Gumleaf
March 6th, 2008, 03:46 AM
Thursday Mar 6 17:42 AEDT
A Sydney man has been charged under new laws with using the internet to groom a teenage girl for sex, police say.
The 39-year-old Liverpool man is alleged to have made contact with a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl via an internet chat room in February.
But the "girl" was actually a NSW police officer from the Child Exploitation Internet Unit.
Police said the man sent messages and sexually explicit material to the "girl" for more than a month with the intent of grooming and procuring her for sex.
He was arrested at his Liverpool home, where police seized a number of items for forensic examination, including computer equipment on Thursday.
The man was later charged with seven counts of procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity and nine counts of grooming a child for unlawful sexual activity.
The man was granted strict conditional bail to appear in Liverpool Local Court on April 9.
He is the first person charged under new legislation which came into effect in January, police said.
Commander of the Child Protection and Sex Crimes Squad, Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, said some areas of the internet were dangerous for children.
"Some online chat rooms and social networking sites in particular have proven to be dangerous destinations for children and young people who are unsupervised," Det Supt Kerlatec said.
"Predators attempt to lower children's inhibitions by introducing sexual content into their conversations, and even go so far as to arrange meetings with the young people."
He encouraged parents to teach their children that stranger danger applied as much in cyberspace as in the real world.
Police warned online child sex predators that they would be tracked down.
"Clearly we have the technology and skills to track you down, you can't hide behind the anonymity of the internet," Det Supt Kerlatec said.
Additional information on cyber safety is available for parents and young people on: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/58765/whos_chatting_to_your_kids.pdf; and http://www.netalert.gov.au.
©AAP 2008
A Sydney man has been charged under new laws with using the internet to groom a teenage girl for sex, police say.
The 39-year-old Liverpool man is alleged to have made contact with a person he thought was a 14-year-old girl via an internet chat room in February.
But the "girl" was actually a NSW police officer from the Child Exploitation Internet Unit.
Police said the man sent messages and sexually explicit material to the "girl" for more than a month with the intent of grooming and procuring her for sex.
He was arrested at his Liverpool home, where police seized a number of items for forensic examination, including computer equipment on Thursday.
The man was later charged with seven counts of procuring a child for unlawful sexual activity and nine counts of grooming a child for unlawful sexual activity.
The man was granted strict conditional bail to appear in Liverpool Local Court on April 9.
He is the first person charged under new legislation which came into effect in January, police said.
Commander of the Child Protection and Sex Crimes Squad, Detective Superintendent John Kerlatec, said some areas of the internet were dangerous for children.
"Some online chat rooms and social networking sites in particular have proven to be dangerous destinations for children and young people who are unsupervised," Det Supt Kerlatec said.
"Predators attempt to lower children's inhibitions by introducing sexual content into their conversations, and even go so far as to arrange meetings with the young people."
He encouraged parents to teach their children that stranger danger applied as much in cyberspace as in the real world.
Police warned online child sex predators that they would be tracked down.
"Clearly we have the technology and skills to track you down, you can't hide behind the anonymity of the internet," Det Supt Kerlatec said.
Additional information on cyber safety is available for parents and young people on: http://www.police.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/58765/whos_chatting_to_your_kids.pdf; and http://www.netalert.gov.au.
©AAP 2008