More than 20 years after a Jewish camp leader indecently assaulted a 14-year-old boy, a victim support group has welcomed his sentence as a milestone in the community's fight against child abuse.
Daniel "Gug" Hayman was 24 when he drove a then 14-year-old boy a few kilometres from the Jewish Camp Gan Israel at Stanwell Tops south of Sydney to an isolated piece of bushland.
After the pair collected firewood, Hayman grabbed the 14-year-old and despite his struggle and protestations abused him.
In sentencing Hayman on Tuesday, Magistrate David Williams told the Downing Centre Local Court that he would have had no hesitation in sending him to prison if the offence happened today.
But, he added, he was constrained by the law at the time of the offence and instead handed him a 19-month suspended sentence.
In doing this, Mr Williams also noted that the 50-year-old had led a good life in 20-odd years since the offence.
While Hayman was acquitted last month of indecency towards a 12-year-old girl in 1989 due to a legal "oddity", Mr Williams said Hayman had not committed other offences like this "for the best part of a quarter century".
Hayman, who now lives in the US, was a member of the Sydney Yeshiva Centre - the NSW headquarters of the ultra-orthodox Chabad movement.
The court heard that his "strict religious upbringing" created sexual naivety, which in turn played a part in his offending.
During Hayman's sentencing hearing last month, his victim described how the ultra-orthodox community in Melbourne had shunned him after he aired the allegations in 2011.
The man, who cannot be named, said he was labelled an "informer" and was bullied, harassed and ostracised.
"There's nowhere to run and nowhere to hide," he told the court in May.
Child victim support group Tzedek said the sentence marked an important milestone in the "ongoing child sexual abuse scandal within the Australian Jewish community".
"What we cannot understand is the ongoing intimidation and shunning of victims and their families by certain segments of our community," Tzedek spokesman Liat Winer said in a statement after the sentence.
"Sadly he is not alone in being re-victimised as a victim of child sexual abuse, nor is the Melbourne ultra-Orthodox community the only community to use such tactics.
"We encourage anyone with information in relation to this or any other case of child sexual abuse ...to come forward."
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