00:00Mike Warsman kept his secret for more than 20 years, until he learned his abuser had
00:08sexually assaulted someone else. Today he read a victim impact statement telling the
00:14court it was a monstrous crime which had a devastating impact on his life.
00:19I will never know a life free from this pain. He shattered my existence. His evil infected
00:27me. Earlier this year, a man pleaded guilty in the ACT Supreme Court to five charges related
00:34to the offences committed in Canberra over a five-day period in the 1990s. The court heard
00:41the attacks were violent and were accompanied by threats to kill, should Mr Warsman tell
00:46anyone. Mr Warsman finally went to police only to discover after a five-hour interview he
00:54was in the wrong place. The material had to be sent to Canberra.
00:5818 months later is how long it took him, me following up every month to see, hey have you
01:04sent that document that's, you know, about me being raped as a child over to the ACT.
01:10And when his abuser was finally released from a South Australian jail for the other offence,
01:15there was no legal avenue for extradition to Canberra.
01:18He pled guilty on the 19th of June last year. Why couldn't he be sentenced a month after
01:24that via remote video link? He was done, he was sentenced via remote video link for the
01:29other case. When the man was finally released from jail, he was told to make his own way
01:34to Canberra, which he did for today's court appearance. He has not been remanded in custody
01:41and will be formally sentenced by Justice David Mossop on Thursday.
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