Australian child rapist jailed for 26 years

SYDNEY - A 58-year-old Australian man has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for sexually assaulting 18 children in 25 years, a media report said Thursday.

Dennis Alfred Goudge, formerly of Bendigo, had shown no remorse or insight into his offending, the Victorian County Court heard, the Age reported on its website.

The 26-year sentence imposed by Judge James Montgomery is the highest for child-sex offences in the state’s history.

Judge Montgomery said Goudge’s victims were extremely vulnerable and deserved a level of love and protection that he had breached.

Goudge, who pleaded guilty to 58 offences, including 28 of indecent assault and six of sexual penetration of a child under 10, maintains his innocence.

He told a psychiatrist that he had been persuaded to plead guilty and should not have done so.

“Your behaviour, because it involved serious and sustained offending … warrants its place in the category of the worst type of offending,” Judge Montgomery said.

“The misery and profound trauma you have caused the victims is objectively appalling and evil.”

The offending took place in Bendigo and central Victoria between 1970 and 1994 at various locations, including Goudge’s family farm north of Bendigo.

Two of his victims bore his children.

Goudge was ordered to serve a minimum of 22 years before being eligible for parole.

The state’s longest sentence for child-sex offences was imposed earlier this year by Justice Paul Coughlan, who jailed Colin Harold Doo for 25 years and seven months.