Bradley Bevan sentenced for child grooming in Tweed Heads Local Court

A man and a teen girl met playing Call of Duty online before he asked her for pornographic photos and made plans to meet up to have sex.

A Caboolture man who preyed on a 13-year-old girl he met online gaming has left court with a community corrections order after his case took more than three years to prosecute.

Bradley Bevan, 23, was sentenced in Tweed Heads Local Court on Monday on a charge of grooming a child under 14 for unlawful sexual activity.

According to court facts, Bevan was on bail at the time of the offence for another child sex offence for which he was later found guilty and placed on the child protection register.

The offending occurred in 2017 when Bevan was 18 and lived in Narrandera in the Riverina region.

He met his victim, aged 13, playing Call of Duty online before they began talking on Messenger, at first just a friendly conversation.

The behaviour escalated between January 7 and January 17, 2017, when numerous messages and phone calls were made.

According to court papers, Bevan sent the girl pictures of his penis, requested nude photos of her, told her he wanted to have sexual intercourse with her and that he would masturbate over her.

It continued despite the victim telling him she was 13, which he acknowledged and asked her to be in a relationship with him when she was 16 or 18.

On occasions the girl responded to his picture requests sending a photo of herself in a bra and towel.

The conversation led to them talking about meeting up in future to have sex in a car in the middle of nowhere with him stating: “who cares if ur 13 baby u want it do it baby girl”.

Bevan’s offending came to an end on January 17 when he attempted to contact her with no success as she and her parents had reported him to Victoria police.

Bevan was interviewed about the conversation in 2020 where he made admissions and said “I took things too far”.

Bradley Bevan was sentenced in Tweed Heads Local Court.

Defence lawyer Riley Owen asked the court to consider the allegations were historic and there had been no further offending since then.

He said although his client persisted despite knowing the girl’s age, the pair did not meet and the interactions did not go beyond the 10 days.

Magistrate Geoff Dunlevy noted the “very high” maximum penalty for grooming when dealt with on indictment.

However he considered a psychologist’s report which showed Bevan suffered from anxiety, depression and had the hallmarks of autism but required further assessment.

Mr Dunlevy said there was no explanation as to why the proceedings against Bevan had taken so long to start and noted at the time he was a teenager whereas now was an adult.

As Bevan had not offended since the offence before the court Mr Dunlevy chose not to impose a custodial sentence and instead convicted and sentenced Bevan to a three-year community correction order.