Zachary Elvin: Gold Coast man guilty of indecent treatment, grooming of 15-year-old girl
A young security guard fell head over heels for a 15-year-old girl, who was driven to the edge of suicide when he belatedly broke things off, a court has heard.
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A young security guard, who form was contracted by Gold Coast University Hospital, pursued a 15-year-old girl vigorously, grooming her over the course of 8000 messages, some of which were highly sexualised, before kissing her on his bed, a court has heard.
Gold Coast man Zachary Connor William Elvin, 23, appeared in Southport District Court on Wednesday for a sentencing hearing having previously pleaded guilty to one count each of indecent treatment of a child and grooming a child.
Elvin, who was aged 21 at the time of the offending, first began exchanging messages with the teenager in April 2023.
The messages started innocuously enough, with the calling of each other “pet names” and professions of loving and missing one another.
After about two to three weeks the girl’s mother caught wind of the defendant’s conduct and told Elvin to cease messaging her daughter as she was only 15.
Elvin’s number was blocked for a time, but at some later point messaging resumed, and it took on a more sinister tone as Elvin became more overt in his sexual desires.
At one point he professed a desire to have sex with her before school; another time, Elvin told the girl he wanted to “bend [her] over” while receiving oral sex.
Bizarrely, he also said he wanted to have sex with her while she ate ice cream.
In all, about 8000 messages were exchanged between the pair, although the court accepted only a small portion of those were explicitly sexual in nature.
At a later point, at Elvin’s grandmother’s residence, where he was living, the defendant kissed the girl while they were “cuddling” together on a bed, which was captured by the charge of indecent treatment of a child.
Subsequently, Elvin attempted to break off communications, drafting his underage love interest a “carefully worded message,” on the account of his defence counsel Daniel Barker, to which the teen girl responded by leaving him a suicide note and flowers on his vehicle.
Elvin reported her self-harm threats to police, which is how his offending came to light.
All up, the offending lasted about two and a half months.
Crown prosecutor Caitlin Usher submitted that although there was “some... level of reciprocity as they [the messages] escalated in their sexual overtness,” the six-year age gap between the pair was significant.
“The communications were persistent, the complainant was young, naive and vulnerable, the defendant knew how old the complainant was, and there was no desisting in the communications even after the message from the complainant’s mother,” Ms Usher said.
She argued he should serve a short term of imprisonment with the remainder suspended.
Mr Barker told the court his client should not be imprisoned, on account of his “otherwise good character”, total lack of prior criminal history, compassion evidenced by his reporting of the suicide threat to police despite the knowledge it would implicate him in the crimes, and the up-ending of his life caused by the charges.
He told the court his client, who is currently employed as a truck driver, was ejected from his education degree, lost his security job with the hospital contractor, and would be barred from ever coaching children’s soccer, a role he had previously expressed interest in, as a result of the criminal charges.
Judge Jodie Wooldridge KC sentenced Elvin, who was supported in court by his girlfriend and multiple family members, to six months’ imprisonment, wholly suspended for 18 months, and placed him on 18 months of probation.
Convictions were recorded.
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Originally published as Zachary Elvin: Gold Coast man guilty of indecent treatment, grooming of 15-year-old girl
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