A Mooroopna man has been sentenced to complete a community-based order after he requested sex from an undercover cop who was posing as a 14-year-old girl online.
Christopher Lee Ferguson, 30, was sentenced in County Court on July 14 after pleading guilty to using a carriage service to procure a person believed to be under 16 years of age and using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material.
During six months in 2020, Ferguson used the messaging app Kik to message a person he believed was a teenager called Lucy.
After ‘Lucy’ sent a message to him asking if he cared that she was 14, he asked to see a photo of her, which he received.
He then sent a string of sexually explicit messages and asked to meet up for sex numerous times.
However, the profile of ‘Lucy’ was being run by an undercover police operative from the Joint Anti Child Exploitation Taskforce.
Police executed a search warrant at his home in December 2020 and seized a mobile phone, which had his account logged in on Kik.
When he was interviewed by police, he admitted having a conversation about sex with a person under 16 was wrong, “because they’re still kids”.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Peter Lauritsen referred to a report by a psychologist who suggested his interest in teenage girls was due to cognitive, social and emotional immaturity, rather than deviance.
The psychologist considered his risk of reoffending could be reduced if he received treatment for mental health, drug and alcohol issues.
Judge Lauritsen said since Ferguson believed ‘Lucy’ was real there was no reduction in his moral culpability, but the use of a fictitious profile meant there was no direct victim of the offending.
He found Ferguson was genuinely remorseful, his prospects were favourable, and took into account that he had spent 24 days in custody over the matters.
Ferguson was placed on a 15-month community correction order with 200 hours of unpaid community work, supervision, assessment and treatment for drug and alcohol abuse and programs to reduce reoffending.
Ferguson will be subject to reporting conditions as a registered sex offender for 15 years.