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DDP Win Appeal To Extend Former Bega Cheese CEO's Child Sexual Assault Sentence

Former Bega Cheese Boss Will Now Spend 13 Years In Jail For Sexually Abusing Nine Children
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Former Bega Cheese boss Maurice Van Ryn has had his minimum jail sentence almost doubled from seven years to 13 years and six months after an appeal from the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Van Ryn was convicted of 17 child sex offences in September, with the former Bega Cheese boss pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of nine boys and girls between eight and 15 years of age. The offences were committed between 2003 and 2014.

The convicted child sex offender was sentenced to 13 years in jail, with a non-parole period of seven years at the time.

The DPP appealed the sentence in late September on the basis it was inadequate, while the sentencing judge Justice Clive Jeffreys gave Van Ryn a shorter sentence because he plead guilty at the earliest opportunity and sought psychiatric treatment.

A spokesman for the victims families told media outside court on Wednesday the ruling was "beyond our wildest expectations".

"We have at times felt like we've had to fight and cajole the system to get to the result that we have," the spokesman said outside the New South Wales Supreme Court's Court of Criminal Appeal.

"It feels like this is how it should be. The charmed run has come to an end."

Van Ryn would often offer his victims sweets, soft drinks and gifts, with the former Bega Cheese boss's most serious offence against a boy who was aged 11-years-old in the beginning.

The boy was sexually assaulted over a five-year period, extending to oral and anal intercourse.

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