More Jail Time for Vic Christian Brother

Sky News
September 18, 2015

http://www.skynews.com.au/news/national/2015/09/18/more-jail-time-for-vic-christian-brother.html

A Christian Brother who sexually abused 20 boys in his care will spend longer in prison after a Victorian court increased the sentence for one of his most terrible crimes.

Prosecutors appealed the maximum six-year jail sentence imposed on Edward 'Ted' Bales, who was to serve a minimum of three years after he pleaded guilty to 34 historical child sex abuse charges.

The Court of Appeal on Friday handed Bales a jail term of eight years and five months, with a non-parole period of five years and eight months, after finding he wasn't handed enough jail time for a 'brazen' indecent assault.

The assault of the 11-year-old boy in his own bed while his parents were home was close to the worst conceivable example of the offence, Crown prosecutor Gavin Silbert QC told the court earlier this month.

'The director was right to characterise this as a case which approached the worst example of the offence of indecent assault,' the court responded in its judgment on Friday.

'The brazen nature of the offending and the breach of trust which it involved was exemplified by the fact that the parents of the victim were in the home at the time.'

Bales was ordered to serve two years and six months prison, instead of 18 months, for that offence.

His defence barrister David Hallowes had argued the 18 months' jail imposed was well within range and said Bales had pleaded guilty at an early opportunity.

He said Bales hadn't offended since 1985, indicating his rehabilitation was complete.

Bales, formerly known as Edward Vernon Dowlan, changed his name to avoid the publicity of being associated with the convicted pedophiles he taught alongside at the St Alipius school in Ballarat.

The 65-year-old was jailed for historical child sex offences in the 1990s and his further jail term, increased by the court on Friday, was imposed in March after Bales pleaded guilty to another 34 charges for abuse in the 1970s and 1980s.

He has already served 344 days of his sentence.