Child sex offender fronts Warwick court after creating illegal social media accounts

A man who served time behind bars after being convicted of child sex offences has faced the Warwick court after he was caught with a stack of unreported social media accounts, where police say he was ‘liable to bump into’ a child. FULL DETAILS HERE.

A convicted child sex offender has faced the Warwick court after he was busted with several active social media accounts on sites regularly accessed by children that he failed to report to police.

The 37-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, became a reportable offender and served part of a five-year jail sentence after being convicted of child sex offences in 2017.

Warwick Magistrates Court was told that despite the man telling police he understood he was required to report all details of any online accounts upon his release on parole, he was busted using four unreported platforms between September, 2019 and February this year.

Police prosecutor Steve de Lissa said these included gaming site Battle.net, instant messaging platform Discord, Facebook Messenger, and a Gmail account.

“He began using them some time after he came out of prison. He said he only chatted to his friends and didn’t let people under the age of 18 join their chats, so he didn’t think he had to report it,” Sergeant de Lissa said.

“He stated he didn’t realise he had to report Messenger, as he had already reported the use of Facebook.

“I don’t think this is one of those matters where it’s a blatant disregard of his reporting obligations ... (but) he is very liable to bump into someone that is below the age of 18.”

Sergeant de Lissa said the man had been using the sites prior to becoming a reportable offender, which could make the charges slightly less serious, but acknowledged there had been enough contact with police for the man to question whether he was breaching his order.

Duty lawyer Clare Hine told the Warwick court the man used Discord to talk to his friends through a private server, which was closed to other users, and only had the Gmail account so he could download apps to his phone.

“He reported Facebook and tells me that initially Messenger was part of Facebook, but it’s now a separate app and should have been reported,” she said.

She said her client was now seeing a psychologist after being diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and determine whether he was on the autism spectrum, with the man due to finish his parole period at the end of the month.

The man pleaded guilty to four counts of failing to comply with reporting obligations.

He was placed on probation for 12 months.