STATE OF TASMANIA v M 28 MAY 2020
COMMENTS ON PASSING SENTENCE BLOW CJ
Mr M, you pleaded guilty in the Magistrates Court last October to a charge of communicating with intent to procure a person under 17 years to engage in an unlawful sexual act. Last month that crime was given a new name, and that new name applies retrospectively. This afternoon therefore, I will be convicting you and sentencing you for the crime now called “Grooming with intent to procure a young person for sexual abuse”. That crime is committed when a person communicates with someone else with the intention of procuring a person under the age of 17 years to engage in an unlawful sexual act.
I note that you are in your 50s. You became sexually attracted to a 16 year old girl who went to school with one of your children. You committed this crime by exchanging text messages with that girl on a day in 2018. In the beginning you did not say who you were. You made vague suggestions that you and she could chat, and that she could have some fun. As the exchange of messages progressed, you became more and more explicit, revealing that you were much older than she was, revealing that you were the father of one of her friends, and asking whether she “would like to fuck an older man”. Eventually you revealed who you were, whereupon you received a response from her boyfriend, rebuking you and saying that he and she had agreed not to say anything for the sake of your child. The following day you started another exchange of text messages with this girl. She told her parents about them. They reported the matter to the police, and eventually you were arrested and charged.
The girl in question was very upset about receiving your text messages. She still has nightmares about what happened. She is anxious in situations where she fears she might run into you. She feels uncomfortable about talking to older men.
I note that you have a number of prior convictions, but none for sexual offences. You have been fined for assaulting people in 1985, 2001, 2013 and 2014, but you have never been sentenced to imprisonment or community service, or even placed on probation. To your credit, you pleaded guilty on your second appearance in the Magistrates Court. From that early stage, the complainant would have known that there would be no need for her to give evidence, and that counts significantly in your favour.
It is clear that you have been very embarrassed about what you did. Your current partner, your former wife, family members and acquaintances are apparently all aware of your offending. Well before the restrictions relating to the COVID-19 pandemic came into force, you had isolated yourself from previous friends and acquaintances because of your embarrassment. There is a risk that you might lose your employment if your employer learns of your crime. As it happens, the Court will not be publishing your name – not for your sake, but in order to protect the girl whom you tried to seduce. I accept that you are ashamed of yourself, very sorry that you did what you did, and conscious of the impact on the girl that you contacted.
People who commit this sort of crime are often sent to prison. In your case, I thought it might be preferable to sentence you to home detention. However, when a probation officer provided a home detention assessment report, she said that you were unsuitable for home detention for reasons that are not your fault. Your work takes you to places where an electronic monitoring device would not function, and there was some concern about the possible expiry of the lease of your residence. The arrangements for community service orders have been disrupted as a result of the pandemic. In the circumstances, I have decided that the most appropriate course is for me to impose a wholly suspended sentence of imprisonment, together with a fine.
I convict you and sentence you to five months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended on condition that you commit no offence punishable by imprisonment for a period of two years. I order you to pay a fine of $2,500. That amount will have to be paid within 28 days unless you obtain an extension of time from the Monetary Penalties Enforcement Service.
Finally, I order that the Registrar appointed under s 42 of the Community Protection (Offender Reporting) Act 2005 place your name on the register under that Act and that you comply with the reporting obligations under that Act for five years.