The trial of a Sydney man accused of sexually abusing children, including a baby, has begun

A SYDNEY man videoed himself sexually abusing eight children, including a baby whose “terror and extreme distress are quite palpable”, a judge has been told.

In his outline of the crown case on Tuesday, Mark Tedeschi QC said David Shane Whitby also videoed himself performing gross acts and speaking in a child-like voice reported AAP.

“I love to molest children …. I am a child molester and transvestite … I have molested so many children,” Whitby allegedly says on the DVD.

Whitby, 56, has pleaded not guilty in the NSW District Court to 120 sex charges, involving three boys and five girls aged from 12 to 18 months to 13 to 14 years.

They include a charge of persistent sexual abuse of a child; 73 counts of sexual intercourse with a child between 10 and 14; 22 of sexual intercourse with a child under 10; and five of using a child for pornographic purposes.

Mr Tedeschi told Judge Peter Berman, who is hearing the trial without a jury, that the 120 charges are only representative of Whitby’s offending.

If every single offence portrayed on the DVDs had been charged there would be “many thousands” of counts on the indictment, he said.

Philip Young SC, for Whitby, said the issue for the judge, who will be required to watch the DVDs, would be the identity of the adult person shown in them.

But Mr Tedeschi said the man “quite clearly and unequivocally” was Whitby, who made no attempt to hide his identity during the making of the DVDs.

At times he answered the phone during filming and at other times the mask or wig Whitby was wearing slipped, Mr Tedeschi said.

The court wast old that during a search of Whitby’s home, police found items – including a black balaclava, pink fairy wings and “a paddle bat” – which can be seen on the DVDS “in the course of his abuse of these young children”.

Whitby also allegedly hid in his neighbour’s yard a suitcase containing sex objects, dress up clothing and other items which can be seen in the DVDs.

“In many of the DVDs the accused is wearing female clothing,” Mr Tedeschi said.

In some DVDs, Whitby offers children alcohol and drugs and one boy is “quite clearly heavily drugged during some of the sexual abuse”.

In another, a girl yells: “I want mummy”.

Mr Tedeschi said that since the DVDs were made, Whitby had substantially changed his appearance, now having a long grey beard and long hair.

He said the man in the video had been identified as being Whitby by a number of adult witnesses who had known him extremely well for many years.

The trial is continuing.