Jail deferred for elderly child abuser rendered 'no danger to others' by dementia

The man, who is aged in his early nineties and can't be named for legal reasons, was found guilty of seven counts of indecent assault and one count of an act of indecency toward a person in his care.

The charges were based on definitions in the NSW Crimes Act at the time of the offences, which were committed between the late 1980s and early 2000s.

At sentencing on Thursday, Wagga District Court Judge Gordon Lerve said the man had committed offences against his granddaughter and grandson at a small rural holding in southern NSW.

The man touched the children's genitals at his home, while they sat on his lap and steered his car and in the bath when they visited for the school holidays.

When the grandson was older and sent to live with his grandparents in order to get away from bad influences, the man grabbed the teenager's genitals while he was wearing pants.

"Don't you like it?" the man asked the boy and he responded "I never did".

Judge Lerve said the granddaughter's victim impact statement "demonstrates the long-term psychological harm that this [type of offending] does to people" and spoke "eloquently about her difficulties".

Judge Lerve said the man had engaged in an "ongoing and egregious breach of trust" and only a custodial sentence would be appropriate at a "normal trial".

The man's son stated his father was in a nursing home on the NSW coast, needed assistance with basic needs and had difficulty walking short distances with a frame.

"Clearly [the man] is no danger to the community or anyone else given the parlous state of his health," Judge Lerve said.

Judge Lerve referred the case to the Mental Health Review Tribunal of NSW, which will determine the man's future.

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