Brisbane photographer charged with dozens of child sex offences
A Brisbane photographer who specialises in portraits of child dancers has been charged with 79 offences, including seven counts of rape and supplying dangerous drugs to minor.
The 38-year-old man ran a photographic studio where he specialised in "fine art photography" and "artistic dance portraits" of young children.
Police allege the business was run as a front to procure and abuse children.
A long-running police operation ended on Thursday, when the man's Geebung home, in Brisbane's north, was searched.
He was taken into custody and charged with 26 counts of indecent treatment, 30 counts of carnal knowledge of a child, 13 counts of take child for immoral purposes and seven counts of rape.
He was also charged with one count of making child exploitation material and supplying dangerous drugs to minor and stupefying in order to commit indictable offence.
"Anyone that has any information … we encourage them to call Crime Stoppers or Policelink," Detective Inspector Jon Rouse of Taskforce Argos said.
The man is expected to appear in Brisbane Magistrates Court today.
Child sex abuse victim's identity accidentally revealed by royal commission
Jorge Branco
The royal commission into child sex abuse has broken its own non-publication order, revealing the identity of the victim of a notorious paedophile.
The former Brisbane Grammar School student was among many victims who gave statements or fronted the commission under a pseudonym to protect them.
Brisbane Grammar School, where the abuse took place. Photo: Glenn Hunt
But the royal commission failed to redact his name in a statement given to its investigation into the horrific abuse carried out by serial paedophiles Kevin Lynch and Gregory Robert Knight in two Brisbane private schools.
That statement, which was properly redacted after Fairfax Media brought it to the commission's attention on Wednesday, had been published on its website, likely during hearings held across two weeks in November 2015.
It was among almost 100 documents published to the site.
The boy told the commission he had suffered abuse at the hands of child abuser Lynch and claimed to have complained to a teacher, who did nothing but the teacher denied knowing.
The student told the commission he had been instructed to masturbate in front of the counsellor, who had also pressed his fingers into the area above the child's penis.
Lynch killed himself in January 1997, the day after he was charged with abusing a different student from the Bald Hills school.
The royal commission said the statement was redacted but "an error occurred and a person's name remained in the statement".
"That name is the subject of a non-publication order," a spokeswoman said, in a statement.
"As soon as the Royal Commission was made aware of the error, the statement was taken down from the website and the necessary further redactions made."
Lynch sexually abused dozens, if not hundreds of boys at Brisbane Grammar School in the '80s before moving to St Paul's School where his abuse continued in the '90s.
The royal commission was also investigating the institutional response to Gregory Robert Knight, who abused boys in South Australia before Paul's headmaster Gilbert Case hired him in 1981, and gave him a positive reference despite allegations of exposing himself to students and fondling genitals.
Counsel assisting David Lloyd has asked the royal commission to make damning findings against Grammar, saying a large number of students likely would not have been abused had former headmaster Maxwell Howell investigated sexual abuse claims from students.
Man pleads guilty to child sex abuse in Perth
A Perth man has pleaded guilty of sexually abusing two young children in a WA District Court today
A man has admitted to sexually abusing two young children he lured from a holiday childcare program in North Perth.
Vincenzo Mule, 53, changed his plea to guilty to five charges, including sexual penetration of a child and unlawful detention, when he appeared in the WA District Court on Thursday.
The children had been due to pre-record their evidence for his trial but that was aborted.
Mule abused a four-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy before leaving them at Hyde Park on April 19 last year.
The holiday care centre did not notice the children were missing.
A member of the public found them in the park's playground about one hour later and alerted authorities.
A manhunt ensued, with police releasing CCTV footage showing the children following a man along a footpath and describing the incident as 'every parent's worst nightmare'.
Mule, who appeared in court wearing prison greens, has been remanded in custody until February 10 for a sentence mention.
Priest Ridsdale in Victoria court over abuse
Former priest Gerald Ridsdale faces dozens of fresh historical sexual abuse allegations in Victoria. (AAP)
Former Catholic priest Gerald Ridsdale has faced a Victorian court charged with dozens of sex offences that allegedly took place between the 1960s and 1980s.
The 82-year-old appeared in Melbourne Magistrates' Court via video link on Friday charged with rape, buggery, indecent assault, and assault offences against nine boys and two girls.
The 36 charges related to offences that allegedly took place in Ballarat, Ocean Grove, Merbein, Edenhope, Quantong, Mortlake and Riverside, according to charge sheets.
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