A woman who was sexually abused by a once famed artist, after he asked her to work as a life model, said she “felt like he could have murdered” her in a statement tendered to court.
Pierre Raphael Mol, 59, sat in his prison greens, largely stony faced, throughout his sentence hearing at Downing District Court on Monday.
Mol was once an influential artist who was commissioned to complete several artworks including a ‘Brown Bear Lane’ mural in The Rocks.
It was previously reported he also created what was once the largest mural in the Southern Hemisphere for the Sultan of Brunei, and established Sydney’s Fine Art Empire in 1986.
Dr Pierre Mol pictured circa 2009 in Byron Bay.
Mol has spent the best part of a decade behind bars after he was convicted of indecently assaulting and raping three young women in 2015.
Since his conviction, he has now been hit with a string of fresh charges relating to three new victims who came forward and reported the former artist to police after he was imprisoned. He has pleaded guilty to these charges — namely three counts of assault with act of indecency and two counts of sexual intercourse without consent.
The Downing Centre. Picture: Nikki Short
On Monday, as the judge considered his sentencing, the court heard from some of Mol’s victims when their statements were read to the court.
One woman, who was an arts student when Mol, then working as a teacher, sexually assaulted her told the court of how he had asked her to attend life drawing classes.
“I felt really stupid for falling for the ruse,” she said.
She described knowing “something was wrong” as soon as she went to model for Mol, but the court heard she was “scared if I acted it would get worse”.
“I felt like he treated me like a specimen and not a human,” she said in her statement.
“I felt like he could have murdered me and no one would know or hear me.”
Another woman, who was 19-years-old when Mol sexually assaulted her, said in a statement read to court that Mol abused his status “as a successful artist to lure and assault me”.
She described the ongoing trauma from the assault and said she had suffered from “harrowing” mental health conditions, including post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
“I will never get back the untraumatised version of myself but, with this, I can take my power back and get some sort of closure,” she said in her statement.
Mol’s sentence hearing was heard at the Downing Centre. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short
The prosecution told the court Mol “completely took advantage of the circumstances”, as well as the youth of the victims. The court also heard he assaulted them at the back of his home.
The prosecution read part of a statement Mol had written where he said his “behaviour was not helped by” a pursuit of his “artistic passions” which were “motivated by … (a) desire to understand the human figure”.
The defence said Mol, who has been in prison for a decade, was merely attempting to explain the “longitudinal evolution” of his offending and how, through his work, he had developed “an artistic obsession of the female form”.
There was audible protests from the public gallery when the defence told the court the victims had attended voluntarily, undressed voluntarily and left at a time of their own choosing.
The court heard some of the victims had said “no” to Mol and clearly expressed they were not comfortable.
In a surprise move at the end of the sentence hearing, Mol stood up and attempted to address his victims from the dock before he was lead back to custody.
As he did, a young woman sitting in the public gallery yelled out: “Shut up” and “You’re a piece of s–t Mol”.
The judge reserved his decision. The matter will return to court for sentence on July 5.