Vile messages landscaper sent to ‘14yo girl’ revealed in court

The vile sexual messages a landscaper sent to an underage girl, who was really an undercover cop, have been detailed in court.

A landscape gardener sent vile messages of himself masturbating to a Facebook user he thought was a child in the hopes to meet up with her, a court has been told.

But Kristopher James O’Leary didn’t know he was really speaking to an undercover police officer posing as a 14-year-old girl when he sent the sexual images and videos, before asking to meet up in person.

The Moreton Bay man pleaded guilty at Brisbane District Court on Thursday to one count of grooming a child under 16 with intent to expose to indecent matter.

The court was told O’Leary, 39, exchanged several messages with a police officer who had assumed the identity of the teenage girl on Facebook in May 2018.

He told the user he was a 25-year-old when he was actually 37.

O’Leary sent several messages to the user, including indecent images of himself naked with an erect penis and two videos of himself masturbating.

He asked the user to send him indecent images of herself and discussed meeting up in real life.

“You suggested how she (the user) could lie to her parents and requested she get other children involved,” Judge Suzanne Sheridan said.

Police conducted a search of his premises in Woorim, north of Brisbane, on September 28 that year.

Judge Sheridan said it was clear he lied in his interview with police after the images he sent were found on his phone.

“While no meeting occurred here, you were certainly seeking that,” Judge Sheridan said.

“I do not accept the statements made referring to other children can necessarily be viewed as simply throwaway comments.”

O’Leary was released on bail after his arrest but was remanded in custody in August this year.

Judge Sheridan said his offending breached a suspended sentence previously imposed by the Caboolture Magistrates Court in August 2017 for fraud and property offences.

O’Leary’s defence counsel told the court he had a solid work history, predominantly in landscape gardening, with a lot of work in resorts.

It was during this work in his mid-20s he became addicted to drugs, including methylamphetamine and MDMA.

During his time in custody, he had remained free of drugs.

O’Leary said he wished to reconcile with his former partner, who is the mother of his four-year-old child, upon release.

The court was told the offending was a “one-off” from his long-term addiction to drugs, but Judge Sheridan said it was still “disturbing”.

Judge Sheridan sentenced O’Leary to 12 months imprisonment but immediately fixed his parole eligibility date.

She ordered the six-month suspended sentence he breached be served concurrently.

Four-and-a-half months spent in pre-sentence custody was declared as time served.