AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
June 8, 2018
By Joanna Menagh
A man who ran a hostel in Perth for wards of the state has been sentenced to 20 years’ jail for what a judge described as the sadistic, perverse and persistent sexual abuse of eight children for whom he was supposed to be caring.
Martin James Cooper, 66, was found guilty last month of 30 child sex offences dating back to between 1978 and 1983 when he and his wife ran the Warminda hostel in East Victoria Park.
Cooper was found to have repeatedly physically and sexually abused the eight children, including raping three girls who were aged between 11 and 16.
Warminda was owned by the government but operated by the Uniting Church, and housed children who had been taken from their families because they could not, or would not, look after them properly.
Each of the children had government-appointed welfare officers and some of them testified at Cooper’s trial that they had tried to tell these authorities, and others including the police, what was happening.
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