A serial sex offender has been jailed for raping a heavily intoxicated 18-year-old man he led from a Hobart nightclub while on parole for similar offending against teenage boys.
Lawrence Bernard Sullivan, 58, was sentenced in the Supreme Court of Tasmania on June 3 after pleading guilty to one count of indecent assault and two counts of rape.
The offences happened in the early hours of May 4, 2025.
The victim, who did not know Sullivan, had been drinking heavily with friends before arriving at a nightclub very drunk and unsteady on his feet.
Sullivan approached him, bought him more drinks, then led him by the hand to his city hotel room.
CCTV captured the pair leaving within 10 minutes of Sullivan first speaking to him.
A bartender, worried about how drunk the young man was, tried to follow them but could not find them.
The victim told police he remembered being at the nightclub but then lost all memory until he woke up naked with Sullivan on top of him.
He repeatedly tried to push him off before blacking out again.
He got away by saying he needed a phone charger, then took an Uber to a friend’s house and reported the matter to police.
He has since been diagnosed with PTSD, left his job and left Tasmania.
Sullivan committed the offences while on parole for sexual offences against teenage boys spanning 2003 to 2012.
He has a longstanding problem with alcohol, and was himself affected by alcohol on the night.
Justice Kate Cuthbertson said Sullivan had engaged in “predatory conduct” towards a vulnerable victim.
She said it was not the first time he had been sentenced for a sexual offence involving an absence of consent.
The judge rejected a defence push for the minimum non-parole period, finding his reoffending while on parole warranted more.
She did take into account his early guilty plea and cooperation with police, which she accepted was a genuine acknowledgement of his wrongdoing and spared the victim from giving evidence.
Sullivan was jailed for five years, cumulative to his current sentence, with a non-parole period of three years.
The state has flagged an application to have Sullivan declared a dangerous criminal.
