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	Jail for Former Meredith Priest The Courier November 4, 2008 http://www.thecourier.com.au/news/local/news/general/jail-for-former-meredith-priest/1351783.aspx FORMER Meredith priest Edmund John Haines has been jailed for four years and three months on child sex and child pornography charges. Haines will spend a minimum two years and six months behind bars before being eligible for parole. Handing down sentence in Geelong County Court yesterday, Judge Geoffrey Chettle spoke of the effect Haines' offending had on the young victim and his family. "In a victim impact statement, the boy's parents spoke of the horror of finding their son had set up a noose in preparation to hang himself over your crimes," Judge Chettle said. Haines, 62, pleaded guilty last month to multiple charges of indecent acts with a child under 16, one count of an indecent act with a child under 16/17, procuring a minor for child pornography, making and producing child pornography and possessing child pornography. Judge Chettle said the charges were representative counts only and that the offending occurred on a multitude of occasions over a two year period. He said Haines became Meredith's parish priest in 1996 and although residing at the presbytery, he also owned a house in the Geelong suburb of Hamlyn Heights. Judge Chettle said Haines became good friends with the victim's family and was welcomed into their home. "From early 2006 you began to show an increased interest in the victim," he said. "You would buy gifts for him and forcibly hug and kiss him in return for those gifts." The judge said Haines used his mobile phone to take photos of the victim naked and hassled the boy to provide topless images of himself. "On one occasion you put your hands down the front of the victim's pants and touched his penis," he said. "When he resisted you told him that you loved him and that you loved his body. "You also put your hand down the back of his pants and touched his buttocks." Judge Chettle said Haines told the boy to masturbate while Haines captured images of the act on his mobile phone. "At your Hamlyn Heights house you insisted that he take part in a pornographic video," Judge Chettle said. Judge Chettle said the pornographic images were discovered when Haines gave his mobile phone to another young boy. Haines was convicted and sentenced as a serious sexual offender to a total of four years and three months jail with a non parole period of two years, six months.
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