High profile Darwin sports star busted allegedly grooming children on Snapchat and Instagram

A high profile Darwin sportsman who previously played in his sport’s national competition is behind bars after being busted allegedly grooming children online.

A HIGH profile Darwin sportsman who previously played in his sport’s national competition is behind bars after being busted allegedly grooming children on Snapchat and Instagram.

The 25-year-old, who cannot be named under NT law, applied for bail in the Darwin Local Court on Monday after police charged him with possessing child abuse material and grooming.

In opposing bail, Commonwealth prosecutor Angela Liantzakis said police had interviewed one of the man’s alleged victims while officers were still “tracking down” up to another six.

“On his mobile phone in the favourites folder there are a number of child abuse videos, some of which were recorded on the Snapchat application live with the victims and then they were saved and stored in the gallery of his phone,” she said.

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“There’s at least two child victims that are located in Darwin and there’s been child abuse material of those victims found on the defendant’s phone.”

Ms Liantzakis said the man had made “some admissions” to police and while he had described his contact with the children as “innocent banter”, he also told police he recorded them “to ensure he had blackmail material against the child”.

“From the facts he does understand the children to be certain ages and he did screen record those videos that were sent to him,” she said.

Defence lawyer Clement Ng requested a bail assessment report, saying any risk to the community could be mitigated by electronic monitoring and a cash surety from his mother.

“Perhaps some conditions by way of restricting access to a device or any device, that might be necessary and proportionate to address the risk,” he said.

But Ms Liantzakis said the man would pose an unacceptable risk to the safety of children in the community if granted bail, saying it would be “easy” to acquire another device.

“As it’s on Snapchat and Instagram it’s cloud based and even if the defendant didn’t have access to that particular phone or phones, there is the risk and police are concerned that he could go into those accounts and remove evidence that hasn’t yet been analysed by the police,” she said.

In remanding the man in custody, judge Alan Woodcock said there were no conditions the court could impose that would mitigate the risk to the alleged victims if he were released.

“The allegations seem substantial on what’s before me, (which) consists of real life sexual interactions of sorts and multiple child victims,” he said.

The man returns to court in July.

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