Andrew Ralston: Former AFP employee spared jail on Instagram child sex grooming charge
A former Australian Federal police employee sent an 11-year-old girl a messages on Instagram including one saying ‘I want to see your nude body’.
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A former Australian Federal Police employee who sexually groomed a young girl on Instagram won’t be locked up despite the majority of an appeal court branding his fully suspended jail term as “lenient”.
Andrew Ralston, 50, was found guilty last year of sexually grooming an 11-year-old girl by sending her messages on Instagram, including one that said “I want to see your nude body”.
Justice Michael Elkaim sentenced Ralston to two years jail, fully suspended, saying the case was an “exception” to the usual rule that child sex groomers should serve time behind bars.
On Tuesday, a majority of the ACT Court of Appeal found Ralston’s jail sentence was “lenient” but not so wrong that he should now be sent off to serve jail time.
Chief Justice Helen Murrell and Justice David Mossop said the sentence was “lenient but not manifestly inadequate”.
The two judges said Ralston’s jail term only deserved a “modest” increase, which appeal judges are supposed to avoid.
“In those circumstances … we decline to intervene,” the judges said.
Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson, the third judge on the Court of Appeal panel, backed Justice Elkaim’s fully suspended sentence for Ralston.
Ralston’s trial heard he had also sent a message to his victim saying “I liked your very short skirt” and “I liked holding your hand. Did you like it? I can’t wait to do it again”.
In another message he said: “I miss you … I know you feel for me what I feel for you”.
Ralston was employed in the military for most of his adult life, before taking a job with the AFP.
He resigned when he was charged, and as of last year was living on Centrelink.
Before his trial, prosecutors tried unsuccessfully to convince a judge to let the jury hear evidence that Ralston had sent a barrage of text messages to a young teenage girl pretending to be a boy from her school and made the second girl pull her shirt tight for him so he could see her body.
Prosecutors also wanted the jury to hear evidence from the second girl that Ralston had said to her “I’d love to see you naked” so they could argue he tended to have a sexual interest in young adolescent girls.
When confronted by police, Ralston lied, saying his Instagram account must have been hacked.
Ralston appeared only briefly in court on Tuesday.
His suspended sentence expires in August 2021.