William Kamm, who calls himself Little Pebble, and his wife Sandra Susan Mathison were found not guilty of grooming a seven-year-old girl for more than a decade after a judge-alone trial at Sydney Downing Centre. Judge Nicole Noman handed down the verdict after hearing evidence from the complainant, her relatives, corrections officers and police throughout the trial last month. The state’s courtroom machinery listened to a child’s account of years of alleged manipulation, then let both adults walk free on all charges.
Kamm, 76, and Mathison, 60, were acquitted of all charges. They had both been charged with grooming a child for unlawful sexual activity and grooming a child under 14 for unlawful sexual activity. Kamm had also pleaded not guilty to two counts of breaching an extended supervision order and inciting a person to do a sexual act with them in circumstances of aggravation, and he was cleared of those charges as well. The legal system stacked the allegations neatly on paper, then demanded proof beyond a reasonable doubt while the complainant described what she says happened to her from age seven onward.
Who Has the Power
The judge said the evidence was not strong enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether the couple intended for the girl to become Mr Kamm's wife before she turned 16. Judge Noman accepted the account that Kamm and Mathison had a plan for the complainant to become Kamm's spouse, but said the evidence was not strong enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt whether this would occur before she was 16. That’s the narrow gate the court built. A plan could be accepted, but the timing had to be nailed down to the court’s satisfaction, and that was enough to end the case in acquittal.
The complainant, now in her 20s, gave evidence throughout the trial and said she had been subjected to grooming and manipulation by Mr Kamm beginning when she was seven. She alleged that Kamm whispered in code in a hoarse voice through recorded calls from Long Bay prison that she would be his "main queen" and begin a "new era" for their cult. The court heard that Mathison, who joined Kamm's cult in 1984, facilitated the calls by taking the girl into a room and putting the phone on loudspeaker. That’s not some abstract abuse case. It’s a child, isolated in a room, while adults used prison calls and cult language to keep the machinery running.
Who Pays the Price
The judge said the complainant had the unenviable position of recounting more than a decade's worth of events and found her evidence truthful, although she was "mistaken" about some details. As the complainant got older, she testified that she began experiencing panic attacks and suicidal thoughts as the grooming allegedly escalated to forcing her to perform sexual acts during phone calls. The human cost sits there in plain language. Years of testimony. Panic attacks. Suicidal thoughts. The court could acknowledge the weight of that account and still decide the evidence didn’t clear the legal bar.
The judge found that while Kamm was in a position of power over the complainant, the evidence was not strong enough to prove that he knew she was not consenting to masturbating over the phone with him. Kamm and the girl never met because of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions, which prevented him from leaving Sydney. The pandemic’s restrictions, meant to control movement, also shaped the facts of the case. Even then, the hierarchy held: a man in prison, a cult structure around him, a child on the receiving end.
What the Court Calls Order
Outside court, the cult leader said, "God bless the judge." Mr Kamm had been on bail for the duration of the trial. The line lands with the usual rotten grace of power: gratitude for the institution that just cleared him. The article also said the convicted paedophile has a compound known as the Order of St Charbel in Bangalee on the NSW South Coast, and that court orders resulting from prior offending against a young girl have restricted him from returning there for years. The apparatus keeps issuing orders, restrictions, and verdicts, while the people harmed by these arrangements are left to carry the damage.
Mathison, 60, was acquitted alongside Kamm after the judge-alone trial at Sydney Downing Centre. The evidence came from the complainant, her relatives, corrections officers and police. The court heard it all. Then it drew its line, and the line favored the accused. That’s the shape of the system here: a long record of alleged abuse, a formal hearing, and a verdict that leaves the structure intact.