A migrant who had sex with a 12-year-old girl he believed was a married 18-year-old will be deported to India.
The 33-year-old man, whose name has been suppressed, was jailed in February last year for 10 months after admitting committing six sexual offences on the night he met the girl in April 2021, the court said. Mercury reported.
The man pleaded guilty to five counts of penetrative sexual abuse of a child or young person and one count of indecent assault.
The sex offender’s visa was cancelled in August last year and the case was raised again during an Administrative Appeals Tribunal hearing last week.
The court heard the man met the girl on the dating app Grindr before picking her up at a Kmart in Hobart, Tasmania.
When he arrived to pick up the girl at 2 a.m., the man claims he found the woman talking to another man who she said was her husband.
He claims she also told him he was a male prostitute, which gave him confidence that she was of legal age.
“I knew you had to be 18 to get married,” the man told the court.
A migrant who had sex with a 12-year-old girl he believed was a married 18-year-old will be deported to India (file photo)
“Unfortunately, this happened… I had no intention of harming a child. I was just looking for an adult. There was no criminal intent.”
The court found it “hard to accept” that the man did not realise the girl’s young age when he saw her naked body in a bedroom.
It was ruled that although the man under assessment was unlikely to reoffend, he should be deported due to the seriousness of his crimes.