STATE OF TASMANIA v DKM JAGO J
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE 31 AUGUST 2026
DKM, you have pleaded guilty to one count of persistent sexual abuse of a young person. I am also dealing with a related summary matter, being a breach of bail. The complainant in this matter is your biological daughter.
From the age of three or four until the complainant was about 12, you sexually abused her on a regular and persistent basis. The first occasion of sexual abuse the complainant can recall, occurred at the family home in Devonport. The complainant was asleep in her bedroom when you entered her room and woke her up. You touched her on the vagina. She is unable to recall if you touched her over or under her clothing. The second occasion of sexual abuse the complainant can recall with specificity, occurred when she was about seven or eight. By this time, the family were living in a home in Ulverstone. The complainant shared a bedroom with her sisters. They slept in bunk beds. One night, you entered the bedroom and lifted the complainant from where she was sleeping in the bottom bunk. You laid her on the floor adjacent to her bed and raped her. You penetrated her vagina with your penis. The complainant can remember you thrusting your penis into her repeatedly, and each penetration pushed her backwards on the carpet because of the force that you used. The complainant recalls that you smelt of beer on this and many other occasions when abuse occurred.
Following this incident, you would regularly sexually abuse the complainant in the same manner. The complainant is unable to identify any other occasions with specificity, but she remembers being raped by you on a regular and persistent basis over many years. She recalls the smell of beer that accompanied you on each of the occasions of abuse. The complainant would often find that she wet the bed after you had sexually abused her, indicative of her trauma. The complainant recalls rapes of this nature continuing until she was about 12 years of age, and the family moved to New South Wales. It is not uncommon that children who are subject to repeated sexual abuse of a similar or repeated nature, have difficulty in identifying one act from another. The persistent nature of the abuse is such that it often conflates into a continual memory, where it is hard to separate one act of abuse from another. You are to be sentenced for the specified occasions identified, but the sentence must recognise that the identified acts did not occur in isolation but occurred against a background of constant sexual abuse, which deprived the complainant of the innocence of her childhood.
Another occasion of sexual assault the complainant can recall, occurred during a camping trip to the Crayfish Creek area when the complainant was aged between 11 and 12 years. The family were camping in a two room tent. The complainant shared some mesh bunk beds with her younger sister. The complainant was on the top bunk, and she recalls you coming into her area of the tent and rubbing her vagina with your hand over her clothing. The complainant recalls her mother entering the tent and asking you what you were doing. You said you were checking on the children.
Shortly after this, the family moved to New South Wales. The complainant recalls an occasion when the family was living in a caravan at your sister’s property. The complainant was aged between 13 and 14 years. The complainant was awoken by you putting your hand inside her pants and touching her on the vagina whilst in the caravan. It was this episode that led to the complainant beginning to resist your sexual abuse. She told you to stop and said, “that’s enough”. This was the last occasion the complainant recalls being sexually abused by you.
When the complainant was about 19 and had completed her schooling, she left the family home and moved in with a friend. She told her friend what you had done to her. She also disclosed the sexual abuse to her older sister and her boyfriend around the same time. In 2008, when the complainant was about 30, she ceased all contact with you and her mother and she has not spoken to you since.
The complainant made a formal report to police about the abuse in 2019. Unfortunately, investigation into the allegations was delayed by COVID 19 and various travel related restrictions. In October 2022, police were able to travel to Victoria and interview you. You made some admissions as to the sexual abuse but denied any acts of penetration. You admitted that you sexually assaulted your daughter on a number of occasions and said that it occurred “mainly when you had been drinking”. You also told police about the sexual abuse you had experienced as a child. You said what you did to your daughter “should never have happened”, and you did not understand why you did it. You said you were sorry for what you had done and expressed regret about how it had led to the family unit breaking down.
As to the acts of penetration that are now outlined, you do not dispute them. You accept that if the complainant said they occurred, they must have happened. You accept what the complainant says about the nature, regularity and extent of the abuse.
For reasons which are not particularly clear, you were not charged with this matter until 17 September 2024. You appeared in the Devonport Magistrates Court in February 2025, and you were bailed to re-appear on 25 March 2025. On that date, the matter was further adjourned to 17 June 2025. On that date, you failed to appear, which I am told arose from a misunderstanding and not any endeavour to avoid the Court proceedings. This failure to appear constitutes the breach of bail charge.
Tasmania Police completed an application for extradition and liaised with investigators from Victoria Police. On 10 February 2026, you were arrested. You have remained in custody since that time. On 30 March 2026, you pleaded guilty to this matter in the Magistrates Court, and it was committed to this jurisdiction.
Your crimes have had a terrible effect upon your daughter. I received an impact statement from her. It described, in compelling terms, the pervasive and destructive impact your abuse has had upon her life. Her outlook on life, her sense of security and her well-being has been permanently changed by your conduct. She describes the fear and terror she felt during her childhood and how, as a young child, she had to worry about protecting herself rather than enjoying the freedoms of childhood. She now suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and experiences panic attacks. Flashbacks remain a constant feature of her life.
Your abuse continues to affect her relationships today. She struggles to trust people. She is hyper vigilant and often emotionally defensive. Her sleep is disturbed. Her self-esteem has been impacted. She mourns the loss of her family and the loss of her sibling relationships. She speaks of the manner in which your abuse has also impacted her daughter and her role as a mother. In simple terms, your abuse has permeated every aspect of the complainant’s life and most likely always will. What the complainant describes is consistent with the extensive, pervasive and lifelong consequences of sexual abuse that is sadly so often seen in matters of this nature.
You are 75 years of age. You had a very difficult upbringing. You were born on the west coast of Tasmania. You were one of 16 children. Your childhood involved neglect and abandonment. Your parents relocated with you and several of your siblings to Victoria during your childhood, but your parents subsequently returned to Tasmania, abandoning you and others of your siblings in Victoria. You were declared a ward of the State. You went to an institutional home where you stayed until you were 18 years. In that home, you were subject to considerable physical and sexual abuse. The sexual abuse involved you being regularly raped by your carers.
This, of course, all happened in the 1960’s. The abuse was never disclosed, and you were never provided with any support or counselling to deal with the trauma associated with your upbringing.
You returned to Tasmania when you were about 19 years of age. You endeavoured to reconnect with your parents, but that did not go well. They were not interested in developing a relationship with you. Consequently, you have never enjoyed a relationship with your parents. You have maintained a relationship with some of your siblings, but by and large, your family connections have been dysfunctional.
You have always maintained employment. You have worked in a number of industries, including in mining, manufacturing and forestry. You were gainfully employed until you retired at age 69.
I am told that you do not seek to explain your behaviour because you recognise there is simply no justification for it. You are sorry for what you did to your daughter. You acknowledge that your conduct has ruined her life, and for that, you are sorry.
I have regard to the statutory aggravating circumstances I am required to take into account by virtue of the Sentencing Act 1997, s 11A. In particular, I note the complainant was under your care and supervision and was under the age of 13 when the abuse occurred. Moreover, your other daughter was in the bedroom when at least some of the sexual abuse occurred. Not only were you willing to sexually abuse the complainant, but you did so in circumstances where there was a real possibility that her sisters would awaken and become aware of what was happening, undoubtedly adding to the complainant’s distress and humiliation.
This crime obviously involves a significant breach of trust. You had an obligation to protect and nurture your daughter. You, instead, abused her on a persistent and regular basis for your own sexual gratification. Much of the abuse occurred within the family home where she was entitled to feel safe and protected. Instead, the family home became a place of terror for her. She was very young when the abuse commenced. She had no capacity to self-protect. She was fearful of the repercussion should she resist, particularly because you were so often intoxicated when the abuse was occurring. The abuse went on for many years. It took from her the innocence of childhood, and has, in an adverse way, defined her adulthood.
I acknowledge your plea of guilty. It has saved the complainant from the ordeal of having to relive the trauma of the abuse by way of giving evidence. It also vindicates her. You accept what she says occurred. It is appropriate to allow for a reduction in sentence and the earliest eligibility for parole to reflect your plea. But for your plea of guilty, your sentence would have been 20% longer.
Your age is, of course, relevant to the assessment of sentence, but it must be balanced against the objective seriousness of your crimes and your high level of moral culpability. It may well be, given your age, that you face the prospect of spending much of the remainder of your life in prison. I bear that in mind in formulating the appropriate sentence, but that, as and by itself, cannot, given the gravity of this offending, justify the imposition of an unduly lenient sentence. The lapse of time since the offending was committed is not, in itself, a mitigating factor. For many years after your abuse ended, you were able to enjoy your life, living freely within the community whilst your daughter lived with the burden and consequences of your abuse. You could have brought these crimes to the attention of the authorities at any time, but you did not. Even after speaking with police, you did not seek to finalise matters. Ultimately, extradition proceedings had to be pursued to bring you back to this State, although I accept what I have been told about your failure to appear in June 2025.
Sentencing goals which are prominent in sentencing matters of this nature, are general deterrence, community protection, punishment, denunciation, vindication of the complainant, and recognition of the harm you have caused. The sentence must make clear to not only you, but the broader community, that those who engage in the abhorrent behaviour of sexually abusing children can expect to receive harsh punishment. The Court has an obligation to endeavour to protect children and deter such abuse by the imposition of strong sentences that reflect society’s condemnation of such abuse. In my view, the fact that these were not isolated acts, negates to a significant degree the role totality has to play in sentencing.
I make the following orders. You are convicted of each crime and offence to which you have pleaded guilty. In respect to the summary offence, I make no further order. I make an order under the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005, directing that the Registrar cause your name to be placed on the register, and that you comply with the reporting obligations under that Act for a period of ten years following your release from custody. You are sentenced to imprisonment for a period of ten years, commencing 10 February 2026. I order that you are not eligible to apply for parole until you have served one-half of that sentence of imprisonment.