MASTERCHEF Australia finalist Paul Douglas Frost has been jailed for 32 years after a court found him guilty of child abuse.

The swim coach-turned-chef, 48, learnt his fate at Sydney’s Downing Centre District Court on Thursday – four years after he was first arrested.

Judge Sarah Huggett sentenced Frost to a maximum term of 32 years for 43 offences he was found to have committed over a decade against children – with a minimum of 24 years behind bars before he can apply for parole.

Frost was arrested in September 2019 at his Sylvania home.

The former MasterChef Australia finalist was first charged with only 10 offences, but further allegations were raised as police investigated his crimes

He has been proven guilty of sexually abusing 11 young children – 10 boys and one girl – under his care at a swimming school in Sydney’s south-west between 1996 and 2009.

It includes several counts of sexual intercourse with a child under his care, multiple charges of aggravated indecent assault of a person under 16 and grooming children for sexual activity

His youngest victim was nine or 10 when she was first violated, the oldest a boy whom Frost had molested until the age of 16.

Judge Huggett described Frost’s crimes as “opportunistic, impulsive and spontaneous”, and said he “deliberately created a culture which facilitated his offending”.

He normalised talking about sex among these children and other teenagers he was coaching, encouraged sexual activity both with and between them, and engaged in graphic acts inside the changing rooms.

One of the victims told the court: “Paul had built a culture of these types of things being normal.”

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He revealed as a boy he went along with discussing sexual things with Frost as he wanted to be one of his “cool kids”.

He added: “I thought talking about that … was just what people did.

“I thought it was normal because he built that kind of atmosphere around us.”

Frost also reportedly commented on one young student’s “bubble butt”, encouraged another to watch the sexually explicit TV show Sex Life – and openly discussed the size of a boy’s genitalia.

He even encouraged one student to watch pornography on his office computer with him.

After assaulting another boy, Frost drove him home and said: “You know we can’t tell anyone this else we’ll both get into trouble.”

Judge Huggett revealed Frost had shown no apparent concern about his vile crimes being uncovered that led leading up to his sentence.

She said: “He escaped justice for decades and enjoyed life in the community free of the opprobrium and punishment for his crimes.”

Strangely, Frost had told the court he had grown up believing he was the son of famed swimming coach Doug Frost, who guided Ian Thorpe to three of his five Olympic gold medals.

He was 40 when he realised his real biological father was a man he had considered a family friend, it was added.

Ivana Frost, the abuser’s wife and a senior executive at Australian Ikea, filed an affidavit to Sutherland Local Court on Thursday.

In the affidavit, she wrote that she was in “shock and disbelief” when she learned about the serious allegations against her husband – and pleaded for him to be allowed home while awaiting trial.

She told the court they had been married since November 2001.