Father of two sends sexualised messages to Mackay 13-year-old girl

A fast food employee sent a young co-worker multiple sexualised videos and images, before claiming he was ‘just joking’ when she rebuffed his creepy advances.

A father of two pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent treatment of a child - exposing child to indecent videos and photos after sending multiple sexualised messages to a 13 year old he worked with.

A Queensland fast food worker exposed his underage teen colleague to sexually explicit videos, before claiming he was “just joking” when she rebuffed the creepy advances.

Supporters of the 13-year-old victim stormed out of court when the foreign national in this 30s learned he would not have to spend a single day in jail.

The offending occurred in March 2024 while the pair worked together at the same Mackay region fast food restaurant.

Crown prosecutor Monique Sheppard said the man, a father of two who cannot be named because it would identify his underage victim, knew how old the teen was, because they had discussed it.

Under Queensland Law child victims of crime and any victim of a sexual crime cannot be identified.

The court heard the man texted the teen videos of simulated sex or illustrations of adults engaged in sexual conduct five separate times.

Along with one of the messages, which involved a hyperlink to a video of a woman involved in sex simulation, the man also messaged the 13-year-old “it’s you”.

When she rejected “what clearly was some advancement” the man told her “he was sorry and just joking”.

But then he shared another sexualised video and two images.

“(She) clearly rebuffed his advances on her,” Ms Sheppard said.

In April the victim spoke to her mother, who called the police and the man was arrested and charged.

He pleaded guilty to five counts of indecent treatment of a child – exposing the child to indecent videos and photos.

The court heard that the day after the teen told her mother the man was “ambushed at his home” and assaulted by a male person – the police were called but no official complaint was made because the man was “absolutely terrified”.

Defence barrister Scott Moon said there was no actual physical contact between the two, and the content on the videos did not show any actual nudity.

Mr Moon said when his client was asked why, he said the communication started “innocuously … and then took on a life of its own”.

Judge Gregory Lynham detailed some of the earlier messages that started about work matters, “but after a few days became more inappropriate and sexually suggestive in nature,” including the man asking the teen for a photo “as proof” after she has said she was tired.

“(She) said to police that you started sending weird things and that it just progressively got worse,” Judge Lynham said, adding the man attempted to minimise the seriousness of his offending to police.

Judge Lynham said the man had “crossed over a line here” but ultimately found there were exceptional circumstances and handed him a nine-month jail term, wholly suspended for 18 months with a 12 month probation order.

Convictions were recorded.