A MAN who was unfit to stand trial over dozens of historical child sex abuse charges - some of the acts performed alongside his twin brother - has been found to have committed most of the crimes of which he was accused.
Stephen and Richard Mateer faced a concurrent special hearing and judge-alone trial respectively in Newcastle District Court.
Stephen Mateer was deemed unfit to face a trial on the 45 counts levelled against him, due to dementia.
Judge Peter McGrath on Friday afternoon handed down his verdicts, saying he was "satisfied beyond reasonable doubt" that Stephen Mateer committed all but three of the offences - though eight were not in the "aggravated" circumstances in which the charges were put to the court.
Richard Mateer was found guilty of all eight counts he faced, related to the abuse of one boy.
The court heard that Stephen Mateer preyed on two boys while they were aged between 12 and 14 in the Lake Macquarie area from the late 1980s to the early 1990s.
In one attack in the back of a van, the brothers touched the genitals of one of the boys, before inciting him to manually stimulate them. Richard Mateer then raped the child.
Judge McGrath found that Stephen Mateer sexually assaulted this boy and another on separate occasions while taking them for driving lessons.
Another time, Stephen Mateer - who met the boys through the Belmont pizza shop where he worked - incited the children to touch each other.
Stephen and Richard Mateer were arrested after detectives from Strike Force Arapaima - investigating the long-unsolved disappearances of Lake Macquarie girls Robyn Hickie and Amanda Robinson - were tipped off to a string of alleged sexual assaults against two boys in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The Mateer twins remain in custody. The case will be mentioned in Newcastle District Court again on July 13 as further health reports are obtained before sentencing proceedings take place.
To see more stories and read today's paper download the Newcastle Herald news app here.
