Brandon Michael Jacobs, 27, jailed for ‘disgraceful, disturbing’ conversations with undercover officers

The young Adelaide man was chatting online thinking he was talking to a mother about seducing her 11-year-old child. Here’s how police tracked him down.

A serial child sexual offender who communicated online with four undercover police officers – thinking they were the parents of young children he was trying to seduce – tried to seek help from an intervention service for sexual offenders a year before his offending, but was turned away.

Brandon Michael Jacobs, now 27, cried over video link in the South Australian District Court on Monday morning as the court heard he had tried to check himself into Owenia House – an intervention centre for sex offenders – in 2022.

But from September the following year, Jacobs communicated with as many as four undercover police officers in an attempt to explore his “disgraceful, deeply disturbing” sexual interests online.

Jacobs, from Direk, pleaded guilty to five counts of communicating to make a child amenable to sexual activity, three counts of disseminating and one count of possessing child exploitation material.

He was arrested in May after police searched his home, seizing his electronics and finding the messages and child exploitation material.

Jacobs used communications app Kik to share his ‘disturbing’ fantasies with undercover police officers.

The court heard Jacobs began communicating with a person who he thought was a 32-year-old mother with an 11-year-old daughter on the communication platform Kik in September 2023.

Judge Anthony Allen said Jacobs’ conversation with the woman, who was actually an undercover officer, was “deeply disturbing” and he introduced the concept of engaging in sexual activity with the woman and the 11-year-old.

“This includes advice that you provided to the undercover operative about how to groom the daughter, to desensitise the daughter to sexual activity with a clear view of encouraging the child to engage in sexual activity with you,” Judge Allen said.

A second interaction with another undercover officer, who was posing as a 38-year-old woman with a four year old niece and six year old nephew, Judge Allen said, was equally disgraceful.

In that conversation, the court heard Jacobs had expressed a sexual interest in “rape, torture and young people”.

In a third interaction with an undercover officer who was posing as a 44-year-old man with a “daughter of an undisclosed age”, Jacobs repeated those interests.

“The conversation then gravitated towards you engaging in sexual intercourse with the daughter and the undercover operative,” Judge Allen said.

The fourth conversation was with another officer posing as a 48-year-old male with a four year old daughter, which Judge Allen said “was of a similar disgrace from nature to those which I’ve already described”.

In sentencing, the court heard Jacobs had written a letter of apology, and had tried to access support services for sexual offenders a year prior to the date of his first offence.

“In 2022, you attended an Owenia House to seek assistance. Regretfully, you were not accepted into the program on account of your substance abuse and an apparent belief that you would not be able to complete the program due to the potential for you committing further offences and being convicted.

“It is unfortunate in that you realised you needed help to prevent you from offending the way that you have done.”

He sentenced Jacobs to five years and six months in prison, with a non-parole period of four years and five months which was backdated to his arrest in May.

Jacobs will be eligible for release in October, 2028.