An Australian babysitter who hired 16 young girls at different times, including an infant, after advertising his services on social media earned the trust of the families before sexually abusing the victims.
Jareth Harries-Markham, 24, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on Tuesday after stunning details of the horrifying assault he committed were revealed in court.
According to testimony given in court, Harries-Markham recorded his victims’ assaults and rapes on his phone and snapped pictures of them, even as he inserted something into a newborn.
Attorney Brett Tooker had to halt while describing the graphic nature of the assault because he was overcome by emotion.
Some of the 12 families were present in court for the sentencing, and the victims ranged in age from eight months to nine years.
According to testimony given in court, several families engaged Harries-Markham on a live-in basis, and some crimes took place while the kids slept.
Friends of the kids who were mistreated at play dates were also victims.
The crimes happened between July 2020 and August of the previous year.
Harries-Markham admitted to a psychiatrist that he was unaware of what had occurred and that he was unsure of his motivation.
His lawyer Amir Murad argued his client “did love these children.”
“He did become attached to them. It was never his intention to cause them distress in the way he did or in any other way, and he simply cannot reconcile what he has done with how he feels about the children,” Murad said.
He stated that his client might not have known he had a pedophilic condition and pointed out that there was no proof Harries-Markham started working as a babysitter in order to get access to kids.
But Justice Stephen Hall pointed out that Harries-Markham kept promoting his services even after he began breaking the law.
Referring to the victim impact statements, Justice Hall said they made for “harrowing and heart-rending reading.”
“The impact has been felt by not only the victims themselves but also their parents and extended families,” he said.
“Some of the matters raised are the behavioral changes experienced by the children, the sense of betrayal felt by the parents, overwhelming sense of guilt felt by parents, that the parents have become overly protective of their children, which imposes a greater burden on them and provides less freedom for their children, the uncertainty of lasting harm and the enduring torment that they feel.
“Understandably, many of the parents feel that their trust was abused, and that they would have difficulty ever trusting someone to mind their children again.”
