A former swim coach has been found guilty of 43 child sexual abuse charges relating to 11 different children.
Paul Douglas Frost was convicted on Wednesday afternoon of abusing his former students at a swimming school in Sydney‘s southwest during the 1990s and 2000s.
The NSW District Court jury had earlier been directed it could deliver majority verdicts before it found him guilty on all counts.
The 43 charges Frost has been convicted of include several charges of sexual intercourse with a child under his authority or care, multiple charges of aggravated indecent assaults of a person under 16 and grooming children for sexual activity.
A juror entered the witness box to tell the court they had not reached unanimous verdicts and were not going to on Wednesday, before the judge said she would take a majority verdict.
“It is preferable that your verdict be unanimous,” Judge Sarah Huggett said, before the guilty verdicts returned hours later.
The nine men and three women will be able to request to have their names removed from the jury duty role due to the length of the trial, the judge told jurors as they were discharged, thanking them for giving up months of their time to sit on the case.
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Frost and the jury spokesperson were permitted to remain seated while the verdicts were returned due to the length of the indictment.
Frost was handcuffed and taken into custody following the jury’s discharge and will face a sentencing hearing in August.
A previous trial had its jury discharged without a verdict after 16 days amid allegations of bullying and refusal to deliberate that a judge worried would taint the outcome.
Frost was once a finalist on cooking competition show MasterChef and his father coached Olympic champion Ian Thorpe.
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