Impacts of rapist publican Joshua Leemhuis' crimes laid bare

That is how a young Canberra boy has captioned pictures he has drawn of his rapist father, who repeatedly filmed himself violating the child's unconscious mother, standing over a bed with a camera.

This and the many other heartbreaking impacts of Joshua Leemhuis' lengthy list of despicable crimes were laid bare on Friday as the disgraced publican faced a sentence hearing.

It can now be revealed that while the George Harcourt Inn boss presented himself to the world as a loving father and charitable member of the community, he was in fact a dangerous predator.

Leemhuis pleaded guilty earlier this year to 22 charges, including several counts of sexual intercourse without consent. The charges encompassed a total of 18 incidents.

Agreed facts show the 35-year-old sexually assaulted one then-partner as she lay unconscious on a number of occasions about a decade ago, filming and taking pictures as he did so.

Leemhuis also captured clandestine vision of the woman while she was naked in a bathroom.

These incidents did not come to light until last year, when the woman's mother found disturbing evidence of one of the rapes on an old camera memory card as she looked through family photos.

The discovery was reported to police, prompting investigators to also uncover crimes Leemhuis committed against another of his then-partners in more recent years.

He was found to have uploaded intimate images of this woman without her consent to a pornography website on several occasions, while he had also emailed some to another man.

Leemhuis' former partners, wanting him to be publicly denounced, have consented to him being named in media reporting in the knowledge their identities will also be apparent to some people.

The victim of the earliest offending told the ACT Supreme Court on Friday that she had suffered "intense psychological and emotional abuse" at the hands of Leemhuis, who has been behind bars since his arrest in June 2020.

She said she believed the offender's need for control over others was "at the core of who he is", and that watching the footage of him raping her upon its discovery was "chilling" and "horrifying".

"The level of my unconsciousness [in the videos] is sickening," she said.

"He manipulates my body into different positions as though I am part of a crime scene."

The woman characterised Leemhuis' crimes as "vulgar" and "revolting", saying she felt his intent had been "to strip me of every bit of dignity a woman could have".

She also detailed how one of Leemhuis' children had drawn the pictures of his father, and told her he was afraid of his dad.

The woman's mother said, in a victim impact statement read by prosecutor Trent Hickey, that it had been "physically and emotionally shattering" to find the evidence her daughter had been raped.

She described the material she had discovered as "disgusting" and "depraved", saying her unconscious daughter "looked dead in the images".

The other of Leemhuis' former partners said in her victim impact statement that she lived in "absolute fear" of the man, worrying he would seek revenge following the exposure of his offending.

She called the images he took of her "humiliating and degrading".

The woman said Leemhuis was "a monster" whose "despicable crimes" included uploading pictures of her to a pornography website just two weeks after she had given birth to one of their children.

"I have to live every day not knowing who has seen what you uploaded online or who you emailed them to," she told him.

The court later heard from pre-sentence report author Ellen Grieves, who said Leemhuis had told her he "felt a thrill in the moment" when he was committing the offences.

Leemhuis then took the witness stand himself, becoming emotional as he spoke of his time on remand in jail being "terrifying".

He said he felt disgrace, shame, guilt and embarrassment about his offending, "but I deserve that".

Leemhuis added that he was "sorry for the man I've become".

"There's no reason whatsoever why [the victims] wouldn't have pure hatred towards me because what I did was unforgivable," he said.

The case returns to court for sentencing submissions on June 22.

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