High schoolteacher Craig Chantler takes the stand in Grindr child solicitation case

A Sydney high school teacher on child solicitation charges has told jurors he thought he was messaging an adult, not an underage boy, for sex on Grindr because ‘15-year-olds don’t do threesomes’.

High schoolteacher Craig Chantler is on trial in a Sydney court on child solicitation charges. Picture: Supplied

A Sydney high school teacher accused of using a gay dating app to solicit an underage boy for sex has told a court he thought he was messaging an adult because “15-year-olds don’t do threesomes”.

Craig Chantler, 44, took to the witness box on day two of his NSW District Court trial on Thursday, where he denied intending to meet a boy for sex after learning he was 15 during an explicit online chat session between the pair on April 24, 2022.

The court previously heard Chantler, who has pleaded not guilty to charges of using a carriage service to procure a child for unlawful sexual activity and doing an act in preparation for engaging in sexual activity with a person under 16 years, was gay but “not out” yet, and used Grindr to organise secret “hook-ups” with other men.

He admitted he and the boy engaged in a highly sexual conversation which involved an invitation by the teen to join him in a threesome with another man named Alan Foy.

Chantler told the court he had originally been “excited” about the prospect of a threesome, but lost all interest in a sexual encounter once the boy told him he was 15 years old.

Craig Chantler leaving the Downing Centre Courts last year. Picture: John Grainger

However, the court heard Chantler admitted continuing to send the teen sexually explicit messages after learning his age, claiming he did not believe he was talking to a child and wanted to “suss” out “who he really was”.

“I didn’t believe [the person sending the messages] was … 15 years of age, I thought it was someone pretending to be someone else,” Chantler told the jury.

“I wanted to find out who this person really was.

“In my mind I thought they were either a scammer, someone that’s after a gay bash crime, or some guy that had some sort of fantasy.”

When asked by the Crown prosecutor what reason he had not to believe the teen about his age, Chantler said he’d spent enough time around 15-year-olds as a schoolteacher to come to know them.

“It [Grindr] is not something a 15-year-old would be on,” he said.

“I work with 15-year-olds, I know what 15-year-olds are like.

“I could not imagine any 15-year-old being on a site like that, let alone saying some of the things [he] had said.

“A 15-year-old would not be doing threesomes, let alone with older guys.”

Chantler also told the court he believed the person he was messaging must have been at least 18 years old because Grindr’s terms and conditions said you had to be 18 or older to use the site.

“In my mind, a 15-year-old wouldn’t be on an adult app such as Grindr,” Chantler said.

Meanwhile, police conducted a download of Chantler’s mobile phone after his arrest and found nothing of interest on it, other than the Grindr messages to the teen.

The court heard Chantler and the teen never met up and no physical contact ever occurred between them.

The trial continues.

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