Inside Arkstone: How paedophile Grant Harden held ‘sex party sleepovers’

Parents of a boy preyed on by a paedophile – who had “sex party sleepovers” and shared the child abuse material online – have spoken of the moment they realised the man they trusted was a “monster”.

Nicole* sat trembling on the edge of her couch, attempting to process every parent’s worst nightmare.

“I remember actually seeing Grant’s face turning from a man we trusted to a monster, like the mask was coming off,” she said.

“I hated him more and more as more details came out.”

Her son Sam* is a cheeky, sport-obsessed young boy who is adored by all, reaches above and beyond to cheer up his friends and never runs out of energy.

But behind his smile hides a devastating past.

“You look back and think, ‘how did I not see signs? How did we not know that this person was doing these things to our child’?” Nicole asked.

“It’s heartbreaking feeling like a failure as a parent … because someone hurt our child and we didn’t know.”

Sam was a victim of a soccer coach and sex predator.

Sam was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a junior soccer coach and friend his parents deeply trusted, Grant Harden.

It was the ultimate betrayal of trust, theft of innocence and act of cruelty.

Nicole and Adam say they bear the pain for their son so he doesn’t have to. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Harden was arrested on May 8, 2020, under Australian Federal Police’s Operation Arkstone: Australia’s largest online child abuse investigation.

The vile 31-year-old recorded himself abusing Sam* and six other young children, using grotesque advertisements on Snapchat asking for pedophilic videos and images from “dads, big bros, uncles, teachers, and babysitters” in exchange for sending his own recorded abuse into the global syndicate.

Harden pleaded guilty to, and was convicted of, more than 170 child abuse offences. These included 16 counts of having sex with a child under the age of 10. In March, he was jailed for 30 years with a non-parole period of 22 years.

His sentence was met with a sigh of relief from Nicole and other victims’ families.

But six months later, the palpable pain on her face paints a picture of the battle ahead.

Convicted paedophile Grant Harden was sentenced to 30 years behind bars.

While Harden can’t violate other children from behind bars, her family is living with their own life sentence.

“If we are able to share our story and prevent even one child from what our son has experienced, that would be a positive outcome,” Nicole said.

It can be easy for people to question parents’ decisions when they hear about such horrific offending as a way to convince themselves it could never happen to those they know and love. But Nicole and her partner *Adam did what most parents would do. They trusted a person in a position of care.

Their exact relationship cannot be revealed for legal reasons, but the circumstances which led to Sam sleeping over at Harden’s house were not unusual.

Ironically, Nicole described Harden as “a big kid” who was great with children and adults. A fun, kind man with a deceivingly warm energy who effortlessly made anyone laugh.

The parents have shared their story to try and prevent other children from going through what their son experienced. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Sam had been sleeping over his house regularly for several months when Nicole answered a late-night phone call from another victim’s mum.

Confused about why she was calling so late, she hesitantly answered.

“The conversation was just a lot of umming and ahhing all over the place,” Nicole said.

“Eventually she said: ‘Grant’s been arrested for child pornography’. My gut just sunk.”

“My first instinct was not ‘oh my God, he’s hurt my child’, but it was that I didn’t understand it.

“I could not comprehend him and child pornography together.”

Her next excruciating few months were consumed by piecing together what her innocent child had endured.

There had been no change in behaviour when Sam returned from sleepovers. Quite the opposite: he counted down the days until he could return.

But after Harden’s arrest, Nicole asked her child countless questions to make sure nothing unusual had occurred.

Eventually Sam revealed he would run around Harden’s house naked.

The fading ray of hope her child had avoided Harden’s crimes instantly died.

“That was gutting,” she said.

About six months after Harden’s arrest, police asked Nicole to visit the station.

It came with a warning she should take the rest of the day off work.

A softly spoken officer confirmed they strongly suspected Harden had abused Sam in what was later revealed to be “sex party sleepovers”.

The St Clair man pleaded guilty to a raft of child abuse charges

But police needed her help.

It was an unbelievably torturous task.

She and Adam helped police match up Sam’s clothing and distinct body marks with the police’s description of the videos Harden had recorded and sent into the syndicate. The more evidence for court, the better.

Their worst fears were released. The poor child was undoubtedly their bubbly little boy.

They could not bear the gut-wrenching possibility such violating footage being online forever, watched by a new pervert any moment.

It was later revealed Harden sedated Sam with melatonin for most of the abuse.

Nicole felt a mix of emotions: relieved he was likely asleep for much of it, but angry at the danger to his health.

“There are just so many different breaches of trust on so many levels. He jeopardised our son’s life,” she said.

Harden was someone the family deeply trusted

Court documents revealed Harden would force his victims to touch each other, shower together and engage in sex acts with their disgusting abuser. He would often offer video game rewards in return.

In court, Nicole gave the only verbal victim impact statement.

“We were going for a walk in the morning on the day I was giving my statement over video and it was getting closer and closer to court starting and I just completely lost it,” she said.

“I couldn’t breathe; I was crying and throwing up at the thought of seeing him for the first time. But I was determined to get through it because he needed to hear from me that I know everything he did.”

Courage prevailed. Nicole gave a heartbreaking account of how Harden stole her instinct to trust anyone. Sam was angry at her all the time for being banned from sleepovers and play dates, she said through a crackling voice.

Harden was expressionless via videolink as he watched Nicole speak.

Adam was struck with disbelief. Harden’s apology letter addressed his own family before his victims. To this day, a furious Adam does not believe Harden is sorry for the irreversible pain caused by his monstrous actions.

“He was only sorry he got caught,” he said.

Today, the family was still on the path to recovery, but the climb seemed less steep.

Sam remains the cheerful, carefree and outgoing child he always was. His parents don’t plan on revealing the dark acts that happened to him, unless he one day remembers them.

Nicole said counselling had helped her immensely.

“We look at him and are thankful nothing has changed,” she said.

“We bear the pain so he doesn’t have to.”

Nicole wanted other parents to know child sex abuse is never anyone’s fault but the perpetrators’, admitting it took her a while to accept that.

“It’s just a parent’s instinct that because it’s their job to protect a child, it’s their failure if their child gets hurt,” she said.

Harden received a minimum jail sentence of 22 years

“But blaming ourselves isn’t justified. I’m reminded all the time that the reason there were no signs was because Grant was so good at what he did.”

Having widely educated herself about grooming since the ordeal, Nicole learned there were child-friendly ways to help young children understand inappropriate behaviour.

“You’re not going to change these people and what they do and why they do it, what you need to do is protect your children,” she said.

“You need to enable your children to say no, to recognise that funny feeling in their stomach when something is not right.”

She’d learned the importance of teaching kids to have a “safe person” to share that feeling with, such as a family member or friend.

“If that happened and my child or their safe person came back to me and said he was running around Grant’s house naked, there would have been alarm bells and no more play dates,” she said.

A parent of one of Harden’s victim. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“These people aren’t the creepy man on the bench, they’re coaches and friend’s parents. They’re the last people you would expect.

“It’s really uncomfortable to have these conversations but if we don’t have them nothing will change. They can save a child.”

As a family, they were strong, she said.

“But it’s certainly changed the way we see people outside out family unit and having the ability to trust people on instinct just because of the breach of one person’s trust,” she said.

“It’s difficult to let people back in again. That’s something we have to overcome together for the sake of out family.”

The mother of another one of Harden’s victims said the “actions of one monster” would not dictate how her family lived their life.

Like Sam, her child was repeatedly abused after Harden groomed him and the whole family into believing he was a trustworthy friend.

Since the crushing news of her child’s abuse was revealed, the mother had slowly learned to trust people again.

She has made adjustments such as only letting her children have friends over for sleepovers as opposed to letting them stay elsewhere.

But her defiance in the face of one man’s cruelty was clear.

“I was so hurt and embarrassed at the time, when he got away with it and fooled us all, but I’m so grateful to the police for catching him when they did,” she said.

“I refuse to let my children miss out on the childhood I had.”

The mother said she was relieved with Harden’s sentence.

“I think the judge did us proud.”