For more than 40 years, Phillip Doyle was the chubby, charming face of the old Mecca Theatre on the main street of Kogarah.
The art-deco building was an institution in Sydney‘s south and the popular cinema owner was a big employer of local kids in need of part-time jobs.
But behind the popcorn and blockbuster flicks, Doyle was a depraved monster who would molest the young boys he hired to work as ushers, sell tickets and clean the theatre.
Creepy photos have now emerged of the now-demolished cinema where he lured boys as young as 12 with alcohol and gifts – before forcing himself on them.
The spooky images obtained by Daily Mail Australia show the projection room, the candy bar and toilets – all places where Doyle would corner and molest the boys, sometimes in the middle of movie sessions.
Boys aged 12 to 16 were lured into the projection room where they were molested by the cinema owner
Phillip Doyle was ‘charming’ predator who preyed on young boys employed as ushers and cleaners
Doyle also preyed upon youths in the Mecca’s candy bar store room when the cinema was deserted at night
Details of Doyle’s sex crimes against several of his victims were revealed in his appeal against his latest six-year prison sentence last December.
He lost the appeal but could still walk free as early as July this year.
Located on Station Street, Kogarah, the Mecca was one of a number of 1920s Sydney suburban cinemas which began to decline in the 1960s after the advent of television.
Doyle – who owned the Mecca from 1968 to 2013 – regularly employed young boys to work as ushers, selling tickets, in the candy bar and cleaning the theatre after movie sessions
The boys were also cornered in the toilets and Doyle would either touch them or ask them to drop their trousers in front of him
Boxes of advertising reels handwritten with product names line shelves and old ice cream cones are scattered along the floor
A would-be impresario, Doyle initially managed stage productions of shows like Cinderella at the Mecca but in the late 1980s tried to compete with the Greater Union cinema chain and split the Mecca into a four screen ‘multiplex’.
A steady supply of young males, attracted by the wages and the fact the cinema was directly opposite Kogarah train station, turned up to work and were cornered by Doyle.
A short, plump man with dark brown hair and a friendly demeanour, Doyle drove vintage cars and a Subaru ute with white rimmed wheels and the number plate ‘PWD’.
He regularly hugged his boy workers, kissed them on the lips and tried to stick his tongue in their mouths, and asked them home for dinner, a shower and a sauna.
He fondled them and shoved his hands down their pants and asked them to expose their bottoms.
Doyle initially managed stage productions of shows like Cinderella at the Mecca (above) but in the late 1980s tried to compete with the Greater Union cinema chain
The blue projection room was one of Doyle’s favoured locations for molesting boys mostly aged under 16 who were promised gifts and bought meals and drinks
Pantomime animals head lie discarded in a corner of one of the rooms of the cinema where Doyle took boys into his office
Phillip Doyle (above, right), now aged around 79 is serving more than six years’ prison for his sex crimes against boys in the since demolished Mecca Theatre (above, left) but he could be paroled in July
Later described by District Court Judge Greg Woods as ‘a charming man, able to influence boys and to get on well with their parents’, Doyle sexually preyed on male workers aged between twelve and 16 over a sustained period.
One boy sexually preyed upon over four years – starting from when he was aged twelve and Doyle was 64 – was encouraged to walk around Doyle’s home naked in between indecent assaults and acts of indecency.
One boy was offered Doyle’s Subaru ute, a vintage projector, an all-expenses paid trip to America, and was given multiple meals and drinks.
The victim remembers at least six occasions Doyle kissing him ‘in a sexual way’ when dropping him at home after work, and playing him a pornographic video in his unit bedroom.
Doyle also repeatedly fondled him in the projection room during night time sessions, when the candy bar had shut and it was after intermission and during the playing of the second movie.
What was originally branded the ‘Celebrity Room’ Doyle turned into his office and took boys into there and fondled them.
In 2012, a jury found Philip Doyle, 69, guilty of offences against five boys aged under 16 between 1980 and 2003 and he was sentenced to seven years’ jail.
The court heard the offences occurred in a projection room, in cinema toilets, in the candy bar store room and when Doyle drove some of his victims home or took them to his unit.
He was acquitted of 21 charges involving two other boys in another trial.
Doyle was prosecuted again – for 14 sexual offences committed against children between 1978 and 2010 – and was found guilty and sentenced in 2020.
The iconic Mecca Theatre has since been demolished and a block of apartments with shops below have been built on the site
An abandoned fabric horse head lies on the floor of the cinema which had a large entertaining area, a celebrity room and a two-tiered dress circle above and rows of seats
Comedy and tragedy theatre masks painted on the walls of one of the cinemas within the complex which Doyle tried to turn into a multiplex to compete with Greater Union
The crimes included six of aggravated indecent assault of a male under the age of 16, two counts each of act of indecency of a male under 16 and aggravated indecent assault under authority, three of indecently assault a male and one of indecent assault of a male under 16.
Now aged 79, Doyle was sentenced to a maximum six-and-a-half years in prison backdated to mid-2018.
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In December, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal dismissed Doyle’s application to reduce his sentence, but he will still be eligible for parole in July this year.
The photographs of the Mecca’s spooky interior show the rooms inside the Mecca cinema complex where the boys were employed to work and where Doyle molested them.
Boxes of advertising reels handwritten with product names line shelves, old ice cream cones are scattered along the floor and pantomime animal heads are piled in a corner.
Dusty old toilets are stacked up in one room, smiling ceramic clown head lamps spill out of a box and painted theatre masks and a Manhattan skyline adorn the walls.
One sign inside the since demolished Mecca says ‘Phil Doyle says “The show is the only thing that matters & there is always a show”.’
Doyle’s deals included $5 seats for all shows during the month of February when he was trying to attract business as the Mecca was on the wane
Vintage movie posters for films such as The Mummy, Tarzan and Torture Garden are stuck to the walls inside a filthy back room of the old Mecca before it was demolished
A promotional sign for ‘Mecca Movie City’ promises ‘Sydney’s lowest priced cinema complex where even the candy & drink prices are lower!’
Details of Doyle’s sex crimes against five boys – identified only by their initials – were revealed in his failed appeal against sentence last December.
Recruited by Doyle as a ticket seller, JP was 14 or 15 years of age between 1978 and 1980 when he was molested.
Aged in his mid to late 30s, Doyle invited JP to see the projection room and once there committed a sexual act upon him.
JP did not subsequently collect his pay for that work shift, but was lectured by his parents ‘about responsibility’ and eventually returned to work and was assaulted again.
Doyle told him to bring the cinema takings into his office, where he again performed a sexual act on the boy and threatened him with, ‘if you value your job here, you won’t tell anyone about what happened, especially (your father)’.
Ceramic lamps in the shape of smiling clown heads lie abandoned or shattered on the floor of one of one of the store rooms inside the old art deco building
Would-be impresario Doyle staged classics like Cinderella on stage as pantomimes, but with television and new multiplexes opened by Greater Union the Mecca was on the way out
Old toilets inside the Mecca which closed in 2013 just after Doyle was prosecuted for molesting boys on its premises and went to jail for his first series of sex crimes
Ice cream cones from the candy bar spilled across the floor of the Mecca which Doyle operated between 1968 and 2013, by which time he had been charged with sex crimes against boys
Cinema reels plus letters and numbers were stacked up for using on the Mecca’s exterior to advertise the movie screenings and times
Manhattan skuline painted on the wall of the one of the cinema rooms at the Mecca which Doyle attempted to turn into a multiplex, calling it ‘Mecca Movie City’
BR was the boy who Doyle abused for four years from the age of twelve when Doyle was 64.
Doyle was convicted of committed eight indecent assaults and acts of indecency against BR over a period in which he gave the boy and his family a number of gifts.
Between July 2007 and March 2008, BR stayed at Doyle’s house for the weekend, during which Doyle kissed him, took him into his bedroom and encouraged him to walk around the house naked.
Doyle’s attempts to attract customers to the Mecca included advertising it as a cut price cinema with ‘inflation beater’ deals for movies, drinks and candy store food
Doyle’s attempts to make his tired old theatre adapt to the competition of the big cinema chains were legion, but the Mecca was fading just around the time his past was catching up with him
Backstage at the Mecca Theatre are upturned bathroom basins (above, left) and an old sign for a Cinderella production and a sign (above, right) promoting the Mecca as a leading venue, but in the 1990s it was in decline
BR told friends about the assaults when he was about 16, then told his family when he was in his early 20s and then police in 2018.
In 2021, one of Doyle’s victims successfully sued the notorious paedophile for more than a million dollars for sexually abusing him during his employment at the Mecca.
He was awarded more than a million dollars in compensation for emotional damage and lost income, claiming the psychiatric injury prevented him becoming an airline pilot and caused his life to ‘take a completely different turn’.
The ‘Celebrity Room’ was turned into Phillip Doyle’s off ice where he invited young males for interviews and hired them as ticket sellers, cinema cleaners or ushers
Phillip Doyle’s office (above) was also the location of some of his sex crimes against boys, the youngest of whom was just 12 when the paedophile was aged 64
Then aged 16, Paul Miles – a pseudonym offered by the court – worked as a casual lighting operator in 1985 for Philip Doyle.
Around the August school holidays that year, and under the influence of alcohol supplied Doyle, Miles stayed overnight at the man’s unit.
It became clear Miles was expected to engage in sex acts overnight, after which Miles mentioned it to one another boy but otherwise told nobody about it for years until he eventually reported it to police.
Miles matriculated from school in 1986 with good marks and entered the Royal Military College at Duntroon in Canberra to train as an officer, but left the following year before finishing his pilot training.
He struggled to hold down any job, and most of his work was short term or part-time.
Doyle was already serving a sentence for multiple sexual assaults when Miles’ civil injury compensation claim came before NSW Supreme Court last year.
‘The plaintiff was given alcohol by the defendant who then took advantage of him in his intoxicated state,’ Justice Richard Cavanagh told the court.
‘While he did not physically resist and temporarily froze before protesting, he did not consent to the defendant sexually touching him’.
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