'The system let them down': Police were told of paedophile Grant Davies' crimes long ago
Police had long known of paedophile Grant Davies' crimes, but there was not enough evidence to press charges previously.
Former Sydney dance teacher Davies has been sentenced to 24 years in jail over dozens of child sex offences.
He is set to serve a minimum 18 years and will be eligible for parole 2034.
Fellow dance teacher, Tracey-Marie Seipel, has spoken out about how the system has let Davies' victims down.
"I felt absolutely helpless, there was nothing I could do," Seipel told 7News.
"The system let the children down, who were so brave, so brave, in coming forward and opening their little hearts to the horrors that they have been through."
Judge Jennie Girdham said Davies' offenses against nine victims were "predatory and persistent".
His wife turned him in after discovering lurid text messages between Davies and his former students.
Davies, who was a director of inner-west dance RG Dance studio, last year pleaded guilty to 28 charges relating to child sex offences over 13 years.
His abuse of students went on for more than a decade.
Young women held hands in the public gallery as the sentence was handed down in the Downing Centre District Court on Friday.
After years of preying on children, Davies was charged with a string of offences on nine victims aged between nine and 15, including sexual intercourse with a child and using children to make pornography.
Davies groomed some of his victims through persistent texting, sometimes keeping his young victims awake late into the night with sexually charged requests.
In September 2014, a mother of two of Davies' dance students was jailed for at least 18 months for sending explicit pictures and videos of her daughters to him.
The woman, who cannot be named, said she fell under the spell of Davies and became engulfed by stage ambitions for her daughters who had been accepted into his exclusive dance school.
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