A paedophile former South Australia Police officer could walk free in just over two years after being jailed for sexually abusing his 15-year-old stepdaughter.
The 41-year-old officer, who Noticer News cannot name without the victim’s permission, was found guilty of two counts of unlawful intercourse and not guilty of one count of indecent assault at his trial last year where he accused his victim of making up the allegations because she fantasised about him.
South Australian District Court Auxiliary Judge Gordon Barrett on Wednesday sentenced the Adelaide sex predator to four years’ jail with a 2.5-year non-parole period, backdated to September last year, The Advertiser reported.
The judge said in sentencing that he believed the victim’s testimony that the 10-year veteran of the police force, who had been her stepfather since she was five, had been sexually inappropriate to her long before he sexually abused her in 2021.
“I find that there is evidence which makes it clear that when you were sober, you had said and done things that suggested you had a sexual interest in your stepdaughter,” Judge Barrett said.
“There are also text messages in which you had said you loved her, not as a father and daughter. I find that on the morning after you offended against her, you knew you shouldn’t have done what you did, but that you really liked it.”
In their victim impact statements the now-18-year-old and her mother both said they were devastated by his abuse of his positions of trust as a police officer and a father.
“I don’t understand how you can be in the police force for so long just to commit one of the worst offences possible and to your own family. It takes a special kind of person to be so disgusting,” the victim said.
“Police are supposed to protect. Dads are supposed to support. You are controlling and manipulative.”
The disgraced cop’s lawyer, Paul Rice KC, told a sentencing hearing that his client had been drinking on the night of the abuse, and that he suffered from anxiety and depression. He also submitted that his client’s alleged mental health issues worsened after he was rejected from the force’s Special Tasks and Rescue Group.
His trial heard that when he found out his stepdaughter had told her boyfriend and a counsellor that she had been abused, he called the girl’s mother, admitted his crimes and said he would commit suicide.
When police found him by a cliff he made admissions about his offending, and the jury heard that he had also threatened to kill himself if the victim told anyone about his abuse.
Then at trial the unrepentant paedophile tried to claim that his stepdaughter had invented the allegations because she hated him and/or sexually fantasised about him, but the jury rejected those claims.
He will be eligible for parole in March 2027.
