Michael Slegers: Glenmore Park paedophile admits to grooming young boys online
A court has heard how a distraught mother was forced to move her family away from a western Sydney suburb after a paedophile tried to hug her son while grooming other boys online for sex.
Penrith
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A socially-isolated paedophile who sought out the affections of children online and tired to groom a fictitious 10-year-old boy for sex, will learn his fate in court this week.
Michael Slegers, 58, of Glenmore Park, appeared via audio-visual link at Penrith District Court today, pleading guilty to using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 and under 18 for sex and assaulting his teenage neighbour.
Between November 2018 and January last year, Slegers had sexually explicit online conversations with a boy under 18 in Victoria and invited him to send a photo of his genitals.
At the same time, Slegers had assaulted his neighbour, a 13-year-old boy, when he tried to hug the boy when he was visiting his home and the boy resisted.
After receiving a tip-off, police posed as a 10-year-old boy and began chatting to Slegers on Facebook, where he sent sexually explicit messages over a 10-month period.
The defence said that while the grooming offences and common assault incident occurred around the same time, the matters were distinct.
“It would be a mistake to import the sexual nature of the first two offences on the common assault offence,” the defence told the court.
“The second grooming charge came about when police had everything to charge him with the common assault and first grooming offence.
“Police groomed him.”
The court heard the common assault took place at Sleger’s Glenmore Park home, with the victim was a former neighbour who had been visiting the home with his brothers in the months leading up to the incident.
“(Slegers) became emotional and it was just poor judgment. He leant forward to hug him that was rejected by the young child and that was the end of it,” the defence said.
In a victim impact statement tendered to the court by the boy’s mother, the woman said the incident had driven the family to move away.
“Life has been stressful trying to move past what happened,” she said.
The court heard Slegers had suffered mental health issues for much of his life, which had resulted in him becoming a social outcast with no history of intimate relationships.
A psychologist’s report tendered to the court showed the man had a pattern of sexual interest in children, influenced by his feelings of social isolation and loneliness.
He will be sentenced at Penrith District Court this Thursday, June 25.