A MAN who repeatedly sexually assaulted and raped a young boy in the 1970s has been jailed for more than six years.
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The 71-year-old man was sentenced in the County Court on Wednesday after a jury last November found him guilty of seven counts of indecent assault on a male person and one count of buggery with a person under 14.
Court documents released to the Bendigo Advertiser said the boy was about eight or nine years old at the time of the offending, while the man was in his late-20s.
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The boy lived on the same central Victorian street as the man and was a friend of the man's younger brother.
Over a period of several months during the mid-1970s, the man repeatedly sexually assaulted the boy in secluded areas and in front of other men.
On one occasion, the man violently raped the boy while in the back seat of a car.
Judge Scott Johns on Wednesday described the offending as "particularly serious" given the young age of the boy, the degrading nature of the acts, and number of times the offending happened.
In his sentencing remarks, the judge noted the 71-year-old's prior convictions, which included other indecent assault and rape charges against underage boys in the 1970s and 1990s.
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Judge Johns said he would need to take into account the man's "deprived" and "traumatic" childhood, his abuse of alcohol, and mental illnesses including borderline personality disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
The judge told the court the 71-year-old had shown little remorse or empathy for his "shocking" crimes, but his age and lack of offending in the past 20 years showed his prospect of avoiding recidivism was "approaching reasonable".
Judge Johns said the delay in the case coming to trial worked in the man's favour as he was "no longer the man (he) was at 28".
But the judge said the sentence needed to denounce the crimes and deter others from committing similar offences.
The 71-year-old man was jailed for six years and six months, with a non-parole period of three years and six months. His 139 days in pre-sentence detention were reckoned as already served.
The man will be on the sex offenders register for life.
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