A FORMER shearer who offered a young sex assault victim a $5000 payoff yesterday dropped his head in disbelief when he was jailed for at least four years.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Douglas Norman Povey, 69, pleaded guilty in the Warrnambool County Court last week to nine offences, which happened between October 1988 and August 1991, involving a boy aged about 10 years old.
Yesterday, via a video link to the Melbourne Assessment Prison, Judge Mark Taft jailed Povey for six years, with a minimum four years to serve before being eligible for parole.
Povey’s head dropped when sentenced and he remained distraught during the remainder of the hearing.
Judge Taft said Povey’s offending was well known in the Coleraine district community and he had been ostracised and the victim of a vicious physical attack.
He said Povey had shown scant evidence of remorse, had tried to bribe the victim into silence and only pleaded guilty when a jury was about to be impanelled for a trial.
The defendant had groomed the victim for his own sexual gratification and committed repeated acts over a period of years, he said.
Judge Taft said the sex assaults deeply affected the victim and he continued to bear the burden of Povey’s sexual depravation.
The now adult victim made two recorded telephone calls during May last year in which Povey told him he was sorry and had committed the offences when he was lonely.
Povey offered to pay $1000, which he raised to $5000, if the victim kept quiet.
Judge Taft said that in a victim impact statement it was revealed the victim felt dirty, ashamed, violated and had been frightened throughout his life of establishing relationships with women.
Povey had suffered a heart attack and had an ongoing degenerative heart condition as well as gout, depression and asthma, which the judge said reduced the chances of him reoffending.
In a summary of the evidence last week, prosecutor Pat Bourke said Povey played pool with the boy, offered him alcohol and cigarettes and showed him pornographic material.
Povey had exposed himself and indecently assaulted the boy before the offending progressed to committing acts of sexual penetration.
Although Povey had no prior convictions, he received a nine-month suspended jail sentence in May this year on three charges of committing an indecent act with 13-year-old boy in 2013.
