Peter Andrew Hansen: Ex-priest, Labor Party figure faces sentencing for child abuse
WARNING: Disturbing content
An ex-Sydney Labor Party figure and Catholic priest told a mystery friend he liked to “keep the camera busy” as he sexually exploited young boys while on depraved holidays in Southeast Asia.
Peter Andrew Hansen faces sentence in the NSW District Court after pleading guilty to 31 charges, including sexual intercourse with a child and 15 counts of producing child abuse material, after his vile work was uncovered in 2018.
The former lawyer confessed to filming and assaulting young boys aged between 10 and 14 for his own sexual gratification while overseas, with the earliest of his raft of offences coming in 2014.
On Thursday the court was told Hansen, now 63, sexually abused nine different children and photographed and filmed several others during trips to Vietnam and the Philippines over four years.
Judge James Bennett read perverted online exchanges Hansen had with a person dubbed “Maliboy Hornbag”, during which they rated their sick images and complained of the prices for meeting up with kids.
In one exchange Hansen, the Labor Party’s former Cabramatta branch president, sent two pictures of naked boys to the mystery man and asked, “Did you like the two in the garden?”
The one-time Fairfield Council candidate went on to say he “hope(d) to keep the camera busy” during his next meeting with children.
“I am still thinking how I can milk the max out of my poolside weekend,” Hansen wrote.
Hansen also discussed how much he paid to spend time with the boys, revealing that he bought them “stunning” striped Bonds underpants as gifts from Woolworths.
“Most get 250/300 (pesos) and a gift plus an outing and food,” he said.
“Outstanding performers and those I really like I might pump up to 500 but that’s the absolute limit.”
In another message he bragged that his position as a “businessman” meant the frequent trips to Asia would not be seen as suspicious.
Judge Bennett said the “abhorrent nature of the commentary” in the messages “illuminate the attitude of the offender … toward the egregious misconduct on which he is to be sentenced here today”.
The court was told Hansen organised for boys to be sent to the hotels where he was staying. He would let them swim in the pool before taking them to his room to photograph and perform sex acts on the children.
Judge Bennett, reading the agreed facts tendered to the court, said Hansen “talked dirty” to at least one of his victims as he sexually assaulted the boy.
Hansen was arrested on his arrival from Singapore into Sydney on October 6, 2018, after Australian authorities were tipped off about his predatory conduct.
Among the 100,000 files Australian Federal Police discovered on his electronic devices were videos and pictures of young boys lying naked on beds or in bathtubs, sometimes in groups or masturbating.
Some of the material had been downloaded as early as 2008 and as recently as 2018. It was all meticulously filed under categories specifying where the material was filmed, what child was shown and acts depicted.
At a sentencing hearing in February, Hansen told the court he was “ashamed” of himself, saying he had fallen short of his own standards.
“I didn’t only exploit their age, I exploited the fact they came from a poor Asian country,” he said.
Hansen, who has been in custody since his arrest, served as a Catholic priest in the Melbourne Archdiocese between 1996 and 2011.
Hansen’s sentencing continues.
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