By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
A FORMER owner of a Berwick children’s gymnastics club has pleaded guilty to a new set of historic child sex abuse charges.
Steven Andrew Smith, who owned Funtastic Gymnastics, befriended and indecently assaulted his nine-year-old victim twice near Cape Paterson caravan park in 2000, Dandenong Magistrates’ Court was told on 22 March.
Then 23, Smith invited the boy to a nearby cave on the foreshore where highly inappropriate touching took place, police prosecutor Senior Constable Aimee Ryland told the court.
The act was repeated several days later in the same beachside locale.
Sen Const Ryland said Smith also picked up the boy from his Pakenham home, took him to a pool for a swim and walked to railway tracks near Toomuc Valley Creek in 2001.
The indecent acts were again allegedly performed by the tracks several times over two or three months.
Sen Const Ryland said the boy was also invited to a room in Funtastic Gymnastics, where he was shown porn magazines.
The court was told that contact with the boy decreased soon after.
Smith, who appeared by video link from Ararat prison, is serving a five-year custodial term for several counts of indecently assaulting a nine-year-old boy at Funtastic Gymnastics over several months in the early 2000s.
Smith’s lawyer said the accused had been convicted after pleading not guilty in the County Court.
The charges were similar but more serious than in the present case, the lawyer said.
The lawyer argued there had been significant delay in laying the most recent charges last year.
Police had received the complaint and interviewed Smith in 2013.
Smith, who was jailed in October 2012, was eligible for parole in several weeks, his lawyer told the court.
“A conspiracy theorist might say it’s coming up to his parole date so we’ll charge him,” the lawyer said.
Magistrate Jack Vandersteen indicated he would hand Smith a suspended sentence if he pleaded guilty.
Before handing down a final sentence, Mr Vandersteen said he’d like the victim to have the chance to make a victim impact statement.
Smith’s risk of re-offending would also be assessed by a forensic psychiatrist in the interim.
In Smith’s favour were the age of the offences and the two-year delay for police to lay charges.
In pleading guilty, Smith spared the victim from re-living the incidents in court, Mr Vandersteen said.
The magistrate said it was important that when released, Smith was under parole supervision because of the nature of his offences.
Smith next appears at Dandenong Magistrates’ Court for sentencing on 19 April.
