Man guilty of luring NZ 'teenager'

File photo / Bay of Plenty Times

The trial of a Canberra man accused of using the internet to lure a New Zealand "teenager" for sex has found him guilty one charge but was unable to reach a verdict on a second charge.

Former school teacher Murray Colin Stubbs, 45, was working at the Federal Department of Education in 2008 when he was arrested, the ABC reported.

At the time of his arrest he was travelling to meet Roxanne Taylor, a 14-year-old online character created by New Zealand police Detective Sergeant Steve Waugh, with whom he had been having sexually explicit online conversations for five months.

The ACT Supreme Court jury was unable to reach a verdict on the first count of using the internet to procure sex.

The prosecution sought to discharge the jury but defence counsel argued Stubbs was entitled to a verdict on the second count.

Chief Justice Terence Higgins agreed.

The jury found Stubbs guilty of using the internet in an offensive way.

His bail was continued and he will be sentenced next month.

In New Zealand, Justice Minister Simon Power is seeking ways to allow police on this side of the Tasman to lay more serious charges against people they find on the internet "grooming" children for illicit sex.

"The minister has asked Ministry of Justice officials to do further work to identify a suitable legislative vehicle for such a law change," a spokesman for Mr Power told NZPA this week.

Stubbs pleaded not guilty to communicating online with a person under 16 with the intention of procuring her for sex and an alternative charge of using the internet in a way that reasonable persons would regard as being offensive.

Stubbs claimed in court that he engaged in "reprehensible" online chats to escape his lonely life.

Giving evidence Stubbs described his "disgusting and inappropriate" conversations with "Roxanne" as pure fantasy.

He was arrested when he went to the Jolimont interstate bus terminal in Victoria to meet the girl on January 21, 2008 - five months after they first met online.

The Canberra Times newspaper reported Stubbs told the jury that the sexual conversations he conducted from an internet cafe during his lunch break were "imaginings".

"She was an escape from the unhappy reality of that time, she was a daydream I could go to," he said.

Prosecutor Sara Cronan said Stubbs had requested the girl's phone number 30 times and asked if she would let him perform certain sex acts on her on at least 22 occasions.

- NZPA