NAMED: A list of Territory sex offenders
FROM disgraced Australian Defence Force members to a grown man run out of town after groping a 13-year-old girl at the Darwin Supercars, these are some of the sex offenders who preyed on victims in the NT
Police & Courts
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FROM disgraced Australian Defence Force members to a grown man run out of town after groping a 13-year-old girl at the Darwin Supercars, these are some of the sex offenders who once preyed on victims in the NT.
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JEFFREY SMITH: Man who claimed he was ‘anally penetrated by a large cucumber’ found guilty of rape
JEFFREY Smith was jailed for eight years in December after pleading not guilty in the Supreme Court to a string of sex offences and claiming it was he who was penetrated.
Following the jury’s guilty verdict, Justice Jenny Blokland said Smith used threats to intimidate his victim into performing the “degrading” acts and punched her in the head at least six times during the ordeal.
“Her evidence was she was freaking out but he said ‘If you don’t do as you’re told I’m going to have to tie you up and keep you all night’,” she said.
“The complainant was clearly disgusted by being coerced into this activity.”
In his closing address, Smith’s lawyer Giles O’Brien Hartcher, had argued his client should be acquitted after admitting to being “anally penetrated by a large cucumber”.
“It is unusual for a man to admit being penetrated by a cucumber, while masturbating, while being spanked on the bottom, while being called filthy names — particularly if it’s not true,” he said.
“It would be much easier to say the sex was consensual and the window was an accident and leave it at that, there’d be no reason to go that extra step.”
But ultimately the jury preferred the victim’s version of events.
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TERRY CHAMBERS: Former navy sailor jailed over drunken sex attack on teenager after boozy night at Monsoons
In September 2019, former navy sailor Terry Chambers was ordered to serve 10 days of a total one year and 10 months prison sentence for indecently assaulting a teenager after a drunken night at Monsoons nightclub.
The 24-year-old former Able Seaman wept in the dock of the Supreme Court after admitting to indecently assaulting the 18-year-old victim the previous September.
The victim was a friend of Chambers and his fiancee, and sentencing judge Judith Kelly said the late night assault was a “particularly egregious breach of trust”.
Chambers and the 18-year-old, who cannot be identified, were among a group who went to the Mitchell St Nightclub.
At one point during the night, the 18-year-old sent Chambers’s fiancee — who was not in Darwin — a text message saying she was “a mess” but that Chambers was looking after her.
The woman fell asleep in the spare room of Chambers’s Mitchell St apartment only for Chambers to go into the room, climb into bed, lift up her skirt and assault her.
Chambers, who had been in the navy for four years and had an unblemished service record, quit his job after being charged in what his lawyer, Peter Maley, described as “effectively jumping before he was pushed”.
Justice Kelly said to Chambers: “Your gross breach of trust, quite understandably, has had a very significant impact on her, both emotionally and psychologically”.
JOSEPH LEMMENS: Mechanic hounded out of town after groping 13-year-old at Darwin Supercars
Apprentice diesel mechanic Joseph Lemmens was hounded out of Darwin in 2019 after pleading guilty to molesting a 13-year-old girl in the mosh pit at a post-race concert at the Darwin Supercars.
The 22-year-old was handed an 18-month suspended jail sentence after his lawyer, Julia Kerr, told the court her client had been threatened with violence by online vigilantes.
Ms Kerr provided a bundle of threatening Facebook comments directed at Lemmens, including threats to have him assaulted in jail.
“The court can’t be seen to condone any actual or threatened vigilantism,” she said.
Lemmens earlier admitted in court he grabbed the girl by the skirt as she was wandering around looking for her friends, told her to put her phone away, held her up against him and groped her.
The girl tried to leave, but Lemmens put his hand under her skirt and inside her underwear.
The girl told Lemmens what he was doing was wrong and that she was 13, before one of the girl’s older friends intervened.
Lemmens later sent the girl a message on social media saying “don’t tell anyone”.
During a police interview, Lemmens denied having any contact with the victim but when a detective showed him the message he sent the girl, he asked his support person to leave the interview room and admitted to groping her, but said he thought she was 16.
ALEXANDER EDWARDS: Soldier sacked for drunkenly groping sleeping subordinate’s genitals
DARWIN soldier Alexander Edwards was convicted of groping a sleeping subordinate’s genitals under his underwear after a night out on leave in 2019.
The Defence Force Magistrates court heard the 30-year-old would be sacked from his post as a bombardier in the Australian Army after he was found guilty at trial in June.
The court heard Edwards was returning to base in a taxi after a night of drinking while on leave in Adelaide when he reached inside the junior soldier’s underwear and fondled his genitals.
The other soldier told the court on arriving at the barracks he woke to find Edwards “gripping” his penis and “told him immediately to get off”.
In sentencing Edwards to a dishonourable discharge, Brigadier Michael Cowan said the assault was made more serious as it was “on a vulnerable member of a lower rank”.
“This was an intentional act of touching the man’s penis while he was sleeping or semiconscious,” he said.
“He was unable to resist this advance and the touching of his penis and the defendant was aware of that.”
The hearing was the second time the matter had come before the tribunal after a retrial was ordered due to errors in the first proceeding in which Edwards was handed a 30-day jail sentence.
He served 20 days of that sentence before returning to court and Brigadier Cowan ruled it would be inappropriate to send him back to jail under the circumstances.
Edwards’ counsel, Lieutenant Colonel Tom Berkley, had argued for his client to be dealt with via a reduction in rank, but Brigadier Cowan said the nature of the offence meant he was “no longer able to render effective service in the Australian Defence Force”.
STANLEY STENTON: Serial child molester faces Territory justice after 22 years on the run
Serial child molester Stanley Stenton, who dodged the Territory justice system for more than two decades after sexually abusing two young girls, finally saw the inside of a jail cell last year.
The 62-year-old pleaded guilty in the Supreme Court in November to three counts of indecent dealing with a child dating back to the 1990s.
The court heard Stenton was babysitting a friend’s 10-year-old daughter on night in 1995 when he crawled into her bed and assaulted her while she slept but was released on bail pending his trial.
While still on bail in 1998, Stenton indecently assaulted the 12-year-old daughter of another trusted family friend while on a fishing trip and was arrested the next day.
Stenton was bailed again but failed to show up for court just days later and went on the run to South Australia by hitching a ride on a truck before living between Western Australia and Queensland while evading police for the next 22 years.
He was finally rearrested in Bundaberg in February last year and extradited back to Darwin to face justice.
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In sentencing Stenton to two years in jail, suspended after 12 months, Chief Justice Michael Grant said he had initially denied the allegations and blamed his actions on alcohol.
“In a craven and misguided fashion you also sought to attribute your appalling conduct to the fact that the victim followed you around like a puppy,” he said.
“You continue to attempt to downplay your responsibility for this offending in a manner which brings further discredit to you.”
Chief Justice Grant said Stenton’s offending had had a devastating impact on the two girls, reading from a victim impact statement in which one of them said she had constant “flashbacks of the night that my nightmares are now made of”.
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