Milton Orkopoulos, a disgraced former Labor MP and convicted paedophile has been confronted with the words of his victims as he awaits sentencing.
Orkopoulos was found guilty on 26 charges of sexual offending against four underage boys and supplying them with drugs between 1993 and 2003.
Three victim impact statements were read by a victim support staff member to the NSW District Court on Friday. The statements detailed the continuing impact of the 26 offences Orkopoulos committed.
A man abused as an 11-year-old, when Orkopoulous was 35, told of how his life changed forever and how he did not think he could get through life at times due to the abuse.
“I felt confused, I thought no one believed me,” he said. “I blamed myself and I hated myself.”
Another victim, who was between 12 to 13 years old at the time of the offending, detailed the long list of issues he had suffered as a result of Orkopoulos’s actions, including having suicidal thoughts and relationship breakdowns with family and friends.
“My family didn’t understand why I had changed because I did not confide in them,” he said in his statement.
“I was alone with my trauma and basically tore my family apart and ruined my own life.”
A third victim, told of how that fateful encounter resulted in a life of drug abuse and years in prison.
Orkopoulos served as Aboriginal affairs minister in NSW under former premier Morris Iemma. He was dismissed in 2006 after he was charged with a first round of offences, including child prostitution, sexual assault and using taxpayer money to pay a teenage boy for sex.
He was sentenced to 13 years and 11 months in jail in 2008 after being convicted of 28 offences relating to sexual assault of a minor, indecent assault and supplying heroin and cannabis.
He will be sentenced on November 17.
Source: AAP
