Victorian child sex offenders: Matthew Price, Robert Webb, Luke Coughlan, Joshua Baird
Not all child sex offenders are filthy loners, in fact most are dads, businessmen, husbands and neighbours. Here are some of the worst to go down in 2021.
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The most heinous crimes imaginable are those committed against children and crime statistics released on September 30 showed that the rate of recorded sexual offences against children in Victoria had almost doubled since 2019 after rising steadily since 2011.
Speaking on the newly released figures, Victoria Police Deputy Commissioner Rick Nugent said the increase was concerning. “Most of those relate to child abuse material online, distributing, possessing, transmitting or grooming online,” he said.
“The Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team is very active in scanning social media and websites to identify child abuse material and in the last 12 months they’ve laid 1541 charges relating to possession of child abuse material, and also transmitting and using services to groom children.
“Most of this offending in this category relates to non-contact offending, which is really quite important.”
A shocking number of the individuals who find themselves before Victoria's higher level courts are charged with reprehensible acts against children, these are some of 2021’s worst.
Matthew Price
Bright man Matthew Price was jailed in September for performing sick sexual acts on a teenager.
Price, a 48 year old father of two, was jailed for a minimum of two-and-a-half years after he pleaded guilty to six charges including sexual penetration with a child under the age of 17 in Shepparton County Court.
The court heard the owner of Digital Living in Williamstown assaulted a teenage girl over several months.
On one occasion he exposed his genitalia to the victim while she helped a friend who was sick.
On another occasion, he exposed his genitalia to the victim before giving her lunch.
Just a few days later, the victim was forced to perform sexual acts on Price when they were alone.
She was sexually assaulted another four times before his arrest.
During his interview, Price said he had provided “an adult’s perspective” to his victim.
Judge Anne Hassan said Price’s behaviour was “controlling and corrupting”.
He will serve a maximum of four years behind bars and was registered as a sex offender for life.
Harry Smith
Yarram sex fiend Harry Smith, 20, was jailed in August for sexually assaulting an underage schoolgirl.
Smith assaulted his victim at Sale in September last year, the court was told.
The fiend persisted with his demands for sexual activity before violating the girl near a park.
The prolonged attack left Smith’s underage schoolgirl with injuries.
Smith later apologised to his victim for causing the injuries but not the assault, the court heard.
Smith also attacked two police officers as they attempted to arrest him days after the assault.
Smith was charged but later bailed.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, the mother of Smith’s victim said she had taken days off work, and often lays awake at night thinking about all the things she could have done to prevent the incident from happening.
She said her daughter would often come into her bed “crying from nightmares”.
Smith’s barrister submitted the age difference was “modest”.
“He was well aware of her age,” the defence submitted.
“(Smith was) well aware of the wrongness of it too,” Judge Paul Smallwood said.
Smith was assessed for youth justice detention but was found unsuitable.
The fiend was jailed for a maximum 18 months and made a registered sex offender for life.
Robert Webb
Former Gippsland government worker and energy consultant, Robert Webb, 66, was jailed for a minimum of 15 months in July after pleading guilty to charges including sexual penetration of a child under 16.
Webb was a travelling “alternative energy” consultant when he met his victim in Victoria in the early 2000s.
The depraved fiend told his victim she was a “witch” and he was a warlock who was into “Wicca”.
Webb, who also pleaded guilty to indecent act with a child under 16, spoke to the child about magic and created a “fantasy world” with her.
The court heard Webb posed as warlock to discuss the “intimate workings” of his victim’s body with her.
Webb concocted a story about a woman who told him to collect the victim’s body fluids, which he later stored in bottles emblazoned with “Elvish” writing.
Webb told the girl the fluids combined with the semen of the first man she had sex with would be a “very powerful medicine”.
The grub also photographed the naked child, telling his victim they were playing a “silly game”.
Webb was charged after the matter was reported to police in September 2017.
The prosecution expressed concerns with Webb’s remorse citing the fiend had not provided a “full explanation” for the offending while also “minimising the situation”.
Judge George Georgiou said Webb’s offending was “just too serious”.
Webb was jailed for a maximum two years and five months and made a registered sex offender for life.
Felony Williams
Aptly named Melton man Felony Williams, 19, avoided a jail sentence in August for sexually assaulting a schoolgirl after meeting the victim.
Williams, who was 18 at time of offending, met his 14-year-old victim via Snapchat.
The unemployed Melton man caught a train to Bendigo where he met his victim in February last year.
The pair visited a shopping centre where a friend of the victim told Williams the girl was only 14 and it was illegal for them to be in a relationship.
“It was OK as long as the police didn’t find out,” Williams said.
Williams also plied his victim and another girl with drugs, the court was told.
He sexually assaulted his victim at the railway station before catching a train back to Melbourne.
The victim later said she “didn’t know what to do” so “just let it happen”, the court was told.
Williams returned to Bendigo via train just two days later and met his victim again after she took the day off school.
Williams took his victim to the abandoned Gillies pie factory where he forced the child to have sex with him.
The court heard the victim “didn’t want to have sex” but “eventually agreed”.
The words “sex den” were graffitied on the wall where Williams had sex with the child, the court was told.
Williams told his victim to lie down because they were going to “do it”.
The victim said it “hurt” but Williams told her she “needed to deal with it” and “don’t tell anyone”.
The court was told the girl said she later received threatening messages from Williams and his sister.
Judge Fiona Todd ordered Williams, who also pleaded guilty to supplying drugs to a child, undertake judicial monitoring and seek treatment and rehabilitation.
Williams was sentenced to a three-year community correction order and made a sex offender for life.
Luke Coughlan
Westmeadows man Luke Peter Joseph Coughlan, 43, pleaded guilty in September to sexual penetration of a child under 16, grooming a child under 16, production of child pornography, using a carriage service to procure a minor for sexual activity, involving a child in the production of child abuse material, and possession of child abuse material.
Coughlan was living with his mother while he used online chatrooms to groom five teenagers from Victoria, Western Australia, the US and Canada between 2015-2020.
Coughlan asked his victims to call him “daddy” and made them self-harm.
Images of one of his 13-year-old victims showed “Daddy’s Princess”, “I belong to Luke” and other crude words written over her chest.
Coughlan groomed his victims through the chatroom Omegle, which matches strangers based on previously selected shared interests.
In 2010, Coughlan used the chatroom to form an online relationship with a 13-year-old American girl, asking her to livestream acts of BDSM — bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.
The court heard Coughlan took sexual pleasure from her pain.
Coughlan recorded their live video chats and saved them.
In 2013 he flew to Connecticut to meet his victim and filmed himself raping her before taking photos of the naked girl.
Another 13-year-old girl was contacted over Kik, a messaging service, from January 2017 to October 2019, convincing her to send self-harm videos.
Coughlan lured her to a motorhome where he raped her before giving the teen sex toys for her birthday.
The Westmeadows man also terrified a young girl from Western Australia after he stalked her to her home using the Snapchat map features.
Coughlan started contacting the girl, half his age, over Kik and Snapchat in 2017.
She initially believed they were in a relationship, but realised he was just using her for the sexual images.
When she tried to end it he threatened self-harm and suicide until she agreed to send more photos.
Coughlan travelled to Western Australia and asked to meet up, before using her Snapchat to track down her street, sending screenshots of her location and telling her he was outside.
She refused to leave but was too scared to tell her parents or police.
A 14-year-old American girl who believed she was talking to a Japanese boy, and a 16-year-old Canadian girl were also convinced to send Coughlan sexual images and videos.
He was arrested after police raided his mother’s Westmeadows home on October 14, 2019.
Police uncovered 828 images and videos from the five identified victims, but another 1100 child abuse images and videos of unidentified young girls were also found.
Judge David Sexton said given the severity of the matter, Coughlan’s sentence would not be rushed, and adjourned the case to a later date.
Andrew Garner
Cohuna paedophile Andrew Garner, 57, was given another 12 months in prison in July after pleading guilty to sexually abusing two boys more than three decades ago.
Garner sexually abused two boys between 1978 and 1984.
Garner was 14 when the abuse, which lasted six years, started.
The court heard Garner pushed his seven-year-old victim in the bathroom and told him to shut up and locked the door.
He then forced his victim to give him oral sex.
On a separate occasion, the court heard Garner, 17, was waiting at the end of a hallway smiling when he forced him into a bathroom.
He masturbated in front of him before forcing the victim to give him oral sex again.
Garner cornered a 12-year-old boy in his bungalow between 1983-1984 where he sexually abused him.
The younger boy was only seven years old when he was abused twice between 1981-1982.
He abused the younger boy and told him: “Don’t tell anyone because no one will believe a liar.”
His two victims, now 50 and 46, delivered harrowing victim impact statements to the court.
“I just want him to admit he did it,” the younger boy said in his victim impact statement.
“I hope I can move on with my life now.
“I buried this in my mind for 36 years.
“I have nightmares and images in my head.
“This crime haunts me.”
He said he struggled to form trusting relationships with other men and lived with anxiety, unresolved trauma and suicidal thoughts.
“If it wasn’t for my son, I think I would be dead now,” he said.
“I’m trying to mend the barriers I’ve put up.
“I know I run away from things … I live on the street just to get away from people.”
Judge John Smallwood said the humiliation, shame and guilt felt by victims of historical sex abuse meant the crimes committed against them were often not exposed until many years later.
He said he suspected Garner’s plea, which was entered just before his trial, was a “pragmatic plea” but he had to “give him the benefit of the doubt for remorse”.
Judge Smallwood said the now 57-year-old would have been dealt with in the Children’s Court had he been caught during the period of his offending.
“Clearly you’ve reoffended on at least two occasions,” he said.
Judge Smallwood said the latest convictions had delayed Garner’s parole eligibility for nine months.
He gave Garner a three month conviction with a 24 month suspended sentence – making an effective sentence of 12 months in prison.
Daffyd Knox
Echuca disability support worker Daffyd Knox pleaded guilty in March to possessing more than 350 child abuse images of children as young as six on his laptop.
Knox’s defence lawyer Neil Howard told the court his client had made a “mistake” by saving the images which had popped up on his screen while he was accessing a legal pornography site.
“My client purchased a legal subscription to a homosexual pornography website and whilst he was enjoying that website a number of pop-ups came on to his system,” he said.
“Where the mistake lies with Mr Knox is that he has then progressed the viewing of those pop-ups — pop-ups he didn’t ask for — (by saving them) on to a USB key.
“He has a habit about him that he clicks and saves everything that comes on to his computer.”
Police raided Knox’s St Kilda apartment after his laptop was used to access the horrid content.
During a police interview, Knox said there was “a definite possibility” he had downloaded child exploitation material, including images of underage boys, and that “I definitely knew having that stuff was illegal”.
Knox, who now lives in Echuca, has worked as a disability support worker with Scope for almost 25 years.
Mr Howard said his client‘s “greatest fear … is that someone will eventually discover this indiscretion and that will be the end of his employment”.
Knox was placed on the sex offenders’ register for eight years.
Les White
Filthy Leongatha paedophile Les White, 76, was jailed in July after he was found guilty of committing an indecent act with a child under 16, sexual penetration of a child under 16 and attempted sexual penetration of a child under 16.
White sexually abused the victim, aged between 8 and 13, in the mid-2000s.
White forced the victim to kiss him, and on another occasion he touched the girl inappropriately while she was on his shoulders.
The victim asked to be put down but he refused because she wasn’t wearing any shoes.
White also encouraged the victim to kiss and rub his genitalia.
The victim feared she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease after learning about it at school.
After sexually assaulting the girl, White told the victim she couldn’t tell anyone about what he had done otherwise “bad things” would happen.
White also forced an object into the victim’s genitalia.
In a victim impact’s statement, the woman said she felt terrified and powerless.
“The crimes have made me uncomfortable with my body and feel unsafe just existing,” she said.
“I don’t shave my body so that I don’t seem physically attractive or childlike in any way.”
The woman said she struggled with trusting people as she believed they had an “ulterior motive”.
“I panic every time I see an old man with a white beard or grey hair,” she said.
“I have worse flashbacks when I do and it takes weeks to recover.”
The woman said she had anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts.
Judge Liz Gaynor said White’s offending was degrading and callous.
“This was classic, predatory, pedophilic behaviour involving the remorseless exploitation of a vulnerable little girl for a period of years,” she said.
“You saw her quite clearly as an object for the satisfaction of your own perverted sexual lusts.”
Judge Gaynor said the victim’s life had been impacted because of White’s “monstrous selfishness”.
White was sentenced to 11 years jail on July 7 with a non-parole period of eight years and nine months.
He was placed on the sex offender register for life.
Joshua Baird
Swan Hill pedophile Joshua Baird, 26, was jailed in September after pleading guilty to 56 charges related to grooming and possessing child abuse images.
Baird was caught in October 2019 when a Canadian mother found a series of conversations between her 14-year-old daughter and a username ‘Bairdy888’ on Instagram, Snapchat and the messenger app kik.
She took about 600 screenshots of the conversations, which included multiple requests for explicit photos, explicit and videos photos of ‘Bairdy888’, child and adult pornography and an offer by ‘Bairdy888’ to host the victim in Australia.
She also sent the screenshots to Canadian police.
Over a three-month police investigation, it was found ‘Bairdy888’ was Joshua Baird of Swan Hill.
The investigation was forwarded to the Victorian Joint Anti Child Exploitation Team in early 2020 and on January 30 police raided Baird’s Swan Hill home.
A disgusting trail of conversations dating back to December 2016 was found on Baird’s phone.
Police uncovered conversations between Baird and the 36 children between the ages of 10.
Other conversations were between Baird and adults where he solicited child porn and role-played child abuse and incest scenarios with them.
An extensive collection of child porn was also found on Baird’s phone.
Baird sent and received child porn from many of the children he groomed and acknowledged the what he was doing was wrong but that it aroused him.
Baird also told his victims that he didn’t care what age they were as long as they were of an illegal age.
He said the youngest he was interested in was 16 but that he had stopped caring how young his victims were.
Baird was jailed for five years and placed on the sex offenders list for life.
His mother was present in the court for the sentencing and broke down in tears as Judge Frank Gucciardo handed down his sentence.
Judge Gucciardo allowed her to say a goodbye to her son, but did not allow her to touch him.
jack.patterson@news.com.au
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