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Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes sentenced to 10 years, 9 months jail

Robert Hughes has been sentenced to 10 years & 9 months imprisonment, with a 6 year non-parole period.

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Former Hey Dad! star Robert Hughes has been sentenced to 10 years and 9 months imprisonment, with a 6 year non-parole period, following a child abuse trial in Sydney.

Hughes, 65, was found guilty last month of ten charges, including two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.

Judge Peter Zahra noted Hughes had to apply sentencing according to the laws and sentencing patterns at the time of offences, which were less onerous than current punishment.

Judge Zahra said Hughes was brazen, predatory, persistent and calculated, taking advantage of the trust placed in him and described his actions as “degrading and shameful.”

“Children are entitled to grow up free from such conduct,” he said.

Sydney District Court was packed today for the sentencing, but did not include Hughes’ wife, agent Robyn Gardiner.

Judge Zahra went through all 10 offences noting that Hughes assaulted a female victim during publicity photos for Hey Dad! by indecently touching her, and that a victim was “too scared” to say anything for fear of getting into trouble.

Judge Zahra noted Hughes had shown no remorse or insight into his crimes but had a low risk of reoffending.

In one victim impact statement previously read to the court a woman said, “I never thought I’d see this day. For 26 years I’ve tried to deal with the fact that this just happened.

I will never have children because of Robert. I never want to risk having a kid going through what I did.

“Maybe now I can try to piece my life together again, to not feel ashamed or dirty.

“Throughout the years when I heard your voice on a TV commercial or the first few bars of the Hey Dad! theme I turned the TV down and walked out of the room.”

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The allegations were first made public through interviews with former child star Sarah Monahan in a magazine and later extensive interviews on A Current Affair, including with former co-stars.

This week she noted with some regret that some “faux friends” had popped up in the media to discuss the case but hadn’t reached out to her in 4 years. You can read that on her blog.

More importantly last month Monahan called on Channel Seven to acknowledge a lack of duty of care, but has no plans to pursue civil action.

“It would be nice if Channel Seven stood up and said, ‘Obviously we did the wrong thing.’ I understand it’s new management and it’s all different people. But it would be great if they said, ‘We’re going to make sure this never ever happens again’ and they make sure that there’s always a chaperone on set, make sure that no other kid goes through what I had to go through,” she said.

Hey Dad! remains Australia’s longest running sitcom.

This post updates.

5 Responses

  1. There was a note made by a judge recently in a high profile case.

    It went something like….If you make the penalty for sexual assault the same as the penalty for murder, what chance have the victims got of surviving?

  2. Really disgusting that the producer & channel 7 executives at the time were not made accountable. Correct me if i am wrong, but Gary Reilly was not even called as a wtiness in court was he? if not, then why not? i find it hard to believe they and other adults did not know what was going on, or at least suspect it, in which case they should have taken more action. That also goes for adult cast members, some of the younger ones were brave enough to at least try and speak up yet others were not.

  3. Sentence not nearly long enough for the pain he caused to those girls.
    I always thought he was creepy when I saw that show.
    My heart goes out to his victims.
    They were extremely brave (especially Sarah).
    At least he’s in jail!

  4. That’s about what i was expecting; anything less would not seem punitive enough.

    I happened to tune into an ep of Kingswood Country this week and Robert was the guest star, playing a kooky solicitor. It was very eery!

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