NSW: Dunn handed 30 years' jail for depravity against young boys

AAP General News (Australia)
12-07-2001
NSW: Dunn handed 30 years' jail for depravity against young boys

By Denise McNamara

SYDNEY, Dec 7 AAP - Australia's most notorious paedophile, Robert Dolly Dunn, felt
the full weight of the law today when a NSW judge handed the former fugitive a 30-year
jail term.

Dunn will be 79 years old before he faces the possibility of release after the judge,
setting a minimum 23-year sentence, declared him a risk to young boys until the day he
dies.

The former school teacher's "lust for children was so great he went to the trouble
of having a colleague video it", Judge Michael Finnane said during a marathon sitting
in the NSW District Court.

"I have little doubt he has convinced himself that he in fact was helping them and
was a sort of father figure to them," he said.

Dunn, who turns 61 next month, pleaded guilty to 24 counts of sexual misconduct against
eight boys, one just seven years old, over a 10-year period to 1995 and three counts of
supplying cannabis.

Dunn's two years as an international fugitive ended in a blaze of publicity in 1997
when a television crew cornered him in Honduras, Central America, from where he was extradited
to the US and later Australia.

His crimes were exposed in a similarly scandalous fashion when a video compiled from
250 tapes seized by police in his home was used as the main evidence against him in court.

The video showed Dunn luring boys with money and drugs to have anal and oral sex with
him and engage in lurid sex games.

The case was, according to Crown Prosecutor Margaret Cunneen, "as evil and reprehensible
a case of compulsive and predatory paedophilia as any of us is likely to see".

By his own account to psychologist Thomas Benjamin, he "didn't do harm, I never went
looking for those people. I gave them money in exchange for sexual favours".

He lacked any remorse or insight into the "depth of his depravity", the judge said.

He went on to reveal his preference for boys 13 to 15 years of age, comparing it to
that of the ancient Greeks.

Judge Finnane retorted: "What may have happened in 700BC and the Christian era seems
to me utterly irrelevant to what a grown man would be doing between 1985 and 1992.

"He, having been educated in the Catholic education system, taught in the Catholic
system, to claim he could justify what he was doing because the ancient Greeks - who were
pagans - did it, strikes me as utterly amazing."

Dunn showed no emotion on learning his fate but smiled at his barrister, Dr Marc Gumbert,
the third to represent him since June, after Dunn fired the others as he unsuccessfully
tried to change his plea.

Outside the court Dr Gumbert described the sentence as completely out of proportion
and indicated they would appeal.

The jail term is considerably longer than that meted out out to similarly notorious
paedophiles, including Philip Bell, sentenced to a minimum 14 years, and Michael Hill,
who was jailed for a minimum 16 years.

A Catholic brother, known only as AB, was recently jailed for a minimum 13 years on
57 charges against 15 victims.

AAP dmc/jjs/jnb/sb

KEYWORD: DUNN NIGHTLEAD

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