- Cricket club veteran has avoided jail
- Leigh Howes, 33, sent intimate images to a teenager
- He was placed on the sex offenders register for 15 years.
A Melbourne cricket club veteran has escaped jail after preying on a girl.
Leigh Howes, 33, pleaded guilty last week to multiple charges, including encouraging a girl under 16 to engage in sexual activity, and faced Melbourne Magistrates Court for sentencing on Monday.
The Epping Cricket Club member used social media app Snapchat to encourage the teenager to send him sexual photographs.
The court heard evidence of messages which included the demon saying: ‘Fuck, I forgot how beautiful your tits are.’
The victim sent him a photo of which he later took a screenshot. She then asked him to “come down.”
Leigh Howes was convicted of sending intimate images to a teenager
Howes met the girl while volunteering at the cricket club and asked her if she was “shaven or hairy”.
The girl refused to send any more photos to Howes after telling him to “stop saving my snaps” because “you’re going to jail.”
He also sent her pictures of his penis.
Howes escaped from jail and was given a two-year community corrections order. Magistrate Kay Robertson also declared him a registered sex offender for 15 years and told Howes to report any alleged criminal behavior by former associates to police.
He made a late submission to the court highlighting a media report which told him he had received “unpleasant” and “distressing” phone calls from “former friends and associates”.
However, the magistrate insisted that “people had to trust the justice system.”
“She’s done nothing wrong… she’s done absolutely nothing wrong… it’s incredibly damaging to her future…” he said of her “horribly wrong” behavior.
‘There is no excuse for breaking the law like you have… you will be punished… volunteering, working in schools, that’s where people need to have a clean record…
“And of course the reputation of that cricket club will also suffer as a result of what you have done.”
Cricket club volunteer said he sent the images because he was ‘sad’
Police raided Howes’ home earlier this year and discovered the lewd images. She admitted that the photos of her penis were hers and said that she committed the behavior because she was “sad.”
“I have difficulties in my life,” Howes told police.
He attended the club both on game day and in the dining room. He also joined the maintenance department of a local school.
A psychological report concluded Howes was at a “medium risk” of offending again.
‘It is about a (then) 32-year-old man and… a girl. …That is not an inappropriate “friendship…”,” prosecutors said as they fought for a prison sentence.
‘It is offensive to the community and requires a complaint…’