A Kimberley man has been sentenced to six years and eight months’ jail for impregnating a child under the age of 13 and indecently dealing with another.<\/p>\n
WARNING: This story contains details of child abuse some readers may find confronting and distressing.<\/p>\n
The court heard the man, who earlier pleaded guilty to one charge of sexual penetration of a child under 13 and four counts of indecent dealings with a child under 13, committed the offences in the West Kimberley between 2022 and 2024.<\/p>\n
The ABC has chosen not to share the name or age of the perpetrator, or the locations where the offences happened, to protect the identity of the victims involved.<\/p>\n
The indecent dealing offences occurred while one of the victims was at a home he was house-sitting for a sleepover.<\/p>\n
The court was told while on bail for this incident, he raped another child who had been or was formerly “under his care”, which led to her becoming pregnant.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The man has been sentenced in the District Court at Broome. (ABC News: Andrew Seabourne)<\/p>\n
During the sentencing on Monday, Judge Belinda Londsdale said the maximum penalty for sexual penetration of a child under 13 was 20 years in prison, while indecent dealing with a child under 13 years carried a 10-year maximum penalty.<\/p>\n
“Your two victims were young girls who had either been in your care or were actually in your care,” Judge Lonsdale said.<\/p>\n
“You really have no remorse and no insight into your offending.”<\/p>\n
‘Predatory’ behaviour<\/p>\n
The court heard the victim who was raped was under the man’s care for a period of time via a Department of Communities placement.<\/p>\n
It was unclear whether the incident occurred during this time under the man’s care or “shortly after”.<\/p>\n
Sexual assault\u00a0support lines:<\/p>\n
When the child became pregnant, she did not tell anyone who the father was.<\/p>\n
The pregnancy was terminated at 28 weeks, and she was forced to give birth to the stillborn baby.<\/p>\n
The court heard the perpetrator called the victim on the phone several times while she was giving birth.<\/p>\n
DNA testing confirmed the paternity, at which point the victim “tearfully confirmed” the man was the father of the baby.<\/p>\n
A statement from a child protection officer described the victim as a “shy and timid girl”.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The perpetrator has been sentenced to six years and eight months in prison, backdated to April 2024. (ABC News: Andrew Seabourne)<\/p>\n
Victim woke to man touching her<\/p>\n
In relation to the indecent dealing charges, the court heard the victim was attending a sleepover with a friend at the house the perpetrator was looking after.<\/p>\n
The girl and the man were lying on a mattress watching television when the victim fell asleep, and later woke to the perpetrator touching her, kissing her and pulling down her pants.<\/p>\n
Support for young people and familiesThe Butterfly Foundation<\/a>: National helpline 1800 ED HOPE (1800 33 4673), 8am-midnight (AEST\/AEDT), 7 days a week\u00a0ReachOut Australia<\/a>: Confidential online peer support for young people and online resources for wellbeingHeadspace<\/a>: Centres in each state and territory or check out eheadspace<\/a> for online supportThe Kids Helpline<\/a>: 24-hour support on 1800 55 1800Lifeline<\/a>: 24-hour support for all Australians on 13 11 14<\/p>\n She got off the mattress and went to the bathroom.<\/p>\n The court heard he contacted her several times after the incident via Snapchat.\u00a0<\/p>\n On one occasion, he messaged that he would “impregnate her”.<\/p>\n The girl blocked him and reported the incident to police a short time later.<\/p>\n Judge Lonsdale told the perpetrator there was a “predatory” and “grooming” aspect to the offending.<\/p>\n “You probably would have had sex with her if she had not got up and moved,” she said.<\/p>\n “You claim that she created opportunities to spend time alone with her, but it seems to me that she was looking for a father figure.”<\/p>\n The man was sentenced to a total of six years and eight months in prison and will be eligible for parole 2028.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Kimberley man has been sentenced to six years and eight months’ jail for impregnating a child under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[24513,106767,106768,106769,14048,75490,43,37484,44,6671,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-161033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-broome","tag-broome-district-court","tag-child-impregnating","tag-child-rape","tag-child-sex-offences","tag-child-sexual-assault","tag-headlines","tag-indecent-assault","tag-news","tag-sexual-assault","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}