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A judge has jailed a man for 10 years over child sexual abuse in Victoria's east, describing him as a "sexual predator" who showed no remorse.
Darran Scott, of Archies Creek, will spend at least seven years behind bars after he pleaded guilty to 16 charges relating to child sexual abuse.
Scott, now 53, worked as a film director, actor and as a freelance cameraman for WIN News.
He started grooming his victims in the early 1990s as a junior football coach in Melbourne's eastern suburbs.
The County Court in Morwell heard he plied the boys with sleeping pills, cannabis, alcohol and pornography.
He also indecently assaulted several victims on surfing trips and at his home, near Wonthaggi on Victoria's Bass Coast.
In sentencing, Judge John Smallwood told Scott he had "ruined lives" and hadn't shown any remorse "other than self pity".
"It's a long way from the remorse anticipated from a man who has done the damage that you have," he told Scott.
Attempted cover-up
Allegations about Scott's offending led police to interview him in 2005 but he denied any wrongdoing.
The same year he joined the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-day Saints, and used his position to groom another six boys.
In one instance Scott encouraged two boys, who were staying at his Archies Creek home, to expose themselves and shoot each others genitals with pellet guns.
He also tried to have a witness lie to police about the incident.
Judge Smallwood told Scott that it was only the victim's "revelations to the police and the apprehension that stopped your offending, nothing else."
"During all that time you had done nothing in terms of treatment or made any endeavours to get help," he said.
Scott told a psychologist he did not know what he was doing when he sexually abused the boys, but that was dismissed by Judge Smallwood.
"You knew what you were doing was not only wrong in the individual sense but very, very wrong in a social sense," he said.
A mother's guilt
The court heard excerpts from victim impact statements, including one from the mother of two boys that were abused by Scott.
She said "the guilt I feel as a parent is so heavy that we let our kids stay with this monster, and all happened without us even knowing"
"It's overwhelming and suffocating"
"I'd do anything to turn back the clock and save my children from the horror they've been through, but I can't and we have to learn how to survive one day at a time"
Scott will be a registered sex offender for life.
Topics: law-crime-and-justice, crime, child-abuse, sexual-offences, religious-leaders, director, morwell-3840
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