A former representative cricket coach has been jailed for 12 years for sexually abusing young boys in the 1980s and 1990s.
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Former Queensland fast bowler Ian Harold King, 69, claimed he abused the boys to make them better athletes and to help prepare them for manhood.
But his victims were left traumatised and unable to live normal lives.
The ACT Supreme Court heard that King performed sex acts on the boys, had touched them indecently and made them look at pornographic magazines and videos.
He had pleaded guilty to 25 sex charges, including sexual intercourse with a child and maintaining a sexual relationship with a young person.
With four years already behind bars, King will be eligible for parole in 2016 but outside the court yesterday, one victim said he believed a life sentence would not be enough.
''As far as I'm concerned, you can throw away the key,'' he said. ''The court system is the court system. But the amount of damage that paedophiles do to the community [the sentence is] not long enough.''
Justice Richard Refshauge said King appeared to have little remorse and tended to minimize his involvement in the crimes. He said King's explanations about why he abused the boys were long, detailed and lacking in insight.
Statements from King's victims made for sobering reading and showed the intense shame and guilt felt by the victims.
One man had suffered nightmares all his life as a result of King's abuse.
''It seems pathetic to think a grown man can be affected by nightmares but when I go to sleep I'm not a grown man, I'm a young boy just trying to get through the night,'' he wrote in a victim impact statement.
Justice Refshauge said that King's childhood was marked by domestic violence and he began leaving home at the age of 11.
He visited Aboriginal bush camps where he came into contact with alcoholism, promiscuity and violence and fell into child prostitution.
King was a successful young boxer but switched to cricket in Sydney at the age of 20 and was the first indigenous cricketer to play for Queensland for 30 years when he debuted in 1969. Justice Refshauge said King came to Canberra to work in the public service and began coaching cricket in the 1980s.
He said pre-sentence reports showed King had a ''disturbing unwillingness'' to accept responsibility for his actions and lacked the ability to have adult relationships.
But the judge acknowledged that King had also contributed to society through his public service work, helping produce several major reports into diabetes in Aboriginal communities.
King was extradited to Canberra in 2008 and has been in custody ever since.
Justice Refshauge sentenced King to a total of 12 years in jail, backdated to account for the time served, with a non-parole period of seven years and six months.