William Stuart Brown, alias Tony, reacts to his paedophilia conviction yesterday. (Reuters TV)

William Brown, 52, a former Australian diplomat and a teacher of English, was found hanging from a strip of material torn from a mattress in his cell on Wednesday morning.

Our correspondent in Indonesia, Tim Palmer, says a lawyer for Brown has confirmed his client was found in his cell and his body has now been taken to hospital.

The lawyer says he has notified the Australian consulate in Bali.

Brown appeared shattered on Tuesday when he was given a 13-year prison term for sexually abusing two Balinese boys.

His lawyer says Brown appeared calm on Tuesday evening and had instructed him to prepare an appeal.

A local police officer has confirmed the death but other comment is not immediately available.

Australia's foreign minister, Alexander Downer, has described William Brown's death as "regrettable".

"Obviously the trauma of it was too much for him and he took his own life. Obviously we regret that but you know the sentence was the right thing to do," Mr Downer said.

An Indonesian court today jailed a former Australian diplomat for 13 years for having sex with underage boys in Bali.

Spectators applauded as judges passed sentence on William Stuart Brown, 52 (picture).

"Bastards," Brown shouted at the public gallery, raising his fists and apparently quivering with rage.

Chief judge I Wayan Sutama, presiding over the court in this eastern Balinese town, said Brown had "created an image that Bali was a heaven for paedophiles" and traumatised his victims.

"The defendant is a former diplomat, highly educated, a teacher who should be a role model," he added after convicting him of repeated acts of child abuse.

The sentence was one year more than prosecutors demanded and two years less than the legal maximum under a new child protection law.

Alit Kertaraharja, an investigator with a local anti-paedophile group called Committee Against Sexual Abuse, welcomed the sentence. He said his group was investigating eight to 10 other suspected paedophiles.

He said he had spoken with the father of one victim and "he is satisfied with this sentence".

Brown, who was teaching English at the time, had been charged with luring, "through the use of violence, trickery or a series of lies, two children (aged 16 and 14) to engage in, or allowed them to engage in, sexual acts".

Prosecutors had said that on Jan 1, Brown took the 16-year-old swimming and then forced him to have sex. He gave the boy 5,000 rupiah (RM2.28) and warned him not to tell anyone.

They said Brown repeated the act with both children on Jan 4. He gave them each 20,000 rupiah and the same warning.

However, the parents of the 16year-old reported it to police.

Brown was a second secretary with the foreign aid section in the Australian embassy in Jakarta from 1982-1984. He was recalled before his posting was due to finish.

Asked whether he would appeal, defence lawyers I Nengah Maharsa said his client was "still shocked" and unprepared to take a decision.

Bali police have said they were serious about combating paedophilia and are working with Australian federal police posted there.

FORMER diplomat and convicted pedophile William Stuart Brown's suicide was regrettable, but the 13-year jail sentence he had received was right, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said today.

Mr Downer also said Brown's "in-your-face" homosexuality had led to his dismissal as a diplomat and he was long suspected of being a child molester.

Brown, 52, was found hanged in his Bali jail cell today, a day after he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment for sexually assaulting two boys on the Indonesian resort island.

Brown, who moved to Indonesia from Canberra eight years ago, worked at the Australian embassy in Jakarta from 1982 to 1984.

Mr Downer said it was always regrettable when someone committed suicide but he thought the court had made the right decision.

"It was a savage sentence, a much longer sentence than apparently Brown and his lawyers expected," he told the John Laws radio program.

"In fact, the sentence was longer than the sentence recommended by the prosecution so no doubt some of the trauma that (affected) him came from surprise at the sheer length of the sentence.

"It's not an unreasonable penalty."

Mr Downer said it was good news that South-East Asian governments were now being more decisive in dealing with the child-sex issue than had been the case historically.

Mr Downer said Brown's overt homosexuality had led to his dismissal from the Jakarta embassy, where he worked for aid agency AusAID.

"My recollection is that he was asked to leave the embassy in Jakarta when the then ambassador found that his activities were, to use a euphemism, somewhat flamboyant but (the ambassador was) not aware that his activities were criminal in nature.

"He was an active homosexual so he was very up-front and public in his homosexuality. We all tolerate people's private sexual preferences - that's a matter for them - but he was in his case very much in your face, very overt, and it was a matter of some substantial embarrassment to the Australian embassy.

"There were allegations that he might have been involved in child sex, going back to the time that he worked in Jakarta, but they weren't substantiated."