Too fat for jail: Paedophile teacher won't be locked up for sexually abusing six students - because he is morbidly obese
- Peter John O'Neill, 61, now lives in Canberra and pleaded guilty to sexual abuse
- Former students of Dominic College said O'Neill's 'final days should be in jail'
- Defence barrister said will cost up to $40,000 to transport him to Tasmanian jail
A paedophile teacher who is morbidly obese won't spend a single day in jail - because it would cost up to $40,000 to transport him interstate.
Peter John O'Neill, 61, is at home in Canberra while he awaits sentencing. He is in a wheelchair, requires a full-time carer and has been deemed unfit to travel by the court.
Chief Justice Alan Blow said in a previous hearing he was limited to handing down a suspended jail sentence as there was no point in placing O'Neill under home detention as he cannot leave anyway, according to The Mercury.
O'Neill pleaded guilty to six counts of indecent assault and one count of penetrative sexual abuse of a young person and is due to be sentenced on August 25.
Former students expressed their anger in a Facebook group called Old Dominic Scholars: 'I couldn’t care less how sick this filth is — his final days should be in jail,' one man said.
Peter John O'Neill is in a wheelchair, requires a full-time carer and cannot shower on his own (stock image)
Former students from Dominic College in Tasmania are furious Peter John O'Neill, 61, (pictured in school yearbook) won't go to jail because he is morbidly obese and unfit to travel
'Nothing will give back what he took, but he must pay in some way,' wrote another.
Defence barrister Greg Barns SC said a medical charter aircraft to transport his client would cost between $25,000 to $40,000 in a previous court hearing.
The 61-year-old cannot serve time interstate for Tasmanian crimes, has no money to pay a fine and cannot perform community service due to his medical conditions.
Rachel Grguervic, who left Dominic College in 1989 said: 'If he doesn’t go to jail and just dies quietly, he doesn’t deserve that. I don’t get why these bastards get bloody protected all the time.'
Ms Grguervic previously told The Mercury O’Neill wasn’t just a paedophile but a physical and emotional abuser.
'I was told that I was fat and dumb, that I’d never amount to anything, no-one would ever love me. If you weren’t concentrating he would hit your fingers with a ruler.'
Baden Daly had a history of abuse before he attended the school and said he was physically and emotionally traumatised by O'Neill, who would hit him and put him down.
'To end up with him as a teacher, for him to do it all over again when I thought I was safe, it was traumatic.
'I don’t think an apology really cuts it,' he said.
Former students of Dominic College in Tasmania (pictured) have posted to a Facebook Group, with one saying, 'Nothing will give back what he took, but he must pay in some way'
O'Neill (circled in red) plead guilty to six counts of indecent assault and one count of penetrative sexual abuse of a young person and is due to be sentenced on August 25
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