An international privacy activist has been sentenced for historical sex abuse offences against teenagers he befriended while running a support group for homeless children.
Simon Davies, 66, will spend at least six years and three months in prison after pleading guilty to child sexual and indecent assault charges committed across Sydney during the 1980s.
Davies appeared in Downing Centre District Court via audiovisual link from a maximum security facility in the Cessnock Correctional Complex on Tuesday.
In sentencing Davies to 10 years imprisonment, Judge Sharon Harris said Davies knew he was engaging in illegal and immoral behaviour at the time the offences were committed.
Ms Harris said Davies used his position as founder of a homeless children support organisation and abused the trust that gave him to gain access to his victims, grooming and abusing them while they were teenagers.
"He thought of the offender as his saviour," the judge said of one of the victims, who had spent time drinking with Davies in the office of the Darlinghurst townhouse serving as the Homeless Children's Association's base.
Davies introduced his teenaged victims to alcohol, taking one of them to an adult sex shop with hireable booths, and massaging and "wrestling" with another in his home, after convincing the teen's mother to let him stay there during the week.
Both of his victims had previously told the court the considerable harm Davies' offending had caused and continued to cause them.
Ms Harris said his offending was aggravated by the fact the teens were about a decade younger than him.
"The age disparity is significant. It represents an increased level of exploitation," she said.
Ms Harris sentenced Davies to an aggregate sentence of 10 years imprisonment, with a non-parole period of six years and three months.
Davies pleaded guilty and was identified as having a low risk of reoffending, resulting in a reduction in his sentence.
Although he had a previously unblemished criminal record, Ms Harris said that would not work in his favour.
"It was of assistance to him in committing the offences," she said on Tuesday.
Prior to his arrest, Davies was living overseas as the director of London-based Privacy International.
Davies has been in custody since handing himself in at a Rotterdam police station in December 2019 while subject to an Interpol red notice. He was extradited to Australia from the Netherlands in April 2021.
A warrant was first issued in 2016, more than five years after a referral was made to police.
He will be eligible for parole in March 2026.
