A Queensland criminologist and convicted paedophile once advocated to scrap the age of consent laws for children because he believed they "should have the right to conduct their sexual lives like adults do".

He also claimed child abusers "helped" young male victims because they taught them to "cope with the business of growing up in an increasingly adult-orientated and impersonal world".

Paul Wilson, 75, was found guilty of four counts of indecent treatment of a child under the age of 12 on Wednesday.

View photos

Paul Wilson (centre) leaves the District Court in Brisbane after was found guilty of indecently dealing with a child under the age of 12. Photo: AAP

The high-profile criminologist first assaulted the victim when she was aged eight at his Brisbane home in Indooroopilly between 1973 and 1976, only stopping when she moved away from the area.

Wilson played blindfolded games of hide-and-seek with her and forced her to take her clothes off when he caught her.

The now-retired former academic published a book in 1981 defending the activities of a fellow Brisbane paedophile arguing that children needed a “bill of rights” to allow them the right to sexual freedom at any age.

The controversial book was titled The Man They Called a Monster and was based on the life of Clarence Howard-Osborne who was a government stenographer and serial child abuser before he took his own life.

View photos

In the book, Wilson suggested that paedophilia was a "hobby" and claimed abusers went to "great lengths to look after the child" they were preying upon.

He also further went to say a child's age of consent should disappear under certain conditions.

“A legal age of consent is an arbitrary point, a line drawn that has no basis in the physiological or psychological development of the child,” Wilson said in the book.

"I would abolish any age of consent in sexual relations on the basis that in my opinion it is both unjust and unworkable, and I would also repeal all legislation relating to the age of consent in the field of sexuality specifically."

In the same section, Wilson went said the offences should be based on the "use of violence, force, fraud or pressure rather than an arbitrary age limitation".

View photos

Story continues