Robert Wood: Gymea business owner sentenced for child sex offence

A once respected schoolteacher and tennis coach sprung with lubricant and a dildo just minutes before he was to meet a boy for sex at a hotel room has been released.

A former PE teacher sprung with lubricant and a dildo in the carpark of a hotel he had arranged to meet a 14-year-old boy has told the court he isn’t a paedophile. Robert George Wood, under the alias ‘GymeaDaddy’, posted an advertisement on online classified website Locanto for a teenage “toyboy” to share a ‘father-son’ relationship with, and “maybe some sex on the side”.

The tennis coach and property maintenance business owner offered “companionship, travel and fun times” in the advertisement, with his barrister telling the court the 60-year-old had hopes of handing down the business to the potential teenage “son”.

Robert George Wood (right), 61, tastes freedom in his prison greens.

Wood’s supporter used his jacket to cover his face.

NSW Police officers, using a fake identity, responded to the online ad and made clear they were a 14-year-old boy but undeterred, Wood sexualised the conversation.

At one point the tennis coach did ask the fictitious boy if he would rather “experiment” with boys his own age, but arrangements were made to meet in person after 26 days.

On November 4 last year, Wood arrived at Rydges Parramatta and was arrested by waiting police officers.

The court heard Wood accepted he should have cut contact as soon as he was told the age of 14, but claims he believed the person he was communicating with was older and simply role-playing.

At one stage, the business owner told police he was at the meeting to “catch” the boy out.

Wood advertised for a teenage “toyboy”.

“We don’t suggest at all (in the advertisement that the responder) be under 16,” his barrister said.

The court heard that Wood may have been sexually confused and may have had a distorted sexual understanding as tried to make up “what he missed out on’’.

Wood pleaded guilty to using a carriage service to procure a child under 16 years for sexual activity and was sentenced to a two year and three month prison sentence in the District Court on Monday.

The 61-year-old man was immediately released on a recognisance order on time served, after spending seven months in jail.

Outside court, Wood’s Gymea flatmate covered the convicted sex offender’s face with his jacket and lashed media for not reporting on real criminals.