A former Invercargill judicial officer today sentenced to five years' jail for a range of sexual offences, confessed to some of them nearly 10 years before going to police, his lawyer said.

Raphael Giuseppe Caccioppoli, 37, was sentenced by Judge Robert Wolff after earlier admitting 13 charges including sexual violation, performing indecent acts on two boys aged 10 and 12, indecent assault, performing an indecent act on a dog, and assault, when he appeared in the Invercargill District Court today.

The offences occurred throughout New Zealand between October 1990 and July 2007, the first taking place when Caccioppoli was 19 years-old.

Counsel for Caccioppoli Bill Dawkins said his client was remorseful and this was shown by the number of people he had told about the offending, including the Mormon Church.

In 1998 he told a Bishop in the North Island about his offending on the 12-year-old boy, one month after the offending took place, Mr Dawkins said.

The police only became involved after Caccioppoli went to them in August 2007 amid fears allegations of other offending had been made against him, he said.

While accepting responsibility for his offending, one mitigating factor was Caccioppoli's own history of childhood abuse, which was believed to have been inflicted on him by family members from the age of nine months, Mr Dawkins said.

However, Judge Wolff said the pattern of abusive behaviour was often cyclical, and people who had been abused themselves were in a better position to know the consequences of their actions.

He sentenced Caccioppoli to five years' jail for the sexual violation, with concurrent sentences of one year for the indecent acts, and six months for the assaults.

No minimum non-parole period was imposed.