A convicted child sex offender failed to have his prison sentence reduced and instead received more jail time while arguing he would suffer behind bars.
Former New South Wales Marist Brother Darcy John O’Sullivan, 80, was jailed for six years in 2016 for 22 historic child sex offences between 1971 and 1983.
O’Sullivan has always maintained that he is the true victim and told the court he feared for his safety in jail because he had already been ‘assaulted’.
He alleged another inmate had hit him in the head with a loaf of bread and argued it was an indication of the future he faces in prison.
Former Marist Brother Darcy O’Sullivan (pictured while still a priest) had six year jail sentence extended after appealing his original sentence, his abuse of 15 more students was revealed
However in the Sydney District Court Judge Kate Traill not only rejected his appeal but added another eight years to his sentence after more offences were uncovered.
Judge Traill told the court O’Sullivan exhibited no remorse, no empathy for his victims, and ‘no insight into his offending’, the Newcastle Herald reported.
‘(He) shows a total lack of understanding of the magnitude of his predatory offending,’ she said.
Despite claiming himself as the victim in his most recent hearing O’Sullivan pleaded guilty in 2016 to the charges of child sex crimes against 12 students from the Marist Brothers College in Hamilton and at the St Marys High School in Casino.
However he contradicted his initial guilty plea during his most recent trail date.
‘I absolutely deny to this court, to her honour, that I have ever indulged in that sort of behaviour in all of my life,’ O’Sullivan told the court.
But O’Sullivan also detailed times he had ‘fondled boys genitalia’ inside the classroom, the school halls and the playground.
He described his actions as being ‘in a kind of semi-affectionate manner to a number of my students’.
Judge Traill imposed the extra eight years on his sentence after his crimes against a further 15 students were detailed.
Despite claiming himself as the victim O’Sullivan pleaded guilty in 2016 to the charges of child sex crimes against 12 students from the Marist Brothers College in Hamilton and the St Marys High School in Casino
O’Sullivan denied to the court that he had any sexual attraction to boys and said he gained no sexual gratification from his actions.
‘I know and understand my own sexuality. I know when I’ve been physically attracted to women. I know when I’ve been in love with women. That doesn’t make me someone as you describe,’ he said.
O’Sullivan did not garner sympathy from Judge Traill for being hit in the head with a loaf of bread, an incident she described as ‘relatively minor’.
After the court ruling the Facebook page for the Marist Brothers College in Hamilton posted a status condemning their abuse.
‘To the brothers of Hamilton Marist Brothers high school, I have a question … ‘Why’,’ the status read.
‘Why were some (of) you such b******* to us kids and such hypocrites in what you were supposed to be standing for in the Catholic Church system?’