Georgie Burg's battle after she jailed the paedophile priest who raped her

It took nearly four years from when Ms Burg first reported the crimes to police for John Philip Aitchison to receive a nine-year jail sentence with a non-parole period of five years.

This occurred more than three decades after she was first raped by the priest.

Ms Burg's story shows how victim-survivors can face years of uncertainty and anxiety, even when a perpetrator has received a sentence. Aitchison is eligible for parole in April.

"When the trial happened and he went to jail immediately and then came back five months later for the sentencing, I expected that he would go to jail and we wouldn't hear anything until April 2023," she said.

"That is what I really thought would happen and it's interesting because looking back I don't think I asked anyone specifically about that but that was the impression I was given. I suppose it's like the movies where the bad guys go to jail and you think, 'Oh, it's over'."

But it was not over.

A couple of months following the trial Ms Burg said she received a call from the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions saying Aitchison had lodged an appeal.

"I felt like my throat was closing up on itself. I felt like I couldn't breathe. It was a bit of a suffocating feeling," Ms Burg said.

This appeal was dropped after Aitchison was advised it had "almost zero chance of success".

But it didn't stop there.

In March 2021, he applied for leave to appeal out of time against both the conviction and sentence, but this was denied by the registrar.

Later in the same year, he attempted to overturn his sentence again after Cardinal George Pell successfully appealed his conviction for five child sex offences.

An ACT Court of Appeal judgment said Aitchison had believed his prospects of a successful appeal had increased significantly following the High Court decision in the case of Cardinal Pell.

Aitchison's attempt to appeal was quashed but Ms Burg said she was only made aware of this attempted appeal through an article in The Canberra Times.

Following these unsuccessful appeals, Aitchison last year applied for early release from prison on medical grounds. This was also unsuccessful.

Ms Burg said while she knew Aitchison had a right to appeal and try for an early release, it was still a big blow to take each time he applied and she was left incredibly anxious he would be successful.

"Intellectually you might know that is his right. If you're behind bars you have the right to do what you need to do to be released and you know that intellectually," she said.

"When someone has been put away for nine years, that's not little. That's a big sentence. We know the percentages of criminals like John that get a custodial sentence is teeny tiny."

Aitchison is eligible for parole in April. He has already put in an application and is expected to go before the parole board next week.

Ms Burg put forward a verbal submission in January. She wanted to provide her evidence in person but she lives in Melbourne. She is also on a casual work contract and therefore would have to take time off without pay.

She could have had her travel costs covered but costs would not be covered for her husband, Phil.

Ms Burg said this was incredibly disappointing as she wanted her husband there for support and he had also been affected by the crimes committed against her. She gave her evidence remotely.

Ms Burg said she was told it took about two years on average for a person to get over a trial like the one she was involved in.

In the immediate aftermath of the trial she would cry anytime she talked about it and felt really traumatised.

"Phil and I went through a tremendous amount over that three years and eight months to put him away. You do get to a point where it's so difficult; you have to go back to having a normal life at some point, you can't be on alert like that indefinitely," Ms Burg said.

Growing up, Ms Burg was an incredibly talented violinist and was on her way to an international career.

When she was 13 she was part of the Canberra Youth Orchestra Society and that's where she first came face to face with Aitchison, who was also a musician and helped with the orchestra.

He began to show an interest in Ms Burg.

The orchestra practised in All Saints Anglican Church in Ainslie, where Aitchison was a deacon. He raped Ms Burg for the first time in that church.

It was 1987. Ms Burg was 13. She was rehearsing a violin piece with Aitchison.

After she finished playing, Ms Burg was sitting next to the priest on a church pew. He started to talk to her about her dog, which had recently died.

Aitchison suggested if she prayed she may be reunited with her dead dog. He then proceeded to place Ms Burg on his lap and raped her.

Over the next two years, Aitchison would commit a series of sexual offences against Ms Burg. The first offences took place in the church but then started to occur in Ms Burg's home as the priest became close to her mother.

Ms Burg was even raped by the priest in her own bedroom.

Altogether, Aitchison was found guilty of five counts of rape and eight acts of indecency against Ms Burg.

Aitchison has been charged with sexual assaults and acts of indecency against children on at least four other occasions. This includes two other charges in the ACT.

He has also committed offences against children in the United Kingdom, Victoria and NSW.

Aitchison was described as "unquestionably a paedophile" by Justice Michael Elkaim in the 2018 sentence for the crimes committed against Ms Burg.

Following the trial, Ms Burg said she had been contacted by many others who said they had been victims of Aitchison.

This was a real driving force for her as she said many of them had never received justice.

She said she had sat opposite many of those victims. She recalled one instance where a victim was physically shaking and crying heavily.

"He was ultimately saying, you know, thank you so much and I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. I could have stopped him from getting to you," Ms Burg said.

"The amount of grief and responsibility he clearly felt and we had to tell him over and over and over again that it wasn't his fault.

"Seeing some of these other survivors and what they have done and the lack of justice they have received and how it has affected them and affected their lives. For Phil and I, we were just like, 'We have to keep talking about this'.

"No one was there for these little kids and we were all little kids.

"When you look at someone's eyes and you know full well what they've been through and especially when you know that it was at the hands of the same man that did that to you there is a very strange kinship.

"A little while afterwards I said to Phil, 'I'm just never going to stop fighting for them, I just can't. I'm going to keep this up because for f--- sake nobody did it for me'."

A lot of the crimes committed by Aitchison had common themes. The priest had become close to the victims' families and he would babysit or have sleepovers with his victims.

He was able to win the families over through his position as a priest or through his involvement in music.

In 1992, he was placed on a good-behaviour bond for two offences involving indecent assault on a boy aged about 12.

In 1996, he was before the ACT Supreme Court on two occasions charged with offences against a brother and sister in 1970 or 1971 and offences against a boy between 1988 to 1991.

Aitchison was found guilty of two acts of indecency upon a child over 10 years and under 16 years for the offences against the boy between 1988 to 1991 in at least two addresses in Canberra. He was sentenced to three years' jail.

In the 1970s incidents, Aitchison was babysitting the brother, who was 8, and sister, who was "a little more than a year younger". The boy alleged Aitchison had touched him while he was reading a book in bed.

The sister alleged the priest had also touched her genitals. Aitchison denied these allegations.

There was a stay of proceedings on the trial.

A sentence summary showed Aitchison had "two or three prior convictions". It referenced another occasion where he was convicted of an act of indecency in 1973.

It also said Aitchison had been committed for trial in NSW on other sexual offences. There is no publicly available information about what happened with those trials.

In her submission to the ACT Sentence Administration Board regarding an early release application last year for Aitchison, Ms Burg wrote she was exhausted, angry and afraid.

"Four years after his conviction and seven years after my police report, my family and I still dread phone calls from the ACT [Director of Public Prosecutions] office with news of Aitchison's next move," she said.

"I ask you to understand that Aitchison's crimes against children are extensive, he has a constant refrain of excuses for his behaviour, he is surrounded by admirers who defend him at every turn, and he will never change.

"I am exhausted. I am angry, afraid, frustrated. I need this to be over and I don't consider that it is an unreasonable expectation."

Ms Burg writes in her submissions that Aitchison was involved with several Canberra musical organisations and churches.

She said since he had been convicted for crimes against her people associated with these organisations had messaged her to say Aitchison did not belong in jail.

Ms Burg feared he would be welcomed back in the community.

"In private correspondence I have been assured by people associated with some of these organisations that while Aitchison may have hurt me he does not belong in jail, that by reporting him to police I was overreacting, and that I had selfishly denied the community of his musical talents," she wrote.

"It would seem he will welcomed back with open arms upon release; it would also seem that by reporting Aitchison's offences, I have made myself unwelcome in the city in which I grew up."

Ms Burg's letter finished with a plea.

"I am a victim of child rape at the hands of John Philip Aitchison, but I'm also your sister or that friend you had in Narrabundah College," she wrote.

"I'm that kid you heard busking with her violin at the Fyshwick markets or your own daughter ... the way you feel about her safety, her ability to protect herself and listen to that tiny voice inside her head when it tells her to run.

"Aitchison was able to rape me because no one cared enough about me to stop him. People knew. A lot of people knew. They let it happen, and you have the evidence before you to show you he's extremely dangerous.

"You can allow a perpetuation of his abuse, or you can stop it."

Our journalists work hard to provide local, up-to-date news to the community. This is how you can continue to access our trusted content: