Tanilba Bay man Jason Delaney Bishop sentenced over child procurement and child abuse material

An army veteran has been sentenced for trying to groom a woman into allowing her nine-year-old daughter to be involved in sexual activities just three months after being released from prison on similar offences.

Detectives from the State Crime Command’s Sex Crimes Squad arrest Jason Bishop at Tanilba Bay last year following an investigation into online grooming. Picture: NSW Police. i

An army veteran told a sentencing judge he was “disgusted and repulsed” by his attraction to young children after admitting to trying to coax a woman online to include her nine-year-old daughter in sex acts.

Jason Delaney Bishop, now 48, has been jailed for at least three years after Newcastle District Court heard he reoffended just three months after being released from prison for a similar offence.

Bishop began speaking with who he thought was a 42-year-old mother online on his 47th birthday in January last year, suggesting the woman’s daughter could be naked while they played strip poker and being in the same room as they were having sex.

But Bishop was actually speaking with an undercover police officer working for Strike Force Trawler, the secretive law enforcement unit which hunts sex offenders online.

Bishop, a former member of the Australian army who saw active service in Timor, was sentenced in Newcastle Local Court on Monday after pleading guilty to failing to comply with his reporting obligations under the child protection act, using a carriage service to transmit to a recipient to procure a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity and possession of child abuse material.

Jason Bishop is taken into Raymond Terrace police station to be charged. Picture: NSW Police.

The court heard that Bishop, had left the defence force and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, had struggled in social settings and engaged more readily with people online.

He had served the entire four years of a sentence for trying to procure a 14-year-old girl for sex before being released unsupervised in October 2022.

Jason Bishop had only been out of jail for three months when he began chatting with a mother online about the woman’s nine-year-old daughter. Picture: NSW Police

Bishop was on the child protection register when, within three months of his release, he began chatting with who he believed was a mother with the nine-year-old girl.

On several occasions in the chat he requested pictures of the child and discussed meeting up.

“Maybe a little strip poker or something?” he said on the chat.

Lengthy conversations happened over a number of days, the last one recorded on February 12, before police swooped on his Tanilba Bay home and raided the property on February 15.

Police seized a number of electronic devices, a phone, laptop and USB which once examined found to have 31 images of child abuse material and one video.

Judge Roy Ellis said Bishop had shown some contrition by writing a handwritten letter to the court where, amongst other things, he said that he was “disgusted” and “repulsed” by his behaviour and did “need help”.

On all of the charges, Judge Ellis gave an “effective” maximum sentence of four years and nine months with a non-parole period of three years.

With time already served, Bishop will be eligible for parole on February 14, 2026.