Grant Harden: Child sex offender to be sentenced as part of Operation Arkstone

Paedophile Grant Harden drugged kids as young as five before abusing them and even boasted he assaulted a child while they were in hospital for surgery.

A court has heard how paedophile Grant Harden invited children as young as five over to his home for “sex party” sleepovers and often drugged them before the abuse.

The sickening details were revealed in court as the former soccer coached faced sentence for more than 150 child sex offences against seven victims.

The St Clair man was arrested in 2020 and last July pleaded guilty to 179 charges of child sex abuse.

This included 16 counts of having sex with a child under the age of 10 and sharing videos of the abuse with fellow paedophiles online.

He was due to be sentenced at the Downing Centre Court on Thursday but Judge Sarah Huggett decided she needed more time.

He will next appear on Monday.

Grant Harden faced Downing Centre on Thursday for sentence

At the sentencing hearing the prosecution repeated agreed facts tendered by police, which Harden did not dispute.

Among his despicable acts included inviting children as young as five over to his home for what he called “sex party” sleepovers, drugging them with sleeping tablets before abusing them and on one occasion telling someone in a group chat that he had assaulted a child while they were in hospital for surgery.

On several occasions, he would bribe children with gifts and rewards in video games to groom them into engaging in the abuse.

The prosecutor explained how he used several chat platforms including Snapchat to lure in fellow paedophiles and trade child sex abuse material, which sometimes involved torture. Through these chats, he exchanged hundreds of videos and other types of abusive content with several people. In the four days before Harden was arrested alone, he exchanged child abuse material with 148 snapchat users.

When asked how he felt about receiving videos of a violent nature, he said it “made him feel better” about what he was doing with his victims because he claimed his abuse was less severe.

Some of the material exchanged was so explicit and revolting that the prosecutor warned the court anyone attending may want to leave or those attending virtually may want to mute proceedings as she detailed them.

Earlier in the day a mum of one of his victims spoke of the devastating impact his offending has had on her son.

She struggled to hold back tears throughout reading the victim impact statement, which detailed that her son did not understand why his mother was always upset.

Grant Harden was 29 when he was arrested

“After initially processing that you’ve been arrested and the realisation he could be one of your victims, he had to watch me crying every day, hear secret conversations on the phone.. and me just telling him I was having a sad day,” she said.

“Because of what you did, I have no trust left for anyone.

“He doesn’t go to play dates, sleepovers, birthday parties.

“He will not have the childhood he deserves because you annihilated my trust.

“His relationship with me is strained and different because I won’t let him do the things that normal nine-year-old can do. He gets angry at me for saying no to things and he doesn’t understand why.”

The woman said she will not allow her son to be at risk again and therefore he is a “very lonely boy”.

“He won’t have the childhood and memories that he should be able to have because of what you did to him. Because of you.”

In contrast to the victim’s mother, Harden did not become emotional when answering questions from the judge.

Judge Huggett asked Harden why one of the children he abused was taking melatonin, and asked: “Did you utilise melatonin to facilitate your offending?”

Harden claimed he and the child’s mother “got it from the doctor because he was having trouble sleeping”.

Judge Huggett asked why he had mentioned another sleep-inducing drug, phenergan, in group chats, to which he responded: “I said lots of things in chats… sometimes it was to make the people I was talking to more favourable.”

When Judge Huggett asked Harden how he felt about his actions after reading victim impact statements, he said he will “never be able to express how sorry” he is.

Harden with his head in his hands after being arrested

He said the fact he can say or do nothing to make it better for the victims and their families tears him up inside.

He said that while he was offending, he knew it was wrong and that he needed help but he was too afraid of losing his family and everything he has.

“Part of me thinks I must have been thinking it’s not too bad,” he said.

“There was a constant internal fight within me, that I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t stop.”

“Somehow I was thinking I could justify it but [I’m] knowing now there is no reason; there is no justification.”

He said that the true impact of his actions had hit him since his arrest and he had lost most contact with his family.

Judge Huggett referred to the child abuse material he had disseminated as “abhorrent in the extreme” and asked what he could say about the behaviour.

He said at the time it seemed “victimless” but after having time to think, he realised there are “countless victims that every day are roped into this sort of stuff”.

“And reflecting on it, I hate that I was a part of it and that I was a part of a reason there was more and more demand for material to be made”.

Harden was arrested was part of Operation Arkstone – a huge Australian Federal Police operation busting a global network of alleged child sex offenders.

Australian authorities were tipped off from US counterparts about someone distributing and receiving child abuse material online.

So far 20 men across Australia have been charged, with 14 of these alleged offenders from NSW.

Wyong man Justin Kenneth Radford was jailed for 18 years.

This resulted in 53 children being removed from further harm in Australia.

Speaking ahead of Harden’s sentence on Thursday morning, Judge Sarah Huggett said today’s sentencing relates to 179 State and Commonwealth charges which relate to offending against seven children.

“It also relates to various charges involving the dissemination, production, receipt and storage of child abuse material,” she said.

Referring to the charges of child abuse material, the crown prosecutor said a warrant was executed by the AFP.

“Two devices by the offender were found in his vehicle and those devices consisted of images of child abuse material which are the contact offences in question. They were captured on a Samsung mobile phone.”

Justin Radford. Picture: Instagram

Among those already sentenced as part of Operation Arkstone are Justin Radford, a former Nine Network tape library assistant.

Radford was charged with more than 100 offences but later pleaded guilty to 17 including seven counts of sexually touching a young boy, four counts of using the child to produce child abuse material and disseminating it and thousands of images and videos of child abuse and bestiality material to 19 separate individuals.

The AFP raided Radford’s Wyong home where they seized three mobile phones and a laptop containing an estimated 4416 videos and 11,151 photos of child sex abuse and bestiality material with 56 per cent of the files rated “category 4” being the second worst type conceivable.

The court heard the images and videos depicted penetrative acts with victims ranging from newborns to teenagers and were described as “horrific and depraved”.

His sentencing Judge Tanya Bright said Radford also filmed himself sexually abusing a young boy 10 times with the intention of sharing the material with other “like-minded” people and showed a “reprehensible and grave” concern for his victim’s welfare.

In a victim impact statement the boy’s parents said there was “no way to explain” the hurt his “despicable” offending caused. Judge Bright sentenced Radford to 18 years in prison with a non-parole period of 12 years.