A disgraced football coach who sexually exploited and groomed young athletes over more than a decade will spend less time behind bars after a successful appeal.
Stephen James Porter, 53, abused three boys between 2009 and 2020, when he coached junior Australian rules at the Belconnen Magpies and the Ainslie Football Club as a volunteer.
The Macgregor man found ways to be alone with his vulnerable victims, who were aged between nine and 15, by offering to privately coach them.
In an ACT Court of Appeal judgment published on Friday, a full bench of judges unanimously ruled in favour of the appeal brought forward by Porter.
In doing so, Justice David Mossop, Justice Belinda Baker and Justice Robert Bromwich re-sentenced the paedophile to 17 years in jail and imposed an 11-year non-parole period.
The imprisoned Porter was not present in court to hear the outcome.
He was initially handed a 20-year sentence and 12-and-a-half-year non-parole period by Justice Chrissa Loukas-Karlsson. She described the suffering the man put his victims through as a "human tragedy".
Nearly a year earlier, Porter admitted to charges of grooming a young person, using a child to produce child exploitation material, and possessing child exploitation material.
While the man also pleaded guilty to engaging in a sexual relationship with a child under special care, how many times he abused one victim became the tragic subject of a disputed facts hearing.
That charge, Porter's most serious, has been changed in the ACT to "persistent sexual abuse of a child" since his protracted crime.
Successful appeal
The appeal court upheld Porter's claim that Justice Loukas-Karlsson's sentence for the grooming charge was "manifestly excessive".
The court also upheld an appeal ground relating to the sexual relationship charge, finding the sentencing judge could not find beyond a reasonable doubt Porter had sexually abused the boy on 35 or more occasions.
That is, as opposed to the approximately 15 times the abuser had claimed.
"However, the court emphasised that the essence of the offending is the acute and repeated breach of trust, rather than the specific number of occasions of abuse," the judgment said.
However, the judges rejected the claim Justice Loukas-Karlsson had copied the prosecution's submissions in coming to that decision.
"The court found that although aspects of the reasons were concerning, the reasons sufficiently demonstrated that the primary judge had given independent and impartial consideration to the evidence," the judgment said.
The abuse
Porter used one boy to produce child abuse material, repeatedly raped the second, and was in the process of grooming the third when he was arrested.
"I will never, in my life, forgive you," one of the man's victims told him during a sentencing hearing in 2022.
A victim's mother said the predator "took from us our family's trust in humanity". "You took from us our son's innocence," the woman said in a victim impact statement.
Porter's crimes began when he exploited his first victim by secretly recording the boy in his swimmers or getting changed. The pair were spending time together at Porter's home three to four times a week.
Years later, his offending significantly escalated when he raped another boy a number of times, undetermined by the court, beginning a year into private coaching sessions.
He used the same tactic to groom a third victim.
He would tell the boy's parents not to inform others about the coaching sessions, which eventually occurred twice a week, because of pandemic restrictions.
Police found numerous text messages from Porter to a friend which "demonstrated that [he] was interested in [the victim] and was seeking to utilise his time with [the victim] to groom him for potential sexual conduct".
The child exploitation material found in Porter's possession included more than 1500 videos and images that depicted boys as young as infants being abused by men or forced to perform sex acts with other children.
He will now be eligible for parole in November 2032.
- Support is available for those who may be distressed. Phone Lifeline 13 11 14; Bravehearts 1800 272 831; Blue Knot Foundation 1300 657 380.
