Child sex offender given chance to prove himself to the courts before sentencing

A 37-year-old man who persuaded a vulnerable 14-year-old girl to have sex with him on two occasions before handing himself in to police has been given a chance to prove himself to the courts before sentencing. The man, now aged 39, was put on a six-month pre-sentence order in Kalgoorlie District Court this week after pleading guilty to four counts of sexually penetrate a child over the age of 13, under the age of 16. The man, who has a “mild intellectual disability”, knew the victim was 14 when he befriended her on Facebook in October 2022. The pair met at Digger Daws Oval on an unknown afternoon before November 1, 2022, and entered the male public toilets together. The victim believed they were in a relationship at the time. Once inside, the man told the girl to take her shirt off, to which she told him she was happy to date but didn’t want to do “sexual stuff” because she didn’t want him to get into trouble. The girl eventually took her shirt off and agreed to have sex. On another occasion between September 30 and December 1, 2022, the pair met at a vacant house and sat on a couch inside, with the girl saying they should leave because they were trespassing. The man told her he wanted to have sex again and persuaded her into three separate acts of sexual penetration. Before one of the acts, the girl told the man she did not want to do that, but he told her she had already said “yes”. The girl’s mother became suspicious she may be seeing an older man and used her phone to message the man pretending to be the victim. The relationship was also reported to police by another adult in the victim’s life. On January 4, police spoke to the man and advised him it was illegal to have sex with underage children, and a few days later he met with the girl and they decided to delete each other’s numbers and block each other from their social media. On January 10, he handed himself into police and admitted to the offending. Defence lawyer Aaron Plenderleith said reports by a psychologist and psychiatrist found while the man knew it was wrong to have sex with an underage girl, he was unable to “sufficiently consider that information and exercise appropriate judgment” because of his mental impairment. He said the reports also made no diagnosis of paedophilia and found the offending was not fuelled by an attraction to children. State prosecutor David Bodeker said while the sexual assaults were not forced, the victim needed to be persuaded. He also highlighted the victim was a vulnerable person whose resistance could be “easier to overcome”. The judge said the man’s offending was aggravated by the age discrepancy, the fact the victim was vulnerable, and the fact he did not wear a condom, increasing the risk of pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. However, she accepted the man’s mental impairment reduced his moral culpability. She placed the man on a six-month pre-sentence order, giving him time to prove himself to the court ahead of sentencing on January 30.