Wadalba: Andrew James Sargent sentenced for online grooming

A twice-divorced middle-aged man will be home by Christmas after being sentenced for sending photos of his genitals to a police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl. Full story here.

A middle-aged man joined an internet chatroom to have an “online sexual experience” after he lost his job and was having marriage problems.

But when he was rejected by real women because he was “too old” he started chatting to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

The girl was in fact undercover officers from the Child Exploitation Unit who arrested the man at his Wadalba home in September 2020.

Appearing via video link from custody Andrew James Sargent faced Gosford District Court on Wednesday after pleading guilty to one count of using a carriage service to engage in sexual activity with child.

Andrew Sargent, 43, has been sentenced for using a carriage service to groom a child under 16. Picture: Facebook

The now 43-year-old also pleaded guilty to a charge of using a carriage service to send indecent material to a person under 16, which was taken into account during his sentencing.

The court heard Sargent grew up as an only child in Sydney and moved to the Central Coast in 2009 for work in the digital printing industry.

The court heard his second marriage was having problems and he lost his job because of Covid.

He went looking for an online sexual experience but when real women rejected him he started talking to officers posing as a teenage girl.

The court heard Sargent later denied he was sexually attracted to children and instead kept up the contact because the girl had shown “an interest” and the whole thing “did not seem real as it was online”.

Sargent was sentenced in Gosford District Court on Wednesday. Picture: NCA NewsWire / David Swift

However Judge Tanya Bright rejected his denials and found he was sexually interested and aroused by the fictitious girl who he told “I shouldn’t be but am turned on that you are so much younger than me”.

Sargent sent her two pictures of his penis and added her to his Skype account where he masturbated in front of her twice while wearing a metal penis ring.

“To be 100 per cent honest of course I’d love us to see my penis in real life,” he messaged the fictitious girl later, asking if she wanted to “touch it”.

Judge Bright said he had no prior criminal record and accepted Sargent had demonstrated contrition, had good prospects of rehabilitation and was unlikely to reoffend.

Judge Bright discounted his overall sentence by 30 per cent after she also accepted his early guilty plea and the assistance he offered investigating police.

She sentenced him to four years and six months jail with a non-parole period of two years and three months.

With time served since his arrest Sargent will be eligible for release on December 12, 2022.