A former Hobart businessman has been sentenced to more than two years behind bars for grooming three young girls using Instagram and Snapchat.
57-year-old Stuart Dean Rainbird was found guilty in September on multiple charges, including indecent assault, grooming and involving a person under 18 in the production of child exploitation material.
During sentencing in the Supreme Court last week, Justice Robert Pearce said offenders like Rainbird must be “punished and denounced” to send a clear message to others of the “likely harsh consequences”.
The court heard that Rainbird committed the crimes between 2014 and 2018 against three girls aged between 11 and 15, all of whom were part of the broader friendship group of one of his daughters.
“In each case the contact was initiated by you by responding in some way to messages or images they had posted,” Pearce said in his passing comments.
“At first the messages were seemingly friendly and innocuous, but they became increasingly intrusive, frequent, personal and expressly or impliedly sexual.”
The “most serious” charge related to the grooming of a 14-year-old girl who was friends with one of Rainbird’s earlier victims.
Justice Pearce said Rainbird tracked the girl down on Instagram and began “commenting favourably” on images of the teenager in “tight gym gear” before the conversations turned sexual.
He sent the girl images of himself masturbating and coaxed her into sending back sexually explicit pictures.
Justice Pearce said the girl had also requested money, alcohol and other gifts “from relatively early in the piece”, which Rainbird agreed to in return for more images.
“I am satisfied that the images she sent you of herself were produced and sent at your request,” Pearce said.
“There is no doubt that it was child exploitation material and that you knew it … because it depicted her engaged in sexual activity or in a sexual context, in a way a reasonable person would find offensive.”
Rainbird’s offending came to light in 2021 when the girls realised the project and manufacturing manager had offended against each of them.
Justice Pearce said Rainbird had long been living a “double life” in secret from his family and noted that Rainbird himself was “subjected to years of serious sexual, physical and psychological abuse” by a male peer in his teenage years.
“I heard victim impact statements from each which details the profound and lasting effects your behaviour has had on them. It is the type of impact which is to be expected,” he said.
Rainbird was sentenced to three years and three months from November 12, 2024 behind bars, one year of which is suspended for three years from his release.
He will not be eligible to apply for parole until he has served half of the two year and three month sentence.
His name has also been placed on the Community Protection Offender Register.
