Vic: Child molester priest gets suspended jail sentence

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-2003
Vic: Child molester priest gets suspended jail sentence

MELBOURNE, Dec 15 AAP - A Melbourne Catholic priest who pleaded guilty to indecently
assaulting a 15-year-old boy walked free today after being handed a two-year-eight-month
suspended jail sentence.

In sentencing Father John Barry Gwillim, 71, of Coburg, County Court Judge Fred Davey
told the defendant nothing would be gained by sending him to jail.

"There will be another sentence, that of a disgraced priest," Judge Davey said.

"The record of a disgraced priest will blot you from people's memory forever."

Gwillim, a priest of 40 years' standing, pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent
assault and four of gross indecency between October 1979 and February 1981.

He was first interviewed by police in 1992.

Judge Davey noted that Gwillim continued on friendly terms with his victim and, later
the man's children, long after the offences.

Gwillim usually spent Christmas with the man's family.

"It is obvious you were certainly held in very high esteem by many," Judge Davey said.

Gwillim, who was parish priest at St Peter's church in suburban Keilor East between
1979 and 1999, approached his 15-year-old schoolboy victim in the city while he was waiting
for a train in late 1979.

Gwillim did not tell the boy he was a priest and offered to drive him home.

He pulled over in a quiet street and asked the boy to be "nice" to him, directing him
to perform oral sex.

The court heard the sexual relationship continued, with Gwillim picking up the boy
after swimming lessons.

The pair would then perform mutual oral sex either in the car or at a motel.

Prosecutor Mihael Tinney said the schoolboy had a troubled home life and knew what
was happening was wrong, but regarded the sexual acts as a "small price to pay for friendship".

AAP ra/gfr/jv/jlw

KEYWORD: GWILLIM

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