Sometime in 1991, Willem Bowen Scheeren travelled to Sydney under the guise of helping his half-sister find her son, who had run away from boarding school.
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Instead of bringing him home to Canberra immediately, Scheeren, now 59, took his nephew to a house in Surry Hills, where they smoked cannabis, watched pornography, and where he molested the 14-year-old boy.
Scheeren pleaded guilty in August 2015 to four child sex offences against his nephew, none of which related to the events in Sydney. But as justice John Burns noted when sentencing the man in the ACT Supreme Court on Thursday, the events in Surry Hills were significant in that they showed the current charges were not isolated.
The offences he was eventually charged with were "representative" and were not tied to any specific date. They were only ones his nephew, 15 at the time, could remember in detail, the court heard.
He was already serving time in the Alexander Maconochie Centre for child sex offences committed in the 1970s and 1980s against a boy of 11 and 12, to which he had also pleaded guilty.
For Scheeren's offences against his nephew, justice Burns sentenced the man to a total of two years and nine months in prison, bringing the man's total sentence up to 10 years, with a non-parole period of five years.
He will be eligible for release in September 2019.
The court heard Scheeren was himself abused by family members as a young boy. He felt sex was "a part of growing up" and had been unable to establish appropriate sexual boundaries.
A psychologist's report had said Scheeren had an immature sexual personality, and his "psychosocial circumstances" had led him to accept such behaviour was normal, the court heard.
"It's possible you did not fully appreciate the gravity of your actions and the consequences for your victim," justice Burns said.
The abuse was a breach of trust, but Justice Burns said he was not certain it was premeditated. He said it appeared Scheeren had since gained considerable insight into his offending. Scheeren had apologised and acknowledged what he did was wrong in a phone call to his nephew in recent years, the court heard.
The court heard how Scheeren's abuse had a significant impact on his nephew, who in July read a victim impact statement out loud to the court. The man had told Scheeren how the abuse had set him on a path to drug addiction.
His mother, Scheeren's half-sister, told the court how his actions had ripped their family apart. She said she had trusted him and felt grateful for the friendship he gave her son while she worked full-time.
She described how on return from Sydney, her son's behaviour deteriorated. She said she blamed herself for what happened.
The court's public gallery was empty on Thursday save for members of the media and the investigating detective.
