Tyler Gillett knew his victim was underage when he contacted her online. She told him as much the first time that he asked her to send him nude photos of herself. But he continued to pressure her anyway.
According to agreed facts, he pressed her multiple times to send him photos of herself, and sent her videos and files of himself even as she asked him to stop.
"He just kept going at her," the girl's distraught father told the Newcastle Herald, "'Just one. Just one. I won't ask again.'"
A according to her father (who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, Gillett attended a birthday party a month after the offending began, where his victim was withdrawn and anxious.
When her parent confronted Gillett, he said he shouldn't have done what he did. He faced court in recent months, accused of using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material and of using a carriage service to send indecent material to a person under the age of 16.
On Thursday, December 15, he was convicted and given a two-year conditional release order, meaning he was released under the provision that he not commit any further offences.
The traumatic experience has devastated the victim's family. The girl, who her father said is also on the Autism spectrum, "puts on a brave face" but has withdrawn from friendships and social interaction. She is afraid to be alone in a room with boys and men.
"That doesn't happen anymore," her father said. "She can't be in a room alone with a male she doesn't like, trust, or know.
"Even at school, there was an incident where she was last in the room with a teacher, and she freaked out and ran out of the room, and the teacher didn't understand - I said that it was nothing he did, but it was shocking that everyone walked out and she was there, and you were there. It is difficult.
She is afraid that other men will demand photos from her or try to take advantage; "she can't trust anyone," her father said.
"She should be out and having boyfriends and doing things," her father said, "And she can't."
The victim's family have been trying to recoup a sense of normality but have despaired an online ecosystem that protects and enables predators and a justice system that they feel fails victims.
"It pisses me off that (Gillett) is never named, and he gets all this anonymity - why should he? He has destroyed a kid's life, he has put so much pressure on my family, and he gets just not to be named and go on with his life? ... He's destroyed hers.
"This kid wanted to have kids, wanted to be a vet nurse, wanted to do all of this stuff. Now she can't even work. She had a job outside of school and had to quit because she was absolutely terrified that men would yell at her or would come and do something to her or say something rude to her.
"He should have known better."
The girl's father said he had monitored his children's accounts online and was shocked at the extent to which anonymous messaging carriers could become a hunting ground for predators.
"After this happened, I started monitoring, and I wish I had done it all along," he said, "Some of the things I have seen and heard that she has been sent ... there was a video making the rounds the other day of two people having sex. Who sends that to kids?
"And parents have no idea. You have no idea. I'm lucky enough that my kids are open enough after this that they bring it to me now, and I see all this, and I think, 'What the hell are they thinking?'
"There is no way to stop these people because they're just going to make another account.
"No (child) wants to see a dick pic.
"But unfortunately, now my daughter knows a lot more than she should.
"And now she has to suffer - and she deserves anonymity, if anyone does - she deserves the right to pick herself up from this. He doesn't.
"Why does he get anonymity? He did something to my daughter ... You're not protecting her; you're protecting him."
