A former Church youth group leader was jailed on Wednesday for historical sex crimes against young boys in the 1970s.
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Cyril Trezise, 79, pleaded guilty to nine indecent assaults on three different boys.
On one occasion, the court heard, Tresize took the youth group to Lake Burley Griffin one night to go fishing.
He spread the children along the lake with their legs dangling off the edge.
Tresize sat down behind one of the boys to straddle him, and then reached into the boy's pants while masturbating himself.
In another incident, Trezise took a boy aside from the main group and into an office and approached him from behind before reaching into the boy's pants.
On another occasion, on a family camping trip to the Cotter River, Tresize took one of the boys for a walk and fondled him and kissed him.
The offences were a gross breach of trust, the judge said.
One boy had disclosed what happened in his first year of university, the court heard, but he had avoided major psychological trauma.
He spoke of the insidious nature of the assaults in a victim impact statement read to the court.
"It is abuse, it is assault, it is one-sided," the victim said.
"The entrapment of a child is most egregious."
Another victim was more traumatised, the judge noted, and had experienced troubles with drugs and alcohol.
"We trusted Cyril," he said. The man had betrayed his parents' trust.
Sentencing judge David Mossop said Trezise had expressed guilt but also said that he could not remember the crimes.
The man had also expresed empathy for the victims, Justice Mossop said, in that they were not further harmed by having to relive what happened.
The court heard a doctor had diagnosed Trezise with an underlying brain disease.
The judge said he would take into account Trezise's declining health in the sentence.
Justice Mossop jailed Trezise for three years and six months, to be suspended after six months.
He will be released from jail in November.