A Trevallyn man exchanged obscene messages with a 14-year-old girl after befriending her via the online game World of Warcraft received a 15-month wholly-suspended sentence.
Humzah Jamal El-Rez, 26, pleaded guilty to a count of using a carriage service to transmit child pornography in August 2017 and using a carriage service to publish child exploitation material on September 5 and September 6, 2017.
Justice Michael Brett also required El-Rez to provide a $5000 recognisance that he would be of good behaviour for two years.
El-Rez originally played the legal role-playing game with a 14-year-old girl from the United States and it developed into a lewd conversation.
The text-based conversation via Facebook Messenger Justice Brett said it was not clear how the conversation developed to became sexual.
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He said it could be characterised as a mutual simulated sexual encounter.
El-Rez, then 22, told police that he thought she was 15 or 16 years old.
The girl sent El-Rez a picture of her body from the pelvis down after he asked for an image of her "flower".
"The image was sent and he admitted to police that he had obtained sexual gratification from it," Crown prosecutor Rose Bollard told the court.
Justice Brett said that El-Rez had broken off the contact.
He said the 14-year-old had placed herself in an extremely vulnerable situation although there was no suggestion that El-Rez retained or shared the image.
Justice Brett said the case could be distinguished from some others because El-Rez had not used the internet in a predatory way.
"Your crime was opportunistic and isolated to the victim," he said.
He said El-Rez took no reasonable steps to find out her age.
"The difference in your ages was relatively modest but at 14 she was clearly vulnerable," Justice Brett said.
The court heard that his mental health had been poor at the time of the offences.
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Nick Clark
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
I am the Supreme and Magistrates Court reporter for the Examiner for the past 18 months. My journalism career has clicked over 30 years and encompasses four different spells at Tasmanian newspapers.
