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North Perth: ‘evil’ child molester gets 10 years in jail

AAPEastern Reporter

A MAN who sexually assaulted two young children at his parents’ home after luring them away from a North Perth childcare centre with promises of treats and fun activities will spend at least eight years behind bars.

Vincenzo Mule enticed the four-year-old girl and five-year-old boy to follow him to a shed in the backyard of the Grosvenor Road home, where he lived, gave them icy poles and sexually abused them in April last year.

The 54-year-old claimed he couldn’t recall the crimes because he had taken five unknown pills, likely his ill father’s antidepressant and anti-dementia medication, but District Court of WA Judge Simon Stone said he didn’t believe Mule’s amnesia claim.

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“Your conduct was abhorrent – it was reprehensible,” Judge Stone said on Wednesday.

The court heard Mule slapped the girl across the face when she asked him to stop molesting her, while she cried and said she didn’t like it.

The children were forced to witness what was happening to the other, so were not only traumatised by being abused themselves, but by what they had seen.

They have suffered nightmares, fear of the dark and strangers, and their parents worry that the full effect of the offences won’t be seen for many years.

“It was a nightmarish ordeal for the parents, the daycare facility workers and supervisors,” Judge Stone said.

The court heard a psychiatrist said no diagnosis of a mental illness or personality disorder could be made, but violence restraining orders taken out by Mule’s ex-partner, and convictions for drugs and firearm offences were indicative of antisocial personality traits.

He sentenced the former newsagent and building sector estimator to 10 years in jail, with a minimum of eight years, saying the community needed to be protected from people with such “evil designs”.

The court heard he will go on trial for a similar matter next year.

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