Child sex groomer jailed

THE young victim of Leopold man Nicholas Vaughan watched on as he was sentenced for grooming and sexually assaulting her when she was just 14.

Vaughan, 33, appeared at the Geelong division of the County Court of Victoria and pleaded guilty to three charges of sexually assaulting a child under 16 and four charges of sexual penetration of a child under 16.

He has been sentenced as a serious sexual offender to three years and six months behind bars, with a non-parole period of two years.

What started as gifts escalated in Vaughan sexually assaulting the then 14-year-old girl while she begged him to stop.

In Snapchat messages that he told his victim to delete, Vaughan canvassed the possibility of a sexual relationship and, at one point, set a countdown to her birthday.

The offending, which took place over a two-month period, included Vaughan making the young girl perform a number of sexual acts.

He told police that “what started as a little bit of a joke between them” had got out of hand, but “we obviously never had sex or anything”.

The girl made many attempts to stop the offending, including during the actual assault and once prior when she told Vaughan it had become “a lot”.

In a victim impact statement, the victim said she was still traumatised.

“Every day I still feel as though this is my fault and had I done that one thing differently in that situation, then I would not be sitting here reading this out,” she said.

During the plea hearing, prosecutor David Gray said it was “not one of those Romeo and Juliet situations”, because it was a “31-year-old married man and a 14-year-old girl who expressed her desire not to participate”.

In sentencing, Judge Stewart Bayles noted that Vaughan “did not engage in any denial, victim-blaming or distorted attitudes towards these events”.

However, the “gravity of the offending is significant”.

“You developed an entirely inappropriate and unacceptable sexual relationship with your victim in this matter,” Judge Bayles said.