By Jed Lanyon
A Hoddles Creek man has avoided imprisonment after pleading guilty to charges of child grooming in the County Court on Friday 6 November.
Apprentice carpenter James Prowse, 30, received a 12-month jail term but was released immediately on a $500 recognaisance release order including a two-year good behaviour bond and supervised community corrections order. He was to be supervised and assessed for drug, mental health and sex offending treatment.
In a four month period from 24 September 2019 to 7 January 2020, Prowse sent several sexually explicit messages and images to a police officer, who was posing as a 15 year old girl on social media app, Kik.
County Court judge Sarah Leighfield found Prowse initiated contact with the user, and asked on several occasions to meet after being informed the user was a high school student aged 15.
Prowse was arrested on 26 February this year and informed the person he had been contacting was a member of a Victoria Police anti-child exploitation team conducting a covert online investigation on Kik.
Prowse made substantial admissions during his interview with police but claimed he “didn’t have the balls to meet up with her” and at one point stated he had forgotten the person he had been contacting was underage.
Following the interview, Prowse was charged and bailed.
The County Court heard Prowse was a frequent user of methamphetamine at the time of the offending and that he would take up to 3.5 grams of the drug per week in the morning before using Kik.
When sentencing Judge Leighfield said she took into account that Prowse had no prior criminal history and acknowledged the defendant had gone through a difficult period following the loss of his brother-in-law in recent years.
“The fact that the person to whom you were speaking turned out to be an adult and a police officer, does not lessen the seriousness of your conduct. It simply means that the harm that might have flowed if you had been speaking to a real 15 year old girl, has fortunately not eventuated,” Judge Leighfield said.
Prowse will be on the Sex Offenders Register for eight years.
Judge Leighfield said she gave Prowse a “significant discount” on his sentence and noted the maximum penalty for the charge was a term of imprisonment of up to 12 years.
