STATE OF TASMANIA v MARTIN HULSMAN 9 JUNE 2022
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BRETT J
Mr Hulsman, you have been found guilty by a jury of all of the crimes charged in the indictment, in particular, 1 count of persistent sexual abuse of a child, 4 counts of indecent assault and 2 counts of doing an indecent act with a child.
The inevitable conclusion that arises from the verdicts is that the jury accepted that each complainant provided an honest and reliable account of what you did to him. I am also satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of the honesty and accuracy of the testimony of each complainant. Their accounts were compelling, and the mutual support provided by the force of the tendency and coincidence reasoning was significant. Your failure on a number of occasions to respond to police questioning with outright denials, but rather claim a lack of memory and offer a vague suggestion of remorse, is also, in my view, consistent with you having perpetrated this abuse. You will be sentenced on the basis that your criminal conduct was as described by each of the complainants.
The first five counts in the indictment relate to sexual crimes committed by you while you were a scoutmaster in Devonport. The first is the crime of persistent sexual abuse against a child who was around 12 years of age at the time. The crime is constituted by three separate acts of indecent assault which occurred during 1976. The other four crimes, which are three counts of indecent assault and one count of indecent act with a child, were perpetrated against two sets of brothers between 1983 and 1987. These children were aged between 7 and 13 at the relevant time. Each of the 5 children was a member of the scouts group for which you were responsible, and was therefore directly under your authority and care at the time of commission of the crimes. You were 42 years of age in 1976 when you committed the persistent sexual abuse and between 47 and 53 when you committed the other four crimes. I do not intend to recite the precise circumstances of each crime, because the details are apparent from the testimony of each complainant. It is sufficient to note that the opportunity to commit each crime arose because you used your position as the child’s scoutmaster to create circumstances in which you were able to be alone with the boy in question. The conduct was characterised by having the child sleep with you in a tent during a scout camp or on one occasion in your bed in your home. The indecent assaults invariably involved you touching and stroking the child’s genitals, and engaging in other forms of non-penetrative sexual conduct. On the occasions relevant to the persistent sexual abuse, you also kissed the child on the mouth, and, on one occasion, placed his hand on your erect penis. The latter also took place during an indecent assault on one of the other boys. The crime of an indecent act with a child involved you pressing against the boy from behind and rubbing your erect penis on his leg. On a number of occasions, the conduct was prolonged, although in 2 instances, the child concerned had the capacity to identify your conduct and intentions at an early time and to remove himself from your tent. On the first occasion of the crime of persistent sexual abuse, which was committed in your bedroom at your home, the complainant’s recollection is that he stayed in your bed with you for the entire night and recalls that the conduct continued for a prolonged period. Even on the occasions when the abuse was perpetrated in a tent during a scout camp, it often continued until the boy fell asleep and, on more than one occasion, the child was with you for the entire night. Your conduct was clearly systematic and involved predatory behaviour. It evinced a clear pattern of utilising your position and authority as a scoutmaster to bring the boys into the privacy of a tent so that you could perpetrate the abuse. On one occasion, that relevant to count 3, the boy’s brother was also in the tent, but presumably asleep when the crime was committed. On all other occasions, the boy was alone with you. Each child must have found the experience terrifying and traumatic. Not only were they all very young, but some were emotionally vulnerable at the time because of the loneliness and unfamiliarity of being away from home on camp, and you were the person whom they trusted and relied upon for their safety and well-being. It is difficult to imagine the terror and confusion each must have felt when he realised that you were not, in fact, his protector, but rather someone to be feared and who intended to harm him. A number of the boys described this confusion and fear, and how as a result, they simply froze when you started to abuse them. On the occasions that the child expressed dissent or concern, you attempted to persist with the conduct in any event. On at least one occasion, your persistence successfully overbore the child’s dissent. Further, on more than one occasion, you told the boy concerned not tell anyone what had happened, and suggested that it would be in his best interests not do so.
The last two crimes on the indictment were committed against a child who was about 13 years of age. These occurred after you had been expelled from scouts because of complaints arising from some of the other crimes. You had befriended this boy and gained his trust and that of his mother. The only available conclusion is that this was grooming in respect of the subsequent abuse. It must have been clear to you that he had a troubled home life and was vulnerable to your predatory behaviour because of this. Consistent with your systematic approach to the previous abuse, you engineered opportunities to be alone with him in isolated conditions. The crimes were committed on two separate occasions during camping and fishing trips that had been arranged by you. They occurred in a tent at night. On each occasion, the child woke to find you lying behind him, simulating sexual intercourse by thrusting your erect penis between his legs in the vicinity of his anus, and your hand on his penis. Fortunately, on both occasions he had the capacity to resist this conduct and bring it to an end.
Although none of the unlawful sexual conduct relevant to each crime involved the more serious form of penetrative sexual activity, I regard each criminal act as having a high degree of objective seriousness, not just because of its intimate and intrusive nature, but also because of the age disparity and the context and circumstances in which the crime was committed. It is an aggravating circumstance that each crime represented a serious breach of trust. The breach of trust involved in the abuse of your position as a scoutmaster is self-evident. In relation to the crimes relevant to counts 6 and 7, trust was inherent in the age difference and the circumstances in which you cultivated that child’s friendship. You were permitted by his mother to take him on these camping trips because you put yourself forward as a father-like figure, deserving of trust. On each occasion, the relationship, whether it be that arising from your position as scoutmaster, or as a friend and mentor to the last complainant, was deliberately and cynically used by you to create the opportunity to perpetrate the abuse. It goes without saying that such behaviour, and the inherent misuse and abuse of these positions, is evil and despicable, and rightly deserves the condemnation of the community.
The lifelong harm to these men which has resulted from your conduct, was apparent from the testimony of each of them. Two have also provided impact statements. In each case, the abuse was perpetrated when the child concerned was at an important age in terms of his emotional and psychological development. Although much of the surrounding circumstances of the abuse have long since become obscure in their memory due to the passage of time, it was clear to me that each complainant continues to recall with crystal clarity the abuse itself. The two men who provided impact statements spoke of the severe impact of these crimes on their respective lives, although both acknowledge fairly, that there have been other circumstances which have also contributed to their difficulties. The man upon whom you committed persistent sexual abuse has recently been diagnosed with chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. The opinion of the psychiatrist who made that diagnosis is that this condition was caused by the abuse perpetrated by you, but then exacerbated and intensified by subsequent and unrelated abuse, for which you are not, of course, responsible.
You are now 87 years of age. You have no prior convictions of significance, and you are in poor health. You are legally blind, a condition which arises from the underlying conditions of glaucoma and macular degeneration. You have significant hearing impairment, and suffer from incontinence, depression, heart problems and sleep apnoea. You were born prior to World War II in the Netherlands, and endured the occupation of that country by German forces when you were aged between 6 and 11. I have been told of your suffering during that time, and the extensive trauma of those experiences has resulted in a chronic condition of post-traumatic stress disorder. You have been married for 59 years, have three adult children and a good employment history. Of course, in cases such as this, your otherwise good character counts for little because it is precisely that circumstance which permitted you to attain the position of trust, which in turn facilitated the perpetration of these crimes. Apparent good character and lack of criminal history is a common characteristic of those who perpetrate criminal conduct of the type committed by you. It provides little, if any, mitigation.
Your advanced age and associated ill-health are relevant to the assessment of sentence because they will invariably mean that your time in custody will be more difficult than otherwise. It is likely that you will spend all or at least the majority of your remaining life in prison. However, these factors must be balanced against the objective seriousness of, and your moral culpability for, your offending. The predicament in which you now find yourself is completely of your own making. You could have brought these crimes to the attention of the authorities at any time after their commission. You have been interviewed by police in respect of aspects of this criminal conduct on four separate occasions since 1999. I have no doubt that you did then and still do have a clear recollection of what you did, but despite equivocation in some of your responses during those interviews, at no time did you admit any of this conduct. There has been no genuine expression of remorse nor acceptance of responsibility. You have avoided true accountability for your conduct until now. On the other hand, as I have already observed, each of the complainants has had to live with the consequences of your criminal behaviour for the whole of his life. The courage of each of these men in speaking in a public forum about what you did to them as children was notable. While I hope that the finalisation of this case and the jury’s verdict will provide some comfort and vindication for each of them, I have no doubt that their memory of your crimes is a permanent feature of their lives.
The objective seriousness of your criminal conduct, your moral culpability for it and the overriding sentencing imperatives of general deterrence, vindication of the victims and community denunciation means that the only possible sentence is a significant term of imprisonment. I will moderate the sentence, and provide for early release on parole in order to take account of your age and ill-health. However as I already noted any adjustment for these factors will be relatively modest. I intend to impose a global sentence in respect of all of the crimes of which you have been found guilty. However, having regard to s 11(3) of the Sentencing Act, it will also be necessary for me to identify the sentence which I would have imposed for each offence, had separate sentences been imposed. I interpret this provision as referring to a sentence assessed for each offence without regard to the principles of totality. This must be the case because those principles will, of course, affect the length of the combined sentences, irrespective of whether they are imposed separately or as a global sentence, and would in the normal course require some adjustment to each sentence. I do not think that is what parliament intended when it legislated this provision.
Martin Hulsman, you are convicted of each of the crimes of which you have been found guilty by the jury. I impose a global sentence in respect of all the crimes of imprisonment for a term of 8 years. This term will commence on the date you were remanded in custody which is 1 June 2022. You will not be eligible for release on parole until you have served one half of that sentence.
In accordance with section 11 (3) of the Sentencing Act, I identify the sentence which I would have imposed for each crime, had I been sentencing for each of them separately, as follows:
- Count one – a term of imprisonment of four years
- Count two – a term of imprisonment of one year
- Count three – a term of imprisonment of nine months
- Count four – a term of imprisonment of two years
- Count five – a term of imprisonment of 18 months
- Count six – a term of imprisonment of 18 months
- Count seven – a term of imprisonment of 18 months.
I am required to make an order under the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005 unless I am satisfied that you do not pose a risk of committing a reportable offence in the future. Having regard to your age and state of health, and the probability that you will spend the rest of your life in prison, I am satisfied in this case that you do not pose such a risk. Accordingly, I decline to make an order under that legislation.