WARNING: Disturbing content
A police officer “leveraged his status” to win the trust of his victims in “depraved” messages he sent about bestiality and incest, a court has been told.
James Anthony Gwynne fronted Campbelltown District Court on Tuesday after pleading guilty to grooming a child for sex and using a carriage service to send and receive child abuse material.
The court was told the 31-year-old used the encrypted messaging platform Whisper to message adult and underage users about his twisted fantasies involving bestiality and incest.
Gwynne sent the vile messages, many of which are too graphic to detail, between February and April last year while he was based at the Waverley Police Station in Sydney’s east.
In delivering her sentence, Judge Tanya Smith said the penalty for each charge depended partly on whether Gwynne had used his profession to gain trust.
“In the conversations where he does introduce he was a police officer, he was trading off his status as a police officer to create a safe space,” she said.
“To trust him in effect because he was a police officer, to create a ‘cloak of trust’ between which they could both hide.
“There is emotional sophistication involved.”
Gwynne was busted after investigators from the US Human Trafficking Investigators Task Forceposed as a fictional 15-year-old American girl on Whisper.
The court was told Gwynne had been encouraged by the undercover investigator to prove he was a “naughty Aussie cop and take a photo with your badge”.
Gwynne then took a photo of his genitalia with his NSW Police uniform beside him instead before he sent another photo with the uniform balled up in his mouth to convince the 15-year-old to “add him on Snapchat”.
Judge Smith noted Gwynne’s actions on that occasion “were not just fantasy”, as he tried to procure sexual activity and sent an image of himself to someone who he believed was 15 years old.
In her reasoning, Judge Smith said Gwynne had previously defended his other conversations with 16 and 17-year-old girls because he “believed the age of consent being 16 was enough”.
Judge Smith told the court that fantasies about child sexual abuse, regardless of whether they were real or acted upon, still “normalise the conduct described and elevate the risk of abuse for all children”.
The court was previously told Gwynne had repeatedly disclosed his “graphic and highly depraved” sexual fantasies involving dogs and his desire to have daughters whom he could impregnate.
He bragged about being a serving police officer and brazenly told a 17-year-old girl: “Daddy is a police officer” and “my fantasies are pretty f**ked up because I’ll go to jail”.
In her final comments, Judge Smith would not accept that Gwynne’s mild autism spectrum disorder and attention-deficit diagnosis could have influenced his behaviour.
Gwynne looked dejected as Judge Smith read out a statement from his parents who said they hoped their “son can find the strength to carry on”.
Judge Smith also noted Gwynne’s parents had been present throughout the trial and having heard the charges in detail likely have “more knowledge than they had previously”.
Although Gwynne’s wife was not present, Judge Smith said she had remained supportive of her husband and in future, he would “talk to his wife” if he felt similar urges again.
However, she acknowledged Gwynne’s wife had “limited insights into his offending” due to her absence.
NSW Police confirmed Gwynne resigned from the force on August 23, more than six months after he pleaded guilty.
The court was told Gwynne was also the subject of two internal police investigations in 2019 after he shared photos of himself in police uniform to his Tinder account.
He had only been in the police force for 3½ years before his arrest.
He was charged with six counts, including grooming a child outside Australia to make it easier to engage in sexual activity, using a carriage service to solicit child abuse material, three counts of using a carriage service to transmit child abuse material and using the service to offend.
The disgraced cop was sentenced to two years and three months imprisonment but will only have to serve 12 months in custody before he will be released on good behaviour.
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Judge Smith accepted that Gwynne would be “more of a target in the custodial environment and some form of segregation will need to be provided” in jail due to his status as a former policeman and the nature of his crimes.
Gwynne’s parents were inconsolable as the sentence was read out before his mother told him to “just stay safe” as they said goodbye in the courtroom.
He will be due for release on December 4, 2024.
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