which Van Klooster claimed he had downloaded to help him understand incest which had occurred in his own family as a child.

However, during sentencing Judge Bruce Goetze noted that the material had been downloaded two years previously, and indicated Van Klooster still had an “ongoing sexual interest in children”.

The court was also told about Van Klooster’s previous abuse of children, which occurred in at his church house in February 2002.

Dutch-born van Klooster, who had previously worked in NSW, was charged with 12 counts of indecently dealing with a child under 13, four of indecently recording a child under 13 and one of possessing child pornography.

The charges involved him sliding around on the floor naked with the children, in olive oil and shampoo, and taking photographs of the children.

He also took 37 images after placing the naked children on a photocopy machine.

He was jailed for a total of eight years.

The judge then said van Klooster was an alcoholic whose quest for intimacy had not been, and could not have been, fulfilled in the priesthood.

Today, Judge Goetze said that while having worked on his addiction at Alcoholics Anonymous, he still had “poor self management” and displayed “deviant sexual fantasies.”

He jailed van Klooster for 12 months, with eligibility for parole after six months.