A Melbourne art curator who partied with Madonna and Andy Warhol has been taken into custody after admitting he molested six young boys when he was a teacher at Geelong Grammar in the 1980s.
John Hamilton Buckley, now 74, was a housemaster and grade 5 teacher at Glamorgan, the school's junior campus in Toorak, when he asked a pre-teen boy to pretend he, Buckley, was actress Bo Derek and make love to him.
Buckley pleaded guilty in the County Court on Monday to 13 charges including sexual penetration and indecent assault at the boarding house between 1980 and 1983.
Senior Crown prosecutor Peter Kidd said there was a gross breach of trust when Buckley invited boys to his room, showed them pornography and watched them dry themselves after showering.
The boys were aged between 10 and 13, and he was aged 38 to 40.
Buckley performed oral sex multiple times on one boy, and penetrated the boy with his finger, Mr Kidd said.
He slept naked with another boy after giving him champagne.
"I want you to pretend I am Bo Derek and make love to me," Buckley told one of the boys, Mr Kidd told the court.
After his arrest in 2013 Buckley denied any wrongdoing.
When police found almost 100 child pornography images in his home, Buckley could see nothing "untoward" about them, the court was told.
One of his victims told the court "Bucks" had commanded respect from his students, but had left him feeling intrinsically bad and unable to receive love.
Another victim said his childhood innocence was smashed like a "watermelon with an axe" the night Buckley made him sleep alongside him.
Buckley's lawyer, Antony Trood, said the publicity and a jail term would "substantially impair" Buckley's career as an art consultant.
Buckley ran a successful art gallery in Prahran until last year, and was a founding director of Australian Centre for Contemporary Art.
He attended one of Madonna's birthday parties in the mid-1980s after being invited by Andy Warhol, an anecdote he has told in multiple interviews about his career.
Mr Trood says Buckley has developed anxiety and has ongoing symptoms of depression, meaning a prison term would weigh heavily upon him.
But Judge Jane Patrick said the gravity of the offences meant prison was the only option.
She ordered Buckley be held in custody until he is sentenced on September 11.
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