A welfare officer at a residential care home abused five wards of the state, one as young as eight, and has no remorse nor mental illness, a judge has said in sentencing.

Melbourne County Court Judge Duncan Allen sentenced Dennis Malcolm Gill, 69, to 15 years and 10 months, with a minimum of 11 years, for the sexual assault of five boys in the 1970s.

Dennis Malcolm Gill has been sentenced to 15 years in jail for abusing boys at a residential care home in the 1970s.

Gill, 69, was in his mid-20s and on a tertiary placement at Sutherland Homes for Children in Diamond Creek when he preyed on the vulnerable children, who had been placed there by the state because they couldn’t be cared for by their parents.

Two of the boys went there because their father wasn’t coping after their mother’s death. The court heard that he wanted his children to be properly cared for.