AUSTRALIA
The Age
October 17, 2013
Adam Cooper
Reporter for The Age
Former priest David Rapson will spend at least a decade in prison for the predatory sexual abuse of eight boys at a Victorian Catholic boarding school between the mid 1970s and 1990.
Rapson, 60, was found guilty in August of five charges of rape and eight counts of indecent assault and on Thursday was sentenced to 13 years in jail by County Court judge Liz Gaynor, who said he had preyed on and sadistically abused boys as young as 12.
“These were dreadful crimes against powerless and vulnerable victims who were entirely in your power as residents of the school, and by virtue of the enormous authority and stature granted to Catholic priests by Catholic congregations and by the parents who had unwittingly placed their sons in your entirely predatory hands,” she said.
Judge Gaynor said Rapson’s abuse had ruined lives, and while a jail sentence might bring some victims comfort, it would not end some of their “torturous” suffering.
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