A SEXUAL predator who befriended a number of Lake Macquarie families so that he could prey on three young boys over a more than 20-year period has been jailed for a maximum of 11 years and six months.
David Allen McCorriston, now 57, who is the younger brother of convicted cold case rapist Warren John McCorriston, groomed the young boys - teaching them to drive, taking them camping and plying them with alcohol - before sexually and indecently assaulted them.
In 1987, David McCorriston was aged in his early 20s and had not long been released from jail for sexual assault when he befriended a 14-year-old boy.
David McCorriston would let the boy drive his car and stay at his house and gave him alcohol before repeatedly sexually and indecently assaulting the boy.
In 1990, he befriended the family of another boy, 12, who came over to his house about every fortnight where was regularly sexually and indecently assaulted.
And in 2008, David McCorriston was involved with the Scouts and befriended another family that he would take camping.
The family were told by other members of the Scouts that they were concerned about David McCorriston being around children.
In fact, the father of his next victim threatened David McCorriston that if he ever touched the children he would kill him.
He promised he never would, but when one of the boys was at his house having a shower David McCorriston towelled him off and touched his genitals.
"It was a gross breach of trust," Judge Sharron Norton said on Thursday. "The offender had become a close family friend and had said he would never touch the children. "He was befriended by the family and used that friendship to gain access to the boy and tried to exploit that access."
Both McCorriston brothers were charged by detectives from Strike Force Arapaima, which was established in 2019 to re-examine the investigation into the unsolved disappearances and suspected murders of a number of teenage girls in Lake Macquarie.
As part of those investigations, police in 2020 arrested and charged Warren John McCorriston with a string of historical sexual assault offences.
Warren McCorriston was last year jailed for a maximum of eight-and-a-half years.
David McCorriston, of Belmont, pleaded guilty to 19 offences, including eight counts of sexual intercourse with a person aged between 10 and 16, and on Thursday was jailed for a maximum of 11 years and six months, with a non-parole period of six years and 11 months.
