Aiden Richards: Palmerston pervert can’t stop having sex with underage girls
A young Palmerston man faces a hefty jail term after having sex with a 14-year-old twice while on a suspended sentence for having sex with an unrelated teenager, a court has heard.
Police & Courts
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A young Palmerston man faces a hefty jail term after having sex with a 14-year-old twice while on a suspended sentence for having sex with an unrelated teenager, a court has heard.
Bakewell man Aiden Richards, 23, pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on Thursday to two counts of having sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16.
Richards, who has been remanded in pre-sentence custody since his arrest in December 2022, shortly after he had sex with a 14-year-old girl twice at his residence, breached a suspended sentence imposed for similar offending against an unrelated 14-year-old girl.
The court heard Richards met his current victim online while playing a video game.
The pair began speaking via social media and met each other in person for the first time on December 5, 2022.
On the evening of December 10, the teenage girl and a friend attended Richards’ residence, where the trio watched Netflix and Richards provided his social media details to the girl’s friend.
In the early hours of December 11, Richards and the 14-year-old girl had “consensual” sex for about 20 minutes.
On the night of December 18, the girl attended Richards’ house where they again had consensual sex, before the pair distributed a series of incriminating videos and images via social media, the court heard.
In the early hours of December 19, the teen girl’s friend attended Richards’ house and the trio socialised until about 4.30am, at which point the victim and her friend attended the friend’s grandmother’s house to sleep.
This aroused the suspicions of the friend’s parents, who caught wind of the sexual offending after reviewing their daughter’s phone.
The parents attended Richards’ residence to confront him, shortly after which he sent his victim’s friend a message saying, “Tell [the victim] I’m going to jail.”
The matter was reported to police and Richards co-operated when officers attended his residence to execute a search warrant.
His victim told investigators that she “never felt unsafe” and that Richards “respected boundaries”.
Richards, for his part, told investigators he had no actual knowledge that his victim was 14, but also had no reason to believe she was 16 or older.
The court heard this was the second time Richards had been caught having sex with 14 year old girls.
On July 1, 2022, Richards was sentenced to three years and six months’ imprisonment after pleading guilty to three counts of having sexual intercourse with a child under the age of 16.
Having been on remand since his arrest on May 17, 2021, Justice Stephen Southwood suspended the remainder of the sentence, with an operational period of two years, conditional upon Richards being under the supervision of Community Corrections.
That suspended sentence was breached by the current offending.
Justice Graham Hiley adjourned the matter to June 6 to enable Richards’ defence to compile additional material.
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